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Jun

26

Raising Awareness Through Service Learning:

Filed Under Activities, Place-based Education, Resources, Service learning, Social studies | Leave a Comment

dscf1660aCitizens for a Healthy Bay’s Junior Bay Ranger Program

By Katrina Landau

In 2003, the Washington State Legislature passed ESHB 1466 that established the Natural Science, Wildlife and Environmental Education Partnership Grant program under the Washington State Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI).   In the 2005-2006 inaugural year, Citizens for a Healthy Bay (CHB), a Tacoma based 501c3 organization, was one of the recipients.
This innovative partnership was created to promote “proven and innovative natural science, wildlife and environmental education programs that include instruction about renewable resources, responsible use of resources and conservation.” Read more

Jun

22

Restoration Planting: What’s the Rush?

Filed Under Activities, Biological Diversity, Place-based Education, Questioning strategies, Science, Service learning | Leave a Comment

blanca-and-teresa-measuringCouple some basic curriculum organizers with focused questioning strategies to make your restoration projects coherent and effective environmental education experiences.

by Jim Martin

Environmental education should be a journey, one which captures our interest and imagination and leaves us with the tools to become effective stewards of the place where we live and work. Does it? Perhaps. Mike Weilbacher’s recent articles on environmental education (Weilbacher, 1996, 1997) express his concerns about the knowledge and skills which he believes environmental education should deliver, but doesn’t. He is concerned that we are aware and solicitous of our environments, but do not understand them. Somehow, environmental education hasn’t provided us with the knowledge and skills to think and plan effectively, at least where the environment is concerned.

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Jim Martin conducts teacher-training workshops out of the Center for Science Education at Portland State University. He is the president-elect of the Environmental Education Association of Oregon and is a CLEARING advisory board member. He can be reached at (503) 725-4243.

Jun

22

Lasting Change: Teacher Driven Place-based Education on the Colorado Plateau

Filed Under Outdoor education, Place-based Education, Science | Leave a Comment

Teachers consult a map during their place-based project in Colorado.

Teachers consult a map during their place-based project in Colorado.

by Deanna Erickson

Learning from the Land
Anyone who has traveled through the Four Corners region of the Southwestern United States will remember it distinctly as a place like no other.  Towns are scarce, rivers are legendary and rocks seem to bend and twist toward a sky filled with harsh clear light. This is the Colorado Plateau, a region as marked by its geography as by its inhabitants.  The land of the Navajo, Ute, Pueblo and Hopi, colonized by the pioneers, now includes a disparate mix of ranchers, miners, river runners, and migrants who landed here out of a general longing for vast and wild places.  Gifted (or some would say cursed) with more National Parks then anywhere else in the country, Bureau of Land Management wilderness study areas and vast tracts of National Forest, an inhabitant of the Colorado Plateau can hardly deny the significance of this unusual place.

In the middle of the Colorado Plateau, grappling with the wilderness and the human diversity, sits the Four Corners School of Outdoor Education.  Since 1984, this small non-profit has quietly been connecting people with the land, fulfilling its’ mission of creating lifelong learning experiences for people of all ages and backgrounds through education, service,  adventure, and conservation programs. Janet Ross, the Executive Director,  founded the program after falling for the Plateau as an undergrad at Prescott College in Arizona. Originally, the school focused on programs dubbed “Southwest Edventures,” consisting of rollicking river trips, guided canyon hikes, and days spent tracing the rocky path of the Puebloan ancestors often referred to as the Anasazi.

Photo by Deanna Erickson

Photo by Deanna Erickson

In the late 1990’s, the outdoor industry began to set up shop on the Plateau. Big tour operators, with their heavyweight marketing tactics, made it clear that Four Corners School and its non-profit budget would need an alternate means of accomplishing its mission. In 1997, Ross, with her decades of experience in outdoor education, went to public school districts and simply asked them what they needed. Was it field trips? Trainings? Guided tours?  The feasibility study lasted a year and interviews were conducted with superintendents, principals and teachers representing every school on the Colorado Plateau.

This is what the schools said: Field trips are one-shot wonders. The kids have a positive experience, but the long-term effect is limited and the input of resources is draining.  Bring us a program that trains our teachers in outdoor education so that we can learn where we live. Our backyards are a potential classroom. Let’s take our students there.

Read more

Jun

19

The Green Tsunami: Environmental Education in the 21 st Century

Filed Under Biological Diversity, Climate change, General public, Language arts, Non-formal, Outdoor education, Perspectives, Science, Social studies, Sustainability | Leave a Comment

tidal-waveBy Mike Weilbacher

The following paper was presented as the keynote address at the 2005 conference of the Association of Nature Center Administrators (ANCA) at the Chippewa Nature Center in Midland, Michigan, August 2005.  Mike is a former PAEE president, newsletter editor and Outstanding Environmental Educator (1991), and directs the Lower Merion Conservancy.

Global surface temperatures are rising, glaciers worldwide are melting, the ocean is  warming, rainforests are burning, species are vanishing at the highest rates since the end  of the Mesozoic, coral reefs are bleaching and dying, old growth forests are disappearing,  deserts are spreading, the world’s population is rising, the future of the Arctic National  Wildlife Refuge hangs by a thread, the new energy bill left no lobbyist behind, yet much  of the attention of the western world is preoccupied by a question critical to the fate of  humankind:

Just what is Brad Pitt’s relationship to Angelina Jolie?

For the next hour or so, we’ll nibble at the edge of that question to see its importance to our work, but what we’ll really do is talk through the state of environmental education,  looking at emerging trends and practice using our crystal balls to make predictions for the  road ahead.  We’re going to place our fingers on the pulse of popular culture and take a  reading as to where we all stand.

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Jun

12

Why Care About Pollinators?

Filed Under Biological Diversity, Resources, Science, Service learning | Leave a Comment

monarch1Many people think only of allergies when they hear the word pollen. But pollination — the transfer of pollen grains to fertilize the seed-producing ovaries of flowers — is an essential part of a healthy ecosystem. Pollinators play a significant role in the production of over 150 food crops in the United States — among them apples, alfalfa, almonds, blueberries, cranberries, kiwis, melons, pears, plums, and squash.

Bees, both managed honey bees and native bees, are the primary pollinators. However, more than 100,000 invertebrate species, including bees, moths, butterflies, beetles, and flies, serve as pollinators — as well as 1,035 species of vertebrates, including birds, mammals, and reptiles. In the United States, the annual benefit of managed honey bees to consumers is estimated at $14.6 billion. The services provided by native pollinators further contribute to the productivity of crops as well as to the survival and reproduction of many native plants.

However, long-term population trends for some North American pollinators are “demonstrably downward,” says a new report from the National Research Council1.

Observable decreases in wild populations of bees, butterflies, and moths are of great concern to producers of fruits, vegetables, nuts, alfalfa, and flowers. These crops depend on wild and domestic pollinators. Growers in California, Florida, Arizona, Utah, Washington, and Hawaii are especially concerned. More important is the disturbing notion of an imbalance in the natural ecosystem and biodiversity on which all food production depends. Habitat loss for pollinators by human activity poses an immediate and frequently irreversible threat. Other factors responsible for population decreases include invasive plant species, broad-spectrum pesticide use, disease, and weather.

For the most part, the general public is unaware of the decrease in pollinator populations and the implications this has for agricultural production. The Nature’s Partners: Pollinators, Plants, and You curriculum is designed to educate young people about

  • pollinators and the important role they play in providing many of the foods we eat and the plant fiber used in our clothing and household goods, and
  • ways they can help pollinators survive and flourish by protecting and creating pollinator-friendly habitat.

The Nature’s Partners curriculum is just one step toward increasing the public’s awareness and sense of responsibility that are essential to a successful conservation program for pollinators.

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