Have ideas for articles? Want to submit a story for publication?

We want to hear from you.

Contact us at editor@clearingmagazine.org

Writers’ Guidelines

CLEARING Magazine is an online and print publication for sharing ideas, resources, and perspectives on teaching environmental literacy. Content focuses primarily on programs and activities within the Pacific Northwest/Cascadia Bioregion but will often include stories from beyond the region.

Publication Cycle

We publish in print twice a year: March and September. Content is also continuously published on the website.

Themes

Content focuses on a broad spectrum of environmental literacy education topics. To make it easier for you, we have identified 8 primary themes that we hope will channel your energies and encourage you to submit an article:

• Outdoor Education / Children and Nature
• Marine / Aquatic Education / Ocean Literacy
• Teaching Climate Change
• Place-based Education
• School Gardens and Farm-to-School
• Energy Education
• Forest Education
• Green Schools / Healthy Schools

We look for perspectives and opinions, success stories, ways to integrate the themes into existing curriculum requirements, resources for teaching, and specific activities or lesson plans that you have found to be effective. We also encourage you to include considerations of equity and diversity when appropriate.

Remuneration

As a small non-profit publication, we are unable to offer payment to writers and reviewers.

Length

Approximately length: 1500-2000 words. Maximum: 3000 words.

As a general rule, the length of the article should be determined by its content. Check previously published articles on the CLEARING website for examples of article length. The length of your article is less important than telling a good story or providing useful information. Write an article that you would want to read.

Submission Format

Send your article via e-mail to editor[at]clearingmagazine.org. Articles in Microsoft Word format are preferred.

Acceptance of Articles

Articles can be submitted at any time, and if accepted will be posted on the website and/or saved for publication in the next scheduled print edition. If submitting specifically for a print edition, the deadlines are:

• Spring edition: February 15 (publishing in March)
• Fall edition: August 15 (publishing in September)

Editing

Once we accept the article for publication, we will contact you if we need clarification or elaboration. CLEARING reserves the right to edit all material for brevity, organization, clarity, and grammatical precision. We will communicate with you regarding any significant changes.

Style and Approach

Style is an individual matter which we cannot dictate, but some guidelines are in order. First, bear in mind that CLEARING is not an academic journal and, as such, does not stand on formality. As stated earlier, write an article that you would want to read.

Let your own voice be heard in your writing.

If you are writing about a program or series of activities undertaken with your students, try to avoid the “diary” approach. Readers do not need (and likely do not want) to know every little thing that happened. For the most part, they are reading for ideas that they can use or build on in their own classrooms. While you may want or need to include an account of what happened when you tried a particular teaching unit or activity, your main purpose should be to inform readers of how they might best go about developing a similar program, unit, or activity.

If you are writing on a topic related to a specific environmental or global issue, such as climate change or endangered species, your primary purpose should not necessarily be to discuss the issue itself, but rather to provide ideas for teaching about the issue. Some background information is always useful, but most teachers have many other sources for such information. They look to CLEARING to find ways of conveying the complexity of these issues to students.

Finally, please note that we try to avoid articles that serve primarily to promote the work of a specific organization, unless it is truly unique and deserves the recognition.

Illustrations/photographs

We prefer high resolution jpegs (300 dpi). Please provide a description of each photograph so that the captions printed in the magazine accurately reflect the action in the picture. Similarly, please provide the name(s) of the photographer(s) so that proper credit can be given.

References

If you use references when writing your article, or if you are recommending resources or references for further reading, please include a complete bibliographic citation of these. Let us know the title, author, publisher, date, and place of publication, number of pages, and ISBN number. If citing a journal or periodical, provide the title of the journal and article, author, date, volume, issue, and page numbers.

Credits

Please add a sentence or so about yourself that we can add to the end of your article or review. Our typical closer goes something like “Mary Jones teaches grade 3 at Columbia River Elementary School in Richland, Washington.”

Contact

If you have any additional questions about writing for CLEARING, please contact the editor at editor[at]clearingmagazine.org