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Thomas Carroll's address, delivered during 1972 Earth Week celebrations, discusses the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) activities in environmental education. A review of the EPA role in environmental education is given, indicating the need for developing a conceptual framework to improve program planning by EPA and related federal agencies. Such analysis will make known which environmental education programs should receive priority as most likely to achieve pollution abatement goals. The concern for environmental protection, causing a concurrent increase in concern for environmental leadership, has led the Agency to sponsor a number of learning opportunities: formal education, informal learning, and manpower development and training. Activities in each of these areas are briefly summarized. Formal education taking place in the classroom emphasizes a problem solving approach to the environment and encourages an understanding of the tradeoffs involved in various pollution control activities. Informal learning, which encompasses civic action, attempts to motivate people to act in an environmentally concerned way. Manpower development and training consists of a broad array of programs to develop a highly skilled work force for implementing EPA's mission to abate and control pollution. (BL)

Despite expanded services, less than one tenth of one per cent of today's total production of reading material is available to the blind or visually handicapped in a form (large print, recorded or tactile) that they can use. As more and more blind people take their place in the trades and professions, the production of quality materials must keep pace. In answer to a widening need for the development of standards for the production of these reading materials, the National Accreditation Council's Commission on Standards gave first priority to the project when undertaking to fulfill its responsibility for updating, refining and expanding the basic standards encompassed by the Commission on Standards and Accreditation of Services for the Blind (COMSTAC). Agencies or groups producing reading materials in any or all of the three forms will find this study a useful adjunct to "The Comstac Report." In addition to improving the quality and variety of materials produced, it aims to increase efficiency and cut down on duplication by encouraging central reporting and interagency cooperation in cataloging and exchanging materials. (Author/NH)

Exploratory research on some aspects of the cultural theory of education in concept development are reviewed and the research findings are outlined. Three hypotheses tested are 1) that children will have cultural mappings (systems of codes for perception and action) that differ from adults; 2) that children at different ages will show a development in the complexity of these rules; and 3) that this development will be in the direction of the rules held by those who have a stable and consistent pattern of effectively structured encounters with the children. The outline of the findings focuses on the development of selected dimensions of the work domain found in children in a suburban elementary school from ages 5 to 12 using a picture-sorting technique. Cultural premises of work held by children and adults are stated. It is shown that children and adults who share the same cultural premise about work have used that premise to construct different work protocols. Young children seem to use principles that are unidimensional and perceptionally concrete, while adults have categories that are complex, multidimensional and perceptually abstract. The development in complexity for children is toward the adult principles. The findings demonstrate that children have principles of cognitive mapping that are internally consistent and different from those of adults. (Author/KSM)

The antitumor efficacy of cancer immunotherapy can correlate with the presence of certain bacterial species within the gut microbiome. However, many of the molecular mechanisms that influence host response to immunotherapy remain elusive. In this study, we show that members of the bacterial genus Enterococcus improve checkpoint inhibitor immunotherapy in mouse tumor models. Active enterococci express and secrete orthologs of the NlpC/p60 peptidoglycan hydrolase SagA that generate immune-active muropeptides. Expression of SagA in nonprotective E. faecalis was sufficient to promote immunotherapy response, and its activity required the peptidoglycan sensor NOD2. Notably, SagA-engineered probiotics or synthetic muropeptides also augmented anti-PD-L1 antitumor efficacy. Taken together, our data suggest that microbiota species with specialized peptidoglycan remodeling activity and muropeptide-based therapeutics may enhance cancer immunotherapy and could be leveraged as next-generation adjuvants.