• CLEARING Quarterly Edition Fall 2011

  

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  The fall 2011 edition of CLEARING contains news, resources, stories and interviews.

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  Download and read the issue here!
  

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• NEW! 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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• 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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• 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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• Teaching Resource Spotlight

  
  
  
  Roots and Research in Urban School Gardens
  
  ©2011 Veronica Gaylie. This book explores the urban school garden as a bridge between environmental action and thought. As a small-scale response to global issues around access to food and land, urban school gardens promote practical knowledge of farming as well as help renew cultural ideals of shared space and mutual support for the organic, built environment. This book examines the practice and culture of the urban school garden as a central symbol for environmental learning. Roots and Research in Urban School Gardens can be purchased at Peter Lang Publishing.
  

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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!

  
  

  

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by Harmony Roll, Taiga Teacher

ou don’t need to be an environmental educator, you don’t have to stray from traditional norms, or be on the cutting edge to incorporate place-based education into your daily practice as a teacher. The goal is to create connections, connections to what the learners already know about the world around them. Activate their prior knowledge. Read more

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“Lessons for Teaching in the Environment and Community” is a regular series that explores how teachers can gain the confidence to go into the world outside of their classrooms for a substantial piece of their curricula.

Part 6: The Easy Part

by Jim Martin, CLEARING guest writer

e’ve been exploring science inquiry, starting with doing a casual observation in a natural area. In the last blog, I found an inquiry question. What did it tell me to do? I discovered how straightforward the Investigative Design is when it is built upon a clean inquiry question. The inquiry question I finally chose was, Where in trees do Fox Sparrows spend most time? That tells me what to do. Here are the steps it will take me to answer it.

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This is the sixth installment of “Teaching in the Environment,” a new, regular feature by CLEARING “master teacher” Jim Martin that explores how environmental educators can help classroom teachers get away from the pressure to teach to the standardized tests,  and how teachers can gain the confidence to go into the world outside of their classrooms for a substantial piece of their curricula. See the other installments here.

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On a quiet, residential, inner southeast Portland, Oregon street, a little elementary school is breaking new ground for the farm-to-school and school garden movement.

At Abernethy Elementary, students enjoy freshly cooked breakfasts and lunches prepared on site by a trained chef. The meals are often prepared with local and seasonal ingredients, some of which are harvested from the school’s Garden of Wonders. The garden itself is entirely planted, tended and harvested by the students, who use it throughout their school day as a “learning laboratory. “ Read more

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