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THE EGA TAPES
Session
17:
Environmental Education K-12
DORI JACOBSON, National
Geographic Society, Washington D.C.: [Tape begins in mid
sentence]...get a little quieter in a few minutes. This session is
on environmental education K-12 There is another session I believe
tomorrow that is on public education more broadly defined what were
talking about today is really classroom education at the
pre-collegiate level.
I wanted to introduce those of you who
have not yet met, heard of Barbara Link (or Lenk) who is the new
president of the National Environmental Education and Training
Foundation which is based in Washington. Barbara has just moved up
from Texas and is just getting her hands around a very large task
and she'll bring everybody up to date on what is happening there.
There are a couple of objectives for this session, one of which is
to bring everybody up to date on what has happened since a lot of us
gathered at Mountain Lake last year.
Secondly it is to take a look at three
key issues one of which is where environmental education is fitting
within the K-12 classroom and the curriculum: the adequacy of
teacher preparation and some of the issues, about science based
versus advocacy based environmental education and I would expect
even within this group there's some debate about which way things
should go. I have certain biases and I will try and keep those
under control perhaps until we get to the discussion period, in
which case I think its, I think it’s free to, for anybody (Laughing)
to say what they feel.
Let me start with something. I'm
going to start with just about five minutes of background that I
think is very important for all of you to understand about what is
happening and then I would like Barbara to talk and then we can come
back to some of the critical issues we outlined. first, on the
sheets over here.
I have just given it a little bit of
history and I don't want to go into this in too much stress, but I
think it is very important that people understand that environmental
education has been frustrated in its efforts over the last few
years, in fact the last two decades because it has not had a home.
And over the last couple of years, particularly, those of us who
have been working, either in geography education which is our
particular focus or in environmental education more broadly. We have
seen a number of events take place that in fact are extremely
positive. a lot of the conference activities we have focused on here
have been debate,.. a lot of compelling issues have been raised, a
lot of counter issues have been raised, what I would like to, I'd
like to...sort of re-orient this session and say there is a system
that is developing to take care of issues about environmental
education. I want you to know what that system is. so this
background is helpful. when I...first, I am with the National
Geographic Society, I think I've met most of you. I'm Dory Jacobson.
BARBARA LINK
[NATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION AND TRAINING FOUNDATION]:
When I first came to the National Geographic Society in 1986 and
became involved in geography education effort. And we define
geography extremely broadly and in, in many ways it is, it is a
vehicle now for environmental education. Most of the people who were
giving money to environmental education, geography education, or in
fact in education in general, were getting it to reform efforts.
Things like, site-based management, leadership skills among teachers
and administrators, localized decision making, any kind of
discussions we had about content were pushed back and there were so
much, antipathies perhaps too strong a word but a lot of controversy
in the foundation community about where we should be putting our
dollars.
Should it go into-systemic reform or
should it go into content. In the last seven years we have seen a
major change, and it's a very positive one from where I'm sitting,
into content oriented educational reform and improvement. In 1989,
as many of you know, the nations governors and the president got
together and in fact agreed upon a framework for national
educational improvement. There were six goals: I'm going to talk
about one of them. And one of them was there would be five core
disciplines that would, that would shape curriculum efforts
henceforth until the next major reform effort movement. those five
core disciplines are English, Science, History, Mathematics, and
Geography. New, new to that grouping was geography. This really
illustrates a very conservative philosophy among the state governors
and, the President himself.
We are looking back at classical
disciplines. We are trying to get back to what students in fact
should know. following that... statement...and I should say that
the...all of the governors have endorsed that, the chief state
school officers have endorsed that, the National Assessment of
Educational Progress, all of these major institutions have endorsed
these five goals., regardless of what happens in November, Governor
Clinton has been clearly behind this, this movement, as has,
President Bush. and in fact Ross Perot has been a content driven,
advocate when it comes to educational reform. So regardless of what
happens I think this focus on core disciplines will continue. That's
important because environmental education has never had a home
before. People have debated whether or not it should be in science,
or in Geography or whether or not there should be a separate
curricular area called environmental education.
What we are starting to see is that
there are five disciplines that are going, that are going to get
money and they are going to get attention. So, so environmental
education either has to be addressed through science where it is, an
appropriate area particularly at upper grade levels, or through
geography which is more appropriate at the elementary and middle
school levels. Following this in 1990, the Congress passed the
National Environmental Education Act. And that has a number of
features in it one of which was the establishment of the National
Environmental Education and Training Foundation which Barbara
represents and we are going to come back and she'll talk more about.
The last two things I think it is very important for you to know
before we go much further, are the next two items on the sheet. In
1992 there is something called the National Assessment of
Educational Progress.
And I'm sorry for all the Washington-speak
but you really ought to know what this is. This is the assessment
mechanism that will be testing children and has been testing
children for the last 20 years at grades 4, 8, and 12. It's what
kids have to know and once you establish what children have to know
through an assessment or testing framework, you are going to be
driving what a teacher teaches in the classroom. Teachers teach to
the test, it's that simple.
The National, ..National for,
..Assessment for Educational Progress, framework which we call the
NAEP framework has identified within the area of geography a content
fee which is called environment and society.
That's important for you all to know
because, because environmental education now has an articulated home
in geography which is one of the five core disciplines around which
money, testing, training and everything else will happen. A parallel
effort is going on right now in the ..in the discipline of science.
They also are developing a framework of what children should know at
the 4th, 8th, and 12th grades. They are, they are.. behind the,
geographic educators. We have completed the first stages of, of...of
what we have needed. In 1994 this process is going to be complete.
There will be another document that comes out which addressed world
standards and that is the actual outcome, ..the outcomes, the skills
and knowledge base that children need to know in all five
disciplines. We're at work right now, developing those world class
standards against which students are going to be tested in the field
of geography and as I said a minute ago within geography there is a
content area called Environment and Society.
Those areas, just so you understand
the breadth of this, the, section of geography is going to address
the earth, earth's natural systems, biosphere, the atmosphere,
hydrosphere, the physical side of environmental issues, as well as
it will address earth's human systems.
The behavioral side, and that is
transportation, agriculture, economy, and politics. So within the
framework of geography you are getting both the physical sciences
and what we might call human behavior or human sciences. This will
get into things like, interactions between natural and human
systems, the interdependencies of these systems one on another, the
limits or the carrying capacities of the physical system and how
much it can accommodate human behavior and human change and what the
impacts are of technology whether or not it's transportation
and,...shipping, pipelines...road transportation et cetera, and what
the outcome of those technological improvements are on the
environment.
It's a lot of background and it's a
lot of Washingtonspeak, but it's important for you to know that,
that environmental education has within Geography a, a, a home. And
as I said training and testing and, curriculum materials are all
going to be focusing on, geography as the mechanism for
environmental education over the next five years and
certainly,...unless there is another major restructuring of the
educational system and we don't anticipate that for probably ten
years. this is what you can count on... I'd like Barbara to talk for
a few minutes about what happened in 1990, and the creation of her
foundation and where she's sees some of it's priorities. And then I
want to come back and talk a little bit more about programs, teacher
preparation and that whole subject of advocacy versus science based
education.
BARBARA LINK (or Lenk) of the
National Environmental Education and Training Foundation,
Washington, D.C.: Thank you Dori. Can you all hear me? I apologize,
I have a severe respiratory infection and if I start coughing,
excuse me. Well I' m really excited to be hear. As Dori mentioned
I'm the new president of the National Environmental Education and
Training Foundation. However, I don't consider myself within the
beltway person. I've lived in Texas and worked on a variety of
environmental non-profit endeavors. a lot of coalition building and
grassroots work and so forth, but was at the very end of my time in
Texas, very much involved with the question of environmental
literacy and environmental education.
As a matter of fact the organization
that I left was an organization that was able to fund a state
coordinator for environmental education.. through the Texas
Department of Education. It was not an easy thing to do, believe it
or not, Texas just last year mandated environmental education at the
state level through Senate bill 1340. and as you may know it's the,
.it is a state that has the second largest second largest public
school, ..attendance in the United States second to California and
were...were having a tremendous amount of problems with our
educational system. The National Environmental Education and
Training Foundation, as Dori mentioned, was founded under the
National Environmental Education Act of 1990 signed into law by
President Bush.
As many of you know there was
another,...Act known as the
Environmental,...Quality Education Act or also the Environmental
Education Act of 1970. housed under the Department of Education the
U.S. Department of Education at that time or the U.S, Office of
Education....This Act was interested in doing a number of things.
First and foremost I believe it was interested in creating an Office
of Environmental Education at the Environmental Protection Agency.
There was thinking that in a...in addition to enforcement and
regulating that the agency should also be allowed to educate, that
it needed that third leg on that stool to really, ugh...consider
itself doing the job of environmental protection.
It created the foundation as a private
(501) (C)(3) foundation. many of you may be familiar with National
Fish and Wildlife Foundation that has a similar relationship to the
Department of the Interior. We were predicated on the National Fish
and Wildlife Foundation. and I’d just like to read you the language
of the Act so your very clear about what we are supposed to be
doing. .the foundation is established in order to extend the
contribution of environmental and,...excuse me, environmental
education and training to meeting critical environmental protection
needs (pause) both in this country and international. And
internationally. To facilitate the cooperation, coordination and
contribution of public and private resources, to create an
environmentally advanced educational system and to foster open and
effective partnership among federal, state, and local government,
business, industry, academic institutions, community based
environmental groups and international organizations.
More specifically, it should conduct
environmental education activities as will further the development
of an environmentally conscious and responsible public, a well
trained and environmentally literate work force and an
environmentally advanced educational system. Well, her...when I came
in. 3 months ago and had this great mission of getting this
foundation up, you know there's a tremendous amount of opportunity
and there is a tremendous amount of, ..amorphousness within the Act.
let me give you a little bit more background on the foundation for
starters. We are a (501)(C)(3) foundation.
We receive via the Environmental
Protection Agency a federal appropriation every year. With those
moneys we are, mandated to make grants for environmental education
and training. This year, actually for year '92, we have just gone
through a small grantmaking cycle we will be giv...we have
announced, actually as of Tuesday, grants of a million point one to
environmental education projects across the nation. next year our
appropriation is a million dollars and therefore we'll be giving out
about 2 million dollars. So we're reasonably small. ..the point of
the foundation is to work with EPA and other federal agencies as you
heard but also to work with business and environmental non-profits
on promoting environmental education.
And that for me has personally proved
to be very difficult. in my talk today I'm going to attempt to cover
a lot of territory. I think from Dori you got some language of the
educational reform which clearly of interest to the foundation. And
I want talk a little bit about, the environmental movement and how
it's achieved it's goals. Environmental education... what is the
definition of environmental education? This is one of the questions
that came up for the foundation. How do you define environmental
literacy? What is it? What does it take? How do we work with
educational reform? Is this an appropriate vehicle for us to be
attached with? And Dori has,...given me the charge to look at
science based versus advocacy based environmental education and also
look at teacher preparation and look at how curriculum is both
developed and used in the schools. And I'm going to do that, in I
hope in a very short time. I...I have a prepared paper here if
people would like copies of it, please ask me. I also have the
attendant literature which formed the basis for this paper. I...I
want to, underscore the fact that at this time the foundation is
really feeling as though it is evolving. You've heard that we were
created two years ago.
The reality of that is, in May 29th
our board met legally for the first time, and we have a very small
but a very committed board. I should mention to you that, a number
of notable people from the environmental arena from ..the business
arena, the educational arena, the chairman of our board is the
former governor of New Jersey Tom Kane, our Vice Chairwoman is Ellen
Salzberger-Strauss, and among others on the board we have people
like Rebecca Rymole who is executive director of Pew Charitable
Trust, Ed Bass,...whom many of you may know is involved with
Biosphere,...Lawrence Fuller who is CEO of Amco (Amoco?) corporation
so it is a very broad range of people and it is quite bipartisan in
it's nature. we are seriously looking at the role the foundation
needs to play. and in some part we have come to the conclusion in
talking with our constituencies, the environmental educators, other
foundations, the public at large, federal agencies that really
what's needed is a stable funding base, and we hope that through
leveraging these federal dollars will be in part able to, ..meet
that...that,...requirement. Environmental education, as many of you
know, is an extremely malleable concept meaning different things to
different people.
This diversity is noted by a well
known environmental consultant, John Rash, stems from the fact that
the conservation movement in the United States lacks a common vision
of what needs to be done to protect the environment. We've heard a
lot of debate on that here, in the last few days. And while such
diversity can be viewed as a source of the movement's strength, as
frequent debate over and re-evaluation of goals helped to strengthen
the movement, it also limits the education community's ability to
map out a coherent strategy for implementing an education program
that would meet, meet national goals...in the language of the
educational reform movement. Conflicts pitting science based
against advocacy based education exposed a fundamental difference at
the heart of the environmental movement. Such divisions can be
interpreted to represent a particular manifestation of the battle
between wise-use conservationists and no-use preservationists.
A conflict which I'm sure all of you
know, which...which was brought to national prominence at the
earliest stages of the environmental era between, over the
Hetch-Hetchy dam project between John Muir and the, ..National Park
Service's Gifford Pinchot, into direct conflict over the management
of federally protected areas. The more generally it represented two
fundamentally different ways of viewing the relationships between
humans and the natural environment. From it's earliest period, two
very different approaches to environmental issues were readily
identifiable within the environmental movement. And I say this,
there is certainly a lot more, but I, I want to set the stage here
for where environmental education is within this context. The Hetch
Hetchy conflict tested the political power of the new voices
determined to shape the evolving national commitment to our natural
resources. Environmental education was likewise affected by the
external atmosphere which dominated it when it became a national
issue in the 1960's. At this time education challenged by the
successes of the space— sputnik—space program was being re-organized
and greater attention was being focused on improving the quality of
science education. I think if you look at the history of the
educational reform movement in the United States, you see that it is
always reacting to what it perceives as threats internationally, and
I think the first, indicator of this was the Educational Reform Act
of 1958 which was brought on by the space race between Russia and
the United States, and mandated that United States schools really
look to teaching science, math, and foreign language in a better
manner than they had been to be able to globally compete with
Russia.
More recently we've heard the language
of this educational reform movement talking about competitiveness in
the market place. What we'll,...What we'll What are the skills
needed for our children to compete economically in the marketplace.
Ecological science was also in the ascent during the sixties, Rachel
Carson—Silent Spring—and others brought it to the forefront. These
two developments greatly influenced the...environmental education
movement. On the more practical level, schools which already felt
over-extended were being asked to allot space to a field which few
teachers had expertise. As science was both the focus a new
attention and through ecology a natural home for environmental
themes, it is understandable that environmental education would use
science education as the principle means to reach this larger
audience. In time this marriage of convenience was solidified as
state education boards increasingly assigned greater responsibility
for environmental education to those in charge of science education.
That represents basically the science
based part of the equation in terms of where environmental education
should be placed. However, the other side, which is advocacy,
..advocacy based states that, they feel that environmental
education, if it's placed within one discipline, will not
adequately,...reflect the fields diversity, which I set out in the
beginning to talk about conservation or preservation or, you know,
however you like to frame that, and that like the environmental
movement itself, environmental education requires diversity to
maintain it's vitality. There's some interesting, language on the
need for advocacy based environmental education and it comes from
people like David Orr and Bill Staff who are considered the fathers
environmental education or part of the founding movement for E.E. in
the United States. And in the words of Orr, he says, the need to
restructure environmental education on the view that environmental
issues are complex and cannot be understood through a single
discipline or department, that they should be designed to function
as interdisciplinary laboratories. In his view real learning
is......participatory, experiential and interdisciplinary. Staff,
who is from the University of Michigan for those of you who don't
know, says that an environmental education program must deal with
the root causes of environmental ills, values and attitudes mixed
with the corresponding lack of skills and knowledge.
Awareness to action is environmental
education's continuum. I think that's, ..fairly well important and
would probably reflect some of the environmental non-profits
arenas'...view on where environmental education should be. Current
support for the...the increased advocacy-based environmental
education reflects the need for greater diversity within the
environmental ed. community. Supporters of advocacy-based E.E. view
environmental problems as more than scientific issues, as I just
said, and feel that environmental education should be taught in a
manner reflecting the need for social action and individual
responsibility, in the face of deteriorating environmental quality.
Science teachers from this perspective are not trained to examine
the moral, historical, social, aesthetic, and geographical elements
of contemporary environmental issues. Supporters of advocacy based
E.E. hold that environmental themes should be infused, the first of
my topics here, should be infused throughout the education system in
order to create an understanding for the inter-relatedness of
environmental problems and problem solving methods.
There is a lot of discussion in the
educational reform movement over whether, as Dori was saying, E.E.
will become another core discipline and be a somewhat fixed place
within the curriculum and within, the, the...school frameworks, or
whether it should be infused within these five core disciplines,
geography being one. In spite of uncertainty concerning ultimate
goals, environmental education continues to be taught in the
classrooms across the nation. While there are numerous factors
determining the manner in which E.E. is delivered, three factors
deserve particular attention: Infusion, state participation in
education, and teacher preparation. Infusion is another rather
nebulous term, but it's generally defined as meaning environmental
education infused with the materials being used in teaching the more
traditional disciplines. This concept which, which has become one of
the central tenants of environmental education, is based on a simple
idea that through infusion at every grade level and in all subjects
a more comprehensive treatment of environmental subjects can be
delivered. The ultimately goal of infusion is an
environmentalization of the total curricula.
Experience shows it is a goal that has
yet to be attained. A variety of factors have prevented the infusion
concept to be utilized in a balanced and extensive manner. Numerous
studies have found that science, and to a lesser degree social
studies, classrooms remain the principle means for infusing
environmental education materials. As alluded to in the above
discussion, there are several reasons for such an orientation. In
education everything begins with the teacher and this is something
that I think as a...as a...a grantmaker we really have to focus on
is what is the best way we can really create an environmentally
literate, public. Well, some teachers are doing a wonderful job of
integrating E.E. materials with their existing curricula, the
majority of teachers feel ill-equipped to carry out such a task, and
for several reasons. Pre-service teacher training, when it occurs,
generally places responsibility for E.E. in science training. This
science tilt accept... accentuates non-science teacher's
environmental education phobias.
The fear is further reinforced by the
lack, on the national level, of quality environmental education
materials designed for the need for teachers outside the
science.....setting.
As if these problems were not enough,
the balanced inter-disciplinary idea of infusion, and this is very
important, is controlled by state level coordinators of
environmental education programs who are primarily teachers with
science backgrounds who view environmental education as a sub-unit
of their broader discipline. I think the next point, and that is the
states participation, actually control over education is...is
instrumental and also in understanding where E.E. is today. The
power the state coordinators have over the manner in which
environmental education material is developed highlights America's
decentralized system of education. The high degree of independence
the states and local school districts enjoy is considered by many to
be sacred ground. As set out under the 10th amendment, the
constitution does not specify education as a federal function,
therefore it is control and day to day administration are reserved
for the states.
All states are held accountable to
their citizens and the nation as a whole for the provision and
quality of education programs within their state boarders. Any role
assumed by the federal government relative to state...education must
be in support of the general welfare as provided by this preamble to
the constitution. This is an interesting point because what happens
here is that how...state coordinators view environmental education,
how they implement it state by state, the...the diversity varies
incredibly. Two seminal states that are working on environmental
education are Wisconsin and Kentucky. I can't tell you exactly why
those two states seem to be well ahead of the game, except I can
tell you that in Wisconsin they mandated environmental education
within the state in 1935. They were by far the...the first
forerunner. and I had specific examples from each of those states
.which I...which I'll mention a little bit later. interestingly
enough, in the past, environmental educators have placed a great
deal of significance, however, on the federal government in terms of
directions programming... programs, I'm
sorry, and funding. However, the reliance on the federal government
was in contradiction to state and local government domination over
the real day-to-day management and control of education. We see a
lot of hope in this arena with the national educational goals
process. recent developments in educational reform, however, offer
the prospect of a radical revision in the the relationship among
state, local and national education goals. While it's still top
early to tell, it seems that states are beginning to restructure
their education system in accordance with broad nationally
a...determined achievement based goals.
This is what Dori was talking about
with the National Governors Association's work. we're encouraged by
this...and ...and actually we're funding some of the work that's
being done on standard setting right now. Kentucky's recent
education reform act is a case in point. Kentucky's program has
revolutionized it's whole education project process. It is built
around the National Education goals panel, I'm sorry, National
Education goal panel, goals panel goals...Sorry. I...I'm still
getting used to all this terminology. An...And it includes attention
to issues such as delivery, curricula and assessment. For instance,
they define effective assessment in, in measuring the transition
from knowledge to application. In other words you have to be able to
show how information has been mastered in a way that makes it usable
for students. They're also concentrating on outcomes assessment
which is very much a part of the educational reform movement.
Teachers are actually held accountable for their students, they will
be forced to set realistic targets for students and held accountable
if they fail to meet these goals.
Environmental educators must adapt a
strategic approach to E.E. which capitalizes on the positive
potential that this change offers. Despite a new emphasis on
national standards, final implementation will still remain the
responsibility of state governments. Thus,...continued attention to
state education boards will remain a necessity for environmental
education advocates. Teacher preparation: Beyond all other factors
the key to successful K through 12 environmental education is the
classroom teacher. If teachers do not have the knowledge, skills or
commitment to environmentalize their curriculum it is unlikely that
environmentally literate students will be produced by our K through
12 schools. Unfortunately well developed comprehensive teacher
training programs with a high level of concern for environmental
education are not well...are not wide spread. While some states such
as Wisconsin have advanced programs for incorporating environmental
education considerations in the state certification process for
teachers, the majority of states lack any legislative mandates
supporting environmental education in general.
And often, I can tell you in the case
of Texas, that what...while they may have a legislative mandate, it
usually comes with no funding and no ability to enforce. Nationally,
few undergraduate programs in education give much attention to the
content and processes involved in studying environmental questions.
It is apparent that if environmental literacy is to become a product
developed or enhanced in K through 12 schools, additional efforts
must be made to provide teachers with the necessary pre-service
training to accomplish such as goal. Existing teacher training
programs overburdened as they are, are hard pressed to locate the
space in their curricula for lessons devoted to environmental
education materials. Given such limitations, some educators feel
that teacher training centers should utilize the same methods the
environmental education, environmental educators have been proposing
for K through 12 schools and that is infusion. En...Environmental
materials need to be included in the materials used for pre-service
training for math, science, the arts and so on.
Such an approach will not only
introduce teachers to the inter-disciplinary nature of environmental
problems, but it will also provide these future teachers with an
understanding of how they can infuse these materials into their own
classroom setting. Flexibility seems to be a key ingredient to
motivating teachers to use environmental education materials. The
ability to practically apply this approach, however, is limited as
teacher trainers are generally felt to lack understanding of
environmental issues and training methods. One proposal for
circumventing this obstacle is to obtain some environmental experts
travel to the nation's teaching colleges to give seminars on how
educators can incorporate environmental education materials in their
pre-service teacher-training programs. At the state level mandatory
teacher training in environmental education could provide teachers
with the E.E.... competency necessary to environmentalize their
instruction. Pre-service...competency requirements being used in
Wisconsin and other states where environmental educators have been
able to force it to the top of the agenda offer models that can be
adopted nationally.
And just briefly, Wisconsin's
environmental initiative is, is built around two requirements. Since
July of 1985 all teacher certification candidates in science, social
studies, agriculture, early childhood, and elementary education have
to demonstrate seven competent... competencies in order to receive
state certification. The areas in excuse me, the areas of
competency include four dealing with environmental content, and
three relating to environmental education methodology. Since
September 1990 all school districts must also have developed and be
implementing curricular plans for all subject areas into which
environmental education has been incorporated. Plans in art, health,
science, and social studies education must show the greatest
emphasis on environmental education. The stress in this program is
clearly on promoting infusion. Well so much for the, .. rhetoric and
the paper, I wanted to just conclude by telling you or by, ..letting
you know where our foundation feels it is beginning to evolve here
and ask you, hopefully there will be time for all of you to share
with me and with Dori your efforts, I'm certain that over the last
few decades.
Many of you have funded this and have
ideas on how to really adequately and appropriately use funds in
environmental education. The foundation feels that with it's very
broad mandate it should remain, as a vehicle to provide
environmental literacy. I think the question becomes what is
environmental literacy? And how do you provide a definition with
some parameters that is, that promotes diversity and plurality
within the various arenas, but also is effective in measuring the
literacy of our students and whether or not we're really gaining
ground or loosing ground. I know that there...there's a lot of
controversy about the education reform movement, but without the
basic tools of measurement, without providing a basic, or a
fundamental baseline from which we can start to measure, we will as
E.E. I really firmly believe over the last two decades, that
certainly within the formalized school systems, has floundered
because it does not have any specific ..measurements and tools to
measure what environmental literacy is. One of the things we have
begun doing is going around talking to the various constituencies.
We've talked with the folks involved
with the National Governors Association, people involved in
environmental reform movement, department of education as well as
people like the North American Association for Environmental
Educators, the Alliance for environmental education, whom I term the
trade organizations for E.E. and other foundations to, to ascertain
what they believe environmental literacy is, what are the tools to
measure it in the language of environmental reform, what are the
skills, the knowledge, and the behavior that we want to infuse in
our children.
The foundation feels a very, feels
itself to be an important vehicle, hopefully to help bring consensus
and bring these different parties to the table to determine what
some of those definitions are, what some of these parameters are and
we feel, we-we perceive ourselves to be a facilitator on
this,...consensus building. I think without bringing everybody to
the table here and really looking at what's going on and what needs
to go on, we will fail. Some of the ways we hope to accomplish that
is a nationwide poll. We are looking at different methods for doing
that whether it's Broker or Gallup or someone like that, there's
been some discussion on other types of, infusing it in other types
of testing, current testing methods going on, national testing
methods. We feel that we have to establish, partnerships and we feel
that we have to in some way attach environmental education to the
education reform vehicle.
In our opinion from the preliminary
research that we've done and with the, ..assistance of National
Geographic and other, well known people in this area, we really feel
that we need support from other areas, we need to harness this wagon
to other, efforts that are going forward. And I think importantly
the foundations see itself primarily as a grant-maker, and hope that
through funding and through the provision of resources to some of
these groups that have been working for decades in this area that
will be a corner stone and provide some stability, in achieving some
of the, ..desired goals.
DORI JACOBSON: I'm going to go back
and reiterate something if I haven't said it strongly enough and
that is when you're dealing with the education system you truly have
to work within the system and that's changing and I feel as positive
and optimistic about it now as I have since I really began in this
field about seven years ago. there about four different things where
I can suggest, you as grantmakers, we as grantmakers can spend your
dollars most effectively. One of which is, because so much is
system driven, I think you need to look, and Barbara and I could
have a longer discussion about this, I think you need to look at the
disciplines that have been articulated so far by the governors and
by the President. And, whether or not you choose to put your dollars
into science, put it into geography, or put it into, history or
something else, find those areas of those disciplines that have been
articulated as being, responsive to environmental concern...and I
certainly know geography very well...and...and...put your money into
a program that is reflective of the change that is happening right
now.
So...look carefully at is what is
going on in those disciplines. secondly, I would argue that there is
more than enough environmental education materials out there in the
field. I would say that where ever possible maximize, use your
dollars to maximize dissemination efforts. Training efforts, the
distribution of materials, and minimize the creation of new
materials. I mean there will always be room for, additional
materials perhaps on areas that haven't been covered such as
fisheries, but...there is a staggering of wealth of material out
there, it is a matter of getting this thing out and getting it
used. thirdly, our efforts over the last seven years have been in
the area of in-service training and for those of you who are not
comfortable with the language, in-service simply means those
teachers who are currently in the classroom.
I think probably most of you are aware
that by, the turn of the century, in the year 2000, between now and
then we will be looking for another million or so teachers to fill
the gaps of those who are retiring and those who drop out. so it is
critical that we direct our attention to the pre-service area, the
colleges of education, where the new teachers are going to be coming
from. Let us look at something that is preventive as opposed to
curative, for example.
So the extent to which your dollars
can go for in-service,......pre-service training, I think it will be
dollars, extremely well used. And third, those of you, who..excuse
me,..fourth, those of you have a regional or a state-based, funding
focus, take a look at your,...take a look or meet with your chief
state school officers or those people who are familiar with the
state curriculum. As Barbara has said so much input of this has come
from Washington but in fact the burden of the responsibility is on
the states. in addition to, Wisconsin, The state of Maryland, for
example, has a very strong environmental education thrust that is
going through it's curriculum., the systems are there and it's very
hard to fight the educational system to the, so the extent to which
can use this process that is going on right now, your dollars are
going to be impounded ever more strongly, so that would probably be
my encouragement... I'd love to open it up, we have, ..at least 45
minutes to talk and we were encouraged to make sure we give adequate
time to share what people are doing and if there is anybody out here
who who'd just like to throw out if not a question, an issue you
want to get to, let’s just bat it around. Tom?
TOM HORMEL: .I feel that it is
important that I plug you all in to something, something ..I, I want
to present, the work that is in progress, ...that's in process.
..maybe I should...(mumbling while speaker receives a microphone).
I'm going to give you a little background on this because I think
it's really of vital importance, and it presents,...a number of,
..facts that, ..obviously aren't, ..of wide knowledge. My name's Tom
Hormel and I'm from Idaho and we did a, a, global tomorrow coalition
conference in 19...I think it was '89. It was called,
Globe-scope-Idaho. And following that, ..we started doing teacher
training in Ketchum for teachers all over Idaho, most of them came
from... the Boise and southern area, but there were ..a few that
were from the ..the East and from the North. ..in the process of
this teacher training it was obvious that ....there was a great
hunger for .. the environmental knowledge, ..and that infusion was
extremely important.
And there was also, ..a great evidence
that there were numbers of...of...curricula available and if you
just hold that for a minute I'm going to go on to something, ..to
the...the next step for me was to become involved in the theory of
education and I presented a paper at Tufts University, Bruce
Babbitt and I were the dinner speakers for the ..New England
environment conference and my thesis was that with all of the things
that have to be done, education has three very important missions.
And the first obviously was to disseminate or to see to it that
there was an infusion of environmental information, I mean that's
pretty obvious that people were not very well informed. But secondly
that .there also had to be a real citizen connection...and this is
absolutely an...an educational, mandate. You don't just
get...citizen action. It something that is a learned response, it's
something that has to be learned in school, if you don't learn in
school how to communicate with your elected representatives, if you
don't actually do it in school, if you don't, if you only learn well
this is what your supposed to do when you grow up and your 21 and
you can vote, ..here's how you vote, it's not [tape
goes blank, portion not recorded]
END OF SIDE 1
TOM HORMEL: ...in a democracy
that's going to work. And this is not happening in education today
so it's a very important part of the educational community to take
that responsibility. And this is something that they have been
doing very well at Tufts. Nancy Anderson has, .. been really leading
the ..efforts of....the informal, ..part of education at Tufts, and
formally, Dr. Meyer ..did something that astounded me and,
.impressed me and got me really started in writing this education
paper. He said I want this campus to become environmentalized and
I've turned over the campus to, ..the department of..the environment
department. And I want to see recycling and I want to see all of
these things happening. I don't know how well it's happening, but
among other things that Dr. Meyer did, ..was,...and I'm saying this
because this is what has been thrown out as, ...as being an
important aspect. Now I really believe that it is in the infusion
of...of information to teachers. .he realized that it was difficult
to get teachers to learn something and to...and to start using new
curricula, because they're all entrenched in what they're going to
do, let alone get department heads to talk to each other.
And that is really an impossibility.
So, what he did was, to, give everybody a sabbatical for attending
a, ..conference that, .. was done by the Lincoln-Vining Center on
campus. ..Nancy Anderson's group, actually. ..where they learned
..how to put environmental factors into .the....context of, of
their, ..curricula. So ..I went home and I, ..there was a teacher
who was an environmentalists, he was the, ..he was the head of
the..........I, I don't know how to say this, but he, he it was
recreation at, .. Yosemite. And then, ..he became a teacher and he
was teaching in the lower grades for about eight years and all of a
sudden he quit teaching and he was available and I said, boy have I
got some projects for you. And I gave him six projects.
One of them was to handle a problem in
a reserve in Costa Rica, and there were various things like that.
And another one was to...to derive from these education papers
some...kind of a focus that... to bring
all of the information together in such a way that people would know
where to go for curricula. At least it would have listed all of the
curricula. ..when he started doing this, he very quickly became,
began to really become involved with the process. As a teacher, he
realized that you cannot ask teachers to know everything about a...
education. And that there was...I mean about environment...and there
was a way of getting it started. ..the book now, ..we have six pilot
schools, ..we're starting a new group of pilot schools, the process
is going to be available in, ..in it's completed state. ..right now
it's in it's final testing state. ..in 1993 at the beginning of the
semester, in next summer, and, .the way it's been working has
absolutely phenomenal. ..the book is given to the class, ..the
teacher reads one page, and the students select a leader and they
start reading and they perform miracles, I mean it's unbelievable
how empowered they become, how they become connected to,
.the...the...to the...administration and ....to....governments.
They have.........gone to the
administration and found out what kind of use of electrical energy
they have and they've OK if you do this and you put these kind of
light bulbs in, ..you end up with this kind of expense instead of
what you are doing now, and the schools save money, the teachers
become educated, the infusion of...of knowledge is both with the
teachers and the students, the teachers are not running this,
..effort...they go into the, ..to the ..cafeteria, they change the
eating habits of the school, they go in and look at the pesticides
that are being put on the lawns, and they stop the, the whole
gardening process and start a whole new one. Et...they become
empowered, they get attached to government. In Idaho one school has
actually gone in and, ....as I understand it the, the Governor of
Idaho is now, .. about to change the whole structure of the,
....power company so that, ..instead of the more you use the cheaper
it gets, is the less you use the more benefit, or the...the cheaper
it is to use a small amount, the more you use the more you pay for
it, so.....it's a system that's working and it's called Earth Time
and, ..I had no idea that I was, ..supposed to let anybody know
about this because we're in a testing process.......last week we,
....opened a high school in Manhattan
Beach in Los Angeles ..with 2000 students that are totally mixed,
..we...
Chevy Chase went in with a Beta camera
and a crew and ....filmed a lot of the .....process and, .the before
and the in the process of being filmed. I think this is going to be
an enormous success and if anybody's interested in the Earth Time
brochure, ..which they've put out, ..I've brought a bunch of them.
I'm sorry to take so much time, but I think it's an important thing
that's heard here.
DORI JACOBSON: Well in fact,
..in fact Tom brings up sort of an interesting situation and that is
it gets back to advocacy vs. science based education and we've done
some pilot programs in schools where children have, in fact, become,
really actively oriented in judging their environment. In fact we
through, we had a pilot program where kids were looking at the
wastes that they were disposing of at lunch. And we were comparing,
children in various schools all around the country in terms of what
they were throwing way. And one would think that apples would be a
great thing in a child's lunch. Well probably two thirds of the
apples that were given to those kids went right into the trash.
Small example, of how kids can become very involved in...analyzing
their own human behavior and the effect that has on environmental
issues.
It also pointed out that the
administration didn't want to hear about a lot of this. The same way
we had kids doing some basic testing on the lead content in the
water. Well, there wasn't a school district around that wanted to be
faced with the results of what those children were coming up with.
Environmental education is very compelling because it's very
immediate, it's very involving, it's very visual. it brings things
home to children. It is very strong, it gets them excited about
education, but it is not....
uncontroversial by any means. letting children loose to get involved
in things that are very compelling and energizing, has a positive
benefit, in that they like...they like studying. What they
don’t...what the negative impact of that is often that you will
upset the systems, as they are, and it is just a matter of finding
of,...finding the right way of cooperating between kids and the
administration particularly in school settings. It's very been
interesting for us to watch. anybody else have some comments?
Walcott?
MALE AUDIENCE MEMBER (very
faint): Just a couple of sidelines. The way to tackle environmental
education, what we've done in Chicago...
DORI JACOBSON: Just speak up.
MALE AUDIENCE MEMBER: There are
two things. One is that we have been working with the local zoos,
and aquariums, over the last five years, to try and transform them
from more than edu, not education, entertainment role and role as
keepers of endangered species to environmental educator, and that
you don't you have environmental education as part of their three or
four major lags of their strategy, which is a big, big change for
them. And now taking that into that accentuates almost their primary
role within an urban environment.
And we're looking at urban
environments but who's going to educate these people beyond the
school. I'm just saying, you know, in addition to the schools, I
think the zoos and aquariums have great potential because there's
millions of visitors...there's some passive educational
opportunities there. the other side of this that there is a pilot
program going on around the country with business schools, putting
in environmental education and infusing it, as you put it, into that
curriculum. And we're working with Northwestern and there are five
other schools. So this is going to different levels of the education
process and not just the five year old or fifth graders, I mean not
just completely (unclear) ...It's also, you know, try to tackle
other areas that are, you know, the future business leaders and that
kind of stuff. Anyone interested in that, Nancy and I are, are
(unclear).....
DORI JACOBSON: Thank you.
there's a difference, just to comment on that, there's a difference
that we have seen between environmental education within the
classroom and that which is happening in, civic, groups outside and
other institutions like Susan's botanical gardens. You're going to
find greater advocacy oriented education in civic groups as such the
girlscouts and boyscouts and other groups. Within the classroom
there is a movement to insure, that the education that those kids
are getting is NOT advocacy based. That's a trend. it's not to say
that it is not, that you don't end up at the same place.
I see you shaking your head. It's to
say that the, the facts and information that those children are
learning have a scientific base to them that allows them to debate
issues, that allows them to test their hypothesis, and draw
conclusions, to look at human ramifications of things, and toss
those around. It's not to say that their is not an advocacy outcome,
it is to say that, it...there is a scientific base in approaching
the issues, so that there is debate going back and forth. That then
leads into a requirement that the teachers involved in environmental
education have a facility in coaching children as opposed to talking
at children. because so much of environmental education is really
inquiry based and participatory, it requires something different
from the teacher in the classroom. So a lot of the teacher training
programs that we are supporting ARE...are changing the role of the
teacher and I think that's critically important particularly in this
area. Robin?
FEMALE AUDIENCE MEMBER (very
faint): A couple of quick points. I don't know how many of you are
of a major movement in this country that goes under the...the
terminology "service learning." But it's a movement that's really
got fueled by a number of foundations that were interested in
encouraging young people really becoming actively involved their
society as problem solvers and as active citizens. And if
educational setting is involved, various programs in the curriculum
activities that gets kids out doing community service projects and
their learning about the issues that are behind them. this movement
is obviously a tremendous opportunity for environmental education
because obviously many children these days are interested...when
asked to define what problems in their community are dealing with
often times are environmental problems. Now effort has now been,
gotten a major infusion of support by some federal legislation that
was passed a couple of years ago, and through a newly created
commission on national community service.
There is a hundred and fifty million
dollars of federal money that has just been awarded last
June,......a large part is going to State education agencies to
support service learning programs in schools. Others are supporting
demonstration projects around the country like Boston City. Also our
higher education campus-based programs. Again, this is not an
environmental issue, per se. What I see is going on a good one third
or half of the activity that is generated, ..through service
learning is environmentally oriented. This is something you should
be aware of....lastly, I want to ask a question. you mention the
amount of curriculum that is already out there, you advise not to
fund to curriculum development. Is there a clearing house somewhere?
Has this already been done?
DORI JACOBSON: Well? (audience
banter) Please!
BARBARA LINK: Can I answer?
FEMALE AUDIENCE MEMBER: Would
it not be a logical role for Barbara's house to serve as a clearing
house for all of us, and all of the teachers? I want to know where
can I get the best curriculum on this issue?
BARBARA LINK: Yeah...I've
actually...(audience interruptions). The question was is there a
plethora of materials out there, is there a central, clearing house
for such materials. And indeed, the foundation I didn't really go
into some of the other programs we're looking at doing, but one is
the idea of a clearing house or resource bank. The problem with it
is, is there has, there have been attempts in the past to do a kind
of clearing house. Erik out of Ohio State University was one of the
notable ones on the network, really didn't work and the reason is
it's very hard to continue, ..an updated list of the materials that
are out there.
It's hard to, ..sort of
compartmentalize what the curriculum materials are, what there for,
what there used, you know, what's the, how to evaluate them, how to
describe the meaningfully so that clearinghouse can work. It's an
enormous undertaking. It is one, and I'm sure Tom you know, it is
one that we're looking at, I should also say that Office of
Environmental Education at EPA has something that they're
developing. It's in the prototypical stages. It's a multi-media,
interactive data-base, that, what it does is it...it actually looks
like a library. And the teacher, it's not a network system, it's not
a distributive system, it's on basically CD ROM. And a teacher can
go into this data-base basically look at all different types of
topical issues, all different types of approaches for teaching E.E.
and them actually call up the materials from this disk so that they
may try and use them in their classroom.
They have spent a fair amount of money
in developing it. But in my opinion it has a lot of problems. Not
the least of which is it's not a distributive system. what they are
including in that clearinghouse is interesting. It's pretty much
federally, other federal agencies. I mean you look at the Department
of Energy, the Department of Energy believes that for the last 25
years it's been in the environmental education business. And they,
you know, have a lot of materials they feel are, are relevant.
So EPA has gone around and put a lot
of these on disks. in addition to that, their section five grant for
$1.6 million this year went to the University of Michigan led
consortium. It will receive $1.6 million each year for the next 3
years. One of their responsibilities