• 2011 CLEARING Compendium

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  Click to read the 2011 CLEARING Compendium!

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• Lessons for Teaching in the Community and Environment

  
  This new, regular feature by CLEARING “master teacher” Jim Martin explores how teachers can gain the confidence to go into the world outside of their classrooms for a substantial piece of their curricula.
  Read series here

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• NEW! Resources for the Classroom

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  Reviews of selected classroom EE resources by graduate students at Washington State University.

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  Biomes

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  Forests

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  Washington History and Salmon

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  Oceans and Aquatic Environments

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  Insects

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  Food Chains

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• THE BEST OF ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION

  
  Learn the secrets of successful environmental education programs! Read the perspectives and opinions of experienced teachers! Discover new ideas that can turn your classroom into an innovative and dynamic hub of place-based learning! The Best of Clearing is full of fresh ideas and old wisdom to help you create powerful learning experiences for your students.
  
  Learn more and buy it today!

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• ENVIRONMENTAL LITERACY and the CLEARING COMPENDIUM

  
  Attention: Clearing is currently compiling case studies that demonstrate what ideal school-based environmental literacy programs & activities can look like. These case studies will help teachers understand how to more effectively integrate environmental literacy into their classrooms, and will be featured in the 2011 Clearing Compendium published this fall!
  
  Tell us about a model program that you think deserves recognition!
  
  Read the 2010 edition here!
  

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• Guest Writers: Voices of the PNW

  Jessica Levine, Eckstein Middle School,
  Seattle, Washington

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  Gregory Smith,
  Lewis and Clark College, Portland, Oregon
  

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  Harmony Roll,
  Taiga Teacher, Anchorage, Alaska

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  Lindsay Huettman,
  Wilderness Awareness School

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  Megan McGinty, North Cascades Institute

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  Jim Martin,
  Retired Science Educator, Vancouver WA
  

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• Donate to support CLEARING!

  
  

  If you are a fan of CLEARING, or even if you just like it a little, you can help us keep this journal going by making a small donation. Thank you for your support. It is really appreciated!

  
  

  

• Recent Comments

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• INTERVIEWS WITH CONSERVATIONISTS

  
  What is the link between conservation and environmental education? Chris Gertschen, founder and former director of the Sawtooth Science Institute, talks to the leaders of conservation in the west to get their perspectives on the issue.
  Read the interviews here
  

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• K-12 Activity of the Day

  
  Butterfly MathScience/Math—Grades K-2
  While teaching a unit on the butterfly lifecycle, have the students create original artwork showing floral scenes. Laminate and use these small butterfly gardens as fun work mats.
  Unifix cubes or small counters can be used as butterflies. Challenge students to solve addition or subtraction problems, such as: If seven Yellow Sulpher Butterflies flew into the garden and four blue Azure Butterflies joined them, how many butterflies would be in the garden? If twelve caterpillars were eating leaves on the plant, four took a nap, how many were still eating? If there were fourteen eggs on one leaf and three hatched into larva, how many were left?
  List and classify words on the board that students identify as the clues that helped them know whether to add or subtract.
  —Reprinted from a past issue of CLEARING
  
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Preparing students with 21st century skills

Reviewed by Ella Inglebret and CHiXapkaid (D. Michael Pavel)

The salmon serves as an indicator species reflecting the overall health of the natural environment in the Pacific Northwest. For Native American tribal members, the salmon has played a central role in sustaining communities both historically and in contemporary daily life. Based on the importance of the salmon to all people living in this region, tribal leaders, environmental organizations, government agencies, and educators formed a partnership to create curriculum resources that bring awareness to the status of the salmon population as it interconnects with the broader ecological system. The outgrowth of these efforts is the Shadow of the Salmon curriculum, designed to prepare eighth- grade students with 21st century critical thinking, problem solving, and communication skills as they address environmental issues. Read more

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Authors: Peter Ward
Publisher: Princeton Press
Reviewed by Orlay Johnson

