Environmental education organizations are working with schools to create a cleaner tomorrow.
Baba Dioum, a famous Senegalese conservationist, once said, “In the end, we will conserve only what we love. We will love only what we understand. We will understand only what we are taught.” Simply put, if today’s children aren’t exposed to nature and the great outdoors—if they’re not taught about sustainable living, stewardship and how their actions affect the environment—they won’t care about conservation as adults. What will that mean for the future?
“I heard a quote once that said, ‘The best way to predict your future is to create it.’ So now I always ask young people: ‘What’s the best way to predict your future?’” says Maitreyi Siruguri, program coordinator of the Cool Schools Program at the Climate Protection Campaign, which mostly works with high school students to help them create positive change in their communities. “It’s a really powerful way to help them understand why we’re doing what we’re doing. The reason I like working with students is that I really think they have a lot to say. There aren’t enough opportunities for them to be part of creating their own future.”
Even though we, as a nation, are becoming increasingly aware of our effect on the environment and how sustainable living, green building, organic agriculture and recycling and waste reduction help minimize these effects, we’ve nevertheless overlooked a critical factor in the environmental equation.
Namely, recognizing that, even with the most advanced and cutting-edge environmental programs, the key to continuing these programs in the future will be making our young people care about the environment as much as we do. And the first step in helping the next generation care about the environment is to actually get them into the environment to experience it for themselves.
“We feel strongly that America’s next generation needs to have an understanding of sustainability,” says Jason Morris, vice president of Yosemite National Institutes, which provides environmental science education programs for kindergarten through 12th grade school groups (some programs include onsite camping). “A lot of the time, the first seed of that understanding is planted by instilling a sense of awe and respect for the natural world. By participating in environmental education programs, kids get a chance to detach from their day-to-day routines and have an entirely new experience in nature, which can often be transformative and shape them over time. Ultimately, I hope we’re building the next generation of environmental stewards.”
Always on the cutting-edge of anything “green,” the North Bay is home to a number of businesses aimed at getting children and young adults outdoors and educating them on various environmental issues.
Soupe’s on!
Acorn Soupe, an environmental education program based in Napa that targets kindergarten through sixth graders, was started about 10 years ago when Babe Learned and her daughter, Sandra Learned Perry, took Sandra’s son and his class to explore the grand oak trees of McCormick Ranch in Napa County. What began in 1997 as one class spending the day among ancient oaks has since grown into a grassroots movement that now reaches nearly 1,500 students each year.
The organization focuses its curriculum on three themes: cycles of nature, in which students gain an understanding of the interconnectedness of nature; watershed, where students become familiar with the concept of a watershed, the habitat native to local watersheds, and the characteristics of healthy and unhealthy watersheds; and stewardship, where classes get an opportunity to give back to the land by participating in local restoration projects.
“Kids just aren’t getting out these days. It’s not part of our culture,” says Sandra Learned Perry, co-founder and president of the board of trustees for Acorn Soupe. “Parents aren’t getting out, either. So, we require chaperones to come with the kids, and that’s how we get to some of the parents. We get great feedback from that. Aside from the kids learning abut nature, parents learn how to take their kids to a local parkland—and what to do with them while they’re there. So it’s kind of a win/win.”
According to Learned, even the youngest children can learn why a watershed is an important part of our ecological health, how non-native plant species can invade our local habitats and what negative environmental impacts can have on local wildlife. For example, in its “Steelhead in the Classroom” program, which Acorn Soupe facilitates in conjunction with Trout Unlimited and the California Department of Fish and Game, children raise steelhead trout eggs in classroom aquariums and then release the fish back to the appropriate stream.
“If you go on one of those trips, it’ll blow you away,” says Learned Perry. “These kids write stories to their fish. They know all the different stages of their fish, the habitat the fish need,Pincluding the temperature of the water, the amount of shade and all those kinds of things. I saw a group of really young elementary school kids—first or second graders—go to one of our creeks in St. Helena and say, ‘The water’s too warm; these fish won’t like it here.’ These kids know more than some of the adults.”
Green lessons
Two years ago, Next Generation, an organization that encourages young people to learn about social issues, become effective leaders and take action for peace and the environment, started Green Schools. It’s designed to foster environmental education, youth leadership development and green behaviors and operations in schools. The San Anselmo-based program works with students, teachers and administrators at elementary, middle and high schools to tailor comprehensive programs that support school priorities and engage students to create a sustainable future. The program’s activities include in-class lessons and school-wide assemblies on environmental and social issues, sustainable solutions and youth empowerment; eco-adventure field trips to local farms, green businesses, eco-friendly homes and natural areas; leadership skills development, including school club facilitation and eco-leadership training; school projects encompassing waste, food, transportation, energy, water and sustainable products; and school and community events, including “Green Weeks” at their main high school sites.
“In San Marin and Redwood High Schools, we worked with the leadership students as well as with school staff, principals, career centers, teachers and a lot of community organizations to help plan Green Weeks,” says Rebecca Mullaney, Green Schools’ program coordinator. “These are really amazing, week-long events that focus on sustainability and specific things the students can do—activities ranging from bike to school week and a lunch fair where the students sell local and organic foods, to a green career day, where we had about 50 local business people and experts talk to students about how they’re making a living working on environmental problems and issues.”
The organization has grown quickly and, in this 2007/2008 school year, presented programs and events in 14 schools, as well as several community events such as the Marin County Farm Day, the Canal Earth Day and a Spring Fair in San Rafael. In total, Green Schools engaged more than 4,500 students this past school year in more than 250 program activities.
“We also present civic engagement lessons, which means talking with students about what they can do in their own lives—how to take action on issues and how to get that motivation,” says Mullaney. “We keep a real focus on empowerment, motivation and things students can actually do and take action on. We really try to maintain a positive outlook, with the main message being, ‘Hey, this is what’s going on in the world, sustainability is an alternative to this and there are things that each one of you can be doing in your lives to make a difference.’ We keep it really positive, motivational and inspiring.”
How cool is your school?
Another “cool” program is Cool Schools, a program established by Graton-based Climate Protection Campaign, whose mission is to “create a positive future for our children and all life by inspiring action in response to the climate crisis, and to advance practical, science-based solutions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.” The organization works in partnership with government, business and schools to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Cool Schools, which started in 2003 as part of the Alliance to Save Energy’s Green Schools program, develops and facilitates classroom-based service learning projects, engaging students to take action at school and in their communities to reduce emissions causing climate change. Due to popular response to the program, with six schools in Sonoma County enrolling in the first year, the program quickly spun off into its own identity. Geared primarily to high schools around Sonoma County, Cool Schools has already helped the county make strides toward its community-wide goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions 25 percent below 1990 levels by 2015, the boldest such initiative in the nation.
Aptly named by a student, the “eco2mmute” program was started in 2005 by an AP statistics class at Sebastopol’s Analy High School that decided to count the number of single-passenger cars coming to campus daily and measure what kind of an impact those cars made in terms of carbon emissions. The results—that students traveled about 40,000 miles weekly just to and from school—made a big impact, and students decided to start in their own backyard and do something to change this.
Cool Schools helped students organize a project to reduce single-passenger commutes by 20 percent. An aggressive campaign increased awareness of climate protection issues and gave students incentives to walk, bike, ride the bus or carpool. The result? In about one month, Analy achieved a 21 percent reduction of single passenger commutes, surpassing its goal.
“It was really empowering for them to say, ‘Wow, if we can do this, then surely our communities and governments can do something about reducing our emissions,’” says Siruguri. “It became a fantastic model for us to show that, if one high school can do this, anyone can. So we took the project to Windsor High School the following year, which started this competitive feeling: ‘If Analy High School did 21 percent, we’ll do 25 percent!’”
During the 2007/2008 school year, Healdsburg High School executed the same project and achieved and 18 percent reduction in vehicle miles traveled.
A place to park
Long before “green,” in its environmental context, was a household word, Yosemite National Institutes (YNI) was providing residential environmental science education for students and educators, teen leadership programs, summer day camps for kids, and conference and retreat facilities. Founded 37 years ago as a partnership with the National Park Service, YNI opened a second campus in 1977 at the Marin Headlands. Today, more than 1,500 kindergarten through 12th grade students from Marin County participate every year in YNI’s field science education and coastal camp programs, which include areas of studies such as marine science, terrestrial biology, watershed study, earth and physical sciences and cultural history. All YNI programs are experiential, inquiry-based and aligned with state education standards.
“The core themes that guide us are sense of place, inner-connections and stewardship,” explains Jason Morris. “We weave those themes throughout all the lesson plans and activities that we do with students. We hope they not only gain a deep respect for national parks and the natural world, but that they can also experience some of their textbook and classroom science in real life.”
Yosemite National Institutes is committed to evaluating the effectiveness of its programs and, while it can be difficult to quantify such benefits, it’s clear that students coming out of YNI programs know more about science and feel more connected to the natural world. Perhaps the most telling evidence are the letters the organization receives—sometimes years after a student has completed a program.
“I got a letter a couple of months ago from a woman who’s a lawyer in Portland,” says Morris. “She emailed to tell us how much of an impact the experience had on her 15 or 20 years ago, and how that’s always shaped her views on the environment.”
Conscious curriculums
Some may question why outside organizations are providing this kind of education to our schools. The answer lies in the fact that, for the most part, states don’t require environmental education; it’s not part of California’s standard curriculum, for example, and therefore teachers aren’t mandated to include it. Many people are trying to get the state to require such courses of study, and many of these programs are trying to entice teachers and school districts by including topics that are required by the California state standards, not only in science, but also in language arts, history, social sciences and mathematics. These accommodations make the programs easier to incorporate into teachers’ already jam-packed schedules.
“We’re trying to help the teachers. We want the teachers to sign up with us, and we want the kids to go outdoors,” says Learned Perry. “That’s where we sometimes meet a disconnect; a lot of the teachers aren’t comfortable doing that. It’s also time-consuming. The teachers aren’t doing anything wrong, by any means. There are so many requirements on teachers these days, so we try to make it really easy—sign up, we take over when the kids get there, we’ll help them meet state standards—what’s the reason not do it? We’re trying to make it easy for them. We feel it’s really important for kids to be connected with our local lands.”
Many believe our next few years of environmental action (or lack thereof) will predict what our future will look like, and frustrations can arise around the lack of related curriculum being required in schools.
“We’re working hard to get climate change curriculum into schools, because it’s not yet as much of a priority as it needs to be,” says Siruguri. “But it takes time to make changes to the curriculum and related infrastructure. A lot of schools are still focusing on recycling projects, which is great, but that’s something we’ve been doing for 30 years now. I think it’s time to take it one step further and say, ‘Well, what are the larger environmental issues?’”
Despite the slow pace of progress, the sheer number of North Bay organizations currently dedicated to teaching awareness of these pressing issues indicates we’re one of the leaders in the country—not only in recognizing these concerns, but in doing something about them.
“The shift in consciousness that’s happened, even in the past decade, is amazing,” says Mullaney. “This is all stuff I never heard about when I was young—and certainly wasn’t taught. I think the level of awareness is increasing, which is really amazing, but that’s in part because the problems are increasing. This is the world these young people are inheriting, and many of these problems will have huge effects in their lifetime. So reaching out to them while they’re still young, forming their habits and opinions, and figuring out how they’re going to live their lives every single day is really an important part of what the next 50 to 100 years will look like on this planet. It all starts with how we’re living on it right now.”
A ripple effect happens in local communities when students bring home what they’ve learned to parents and friends. Not only are these businesses educating the next generation on environmental issues for the future benefit of our planet, but they’re having an impact that’s already being witnessed.
“I see it going nowhere but up,” says Mullaney. “The level of interest, knowledge and awareness is increasing exponentially in our society in general. The schools, of course, are a reflection of that.
“There are so many amazing programs going on, and so many amazing teachers, schools and administrators getting involved and really working to incorporate sustainability in all school aspects, from their operations to the curriculum to getting school gardens. That, in turn, will result in changes in how our whole society functions. ‘Green’ is already a common buzz word. As that increases and people start to change their behaviors, we’re going to start seeing these types of issues, that affect us both environmentally and socially, start to be addressed as people become educated and start to change their behaviors.”
Jason Morris of Yosemite National Institutes agrees. “The public’s openness to the notion of environmental education and connecting kids to nature has been one of the biggest changes I’ve seen,” he says. “It’s always been a good idea—and well received by a certain slice of the population—but I’ve seen that slice grow dramatically over the last 10 years, and I look forward to it growing even more. I think this is an incredibly important mission, and we need to be reaching thousands and thousands more kids. Every kid, really, should have an opportunity to participate in a program like this.”
One can certainly argue that not only should every child have this opportunity for him or herself, but for the sake of all humanity and the future of our planet.
