Global challenges -- including security of food and water, developing clean energy, health, and conserving ecosystem services -- all have ecological and human dimensions. A report by the NSF Advisory Committee for Environmental Research and Education (2009) highlights the urgency to close the environmental literacy gap among "the academics who do research, tool developers who design curricula and applications, and communicators/educators who translate the science into terms that can be understood by policy makers and citizens". ESA recognizes that a large diversity of organizatons undertake ecology/environmental education but few have integrated programs or focused overlap of funds, energy, and ideas. ESA is hosting an Ecology and Education Summit in Washington DC during October 14-16 2009, to bring together national leaders in ecology education to share best practices, and inspire ecological literacy by 2020. We propose a Special Session to galvanize our membership to share ideas, to propose action plans for the Summit, and to jumpstart our efforts for the 2010 Ecology Education Summit.