This book might be more appropriately titled, “Mothers who Murder their Children.” It explores how Mother Earth periodically cleans house of the majority its biota. Sadly, the reference to Medea in the actual title is probably lost on most of us, unless you know more Greek mythology than I did. For the rest of us, Medea was the wife of Jason the Argonaut, who took revenge on her cheating husband by murdering her own children. Suddenly the book sounds more interesting, huh? Read more

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How One Man’s Obsession with Runaway Sneakers and Rubber Ducks Revolutionized Ocean Science

Authors: Dr. Curtis Ebbesmeyer and Eric Scigliano
Publisher: Smithsonian Books/Harper Collins
ISBN 13:9780061558412

Reviewed by Orlay Johnson

If you would enjoy learning about the life and times of Dr. Curtis Ebbesmeyer, a UW graduate and Seattle oceanographer best known for tracking ocean currents using sneakers and bath toys lost, then sit back and enjoy. Flotsametrics, is co-written by Dr. Ebbesmeyer and Eric Scigliano, a local science writer.

It is a fun read, with plenty of oceanographic insights, some very personal experiences and a glimpse into the very “way out” thinking that allowed Ebbesmeyer to champion some bizarre ideas, like using Nike sneakers and bathtub toys lost off of freighters to study massive oceanic gyres. Read more

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Investigating the Secrets of the Underwater World

By Cindy A. Littlefield
Illustrations by Sarah Rakitin
Published by Williamson Publishing, 2003, 120 p.

Reviewed by Sharon A. Hollander

I review children’s books, and I read through plenty on science and nature. I can honestly say that I felt a wave of relief when I came upon Awesome Ocean Science! Investigating the Secrets of the Underwater World, a Williamson Kids Can! Book.

I recently took home a big stack of books on the environment, and I was disappointed, not to mention bored by most of them.  Perhaps appropriate as sources for school reports, I can’t imagine a child spontaneously picking one up for leisure reading. In fact, some of these books would test even an adult without bulletproof interest in the topic.  Well-written and visually appealing, Awesome Ocean Science! stood out in the crowd. Read more

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By Mark Costigan
reprinted from The Oregon Daily Emerald

Andrew Nyman, Associate Professor Wetland Wildlife ... Andrew Nyman, Associate Professor Wetland Wildlife Management & Ecology of LSU AgCenter, takes samples of beach sand beside oil booms at the coast of South Pass, south of Venice, Louisiana, where oil leaking from the Deepwater Horizon wellhead continues to spread in the Gulf of Mexico, May 2, 2010. A huge wind-driven oil slick bore down on the U.S. Gulf coast on Sunday, threatening an environmental catastrophe, and the Obama administration heaped pressure on BP Plc to halt the uncontrolled spill from its ruptured Gulf of Mexico well. Since the explosion and sinking last week of the Deepwater Horizon rig, a disaster scenario has emerged with hundreds of thousands of gallons of crude oil spewing unchecked into the Gulf and moving inexorably northward to the coast. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

It’s sad that it takes a threat of crude oil reaching American beachfront property for people to wake up.

It seems the only way people unite around fighting environmental degradation is when the effects become visible and personal. If only there were some way to make the color of carbon dioxide highlighter yellow or jet black. Then perhaps people would wake up to the havoc they’re wreaking on my playground.

That’s right. My personal playground, the outdoors, continues to get pushed around like a new kid being picked on by a 12-year-old bully — except nature is a little older than the humans who bully it.

It took 24 days in the wilderness with the National Outdoor Leadership School for me to wake up to the effects of climate change. A month before moving to Eugene, I embarked on an outdoor educator expedition in the Absaroka wilderness in Wyoming. Between eating a third of the amount of food I normally eat, nearly dying on a glacier, and conquering 13,000-foot peaks, the expedition not only gave me a new appreciation for wild places, but it humbled me to something similar to my original human form. Read more

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• READ THE LATEST POSTS!

  • Inquiry: Letting Kids Wonder
  • Lessons for teaching in the environment and community — 20
  • Lessons for teaching in the environment and community — 19
  • K-12 Oregon Forestry Literacy Program supports teaching about forests
  • Youth, Education and Climate Change
  • 5 EE Resources You Should Know About
  • Gardens Grow Minds: The School as Green Educator
  • EE Research: Playing in the woods

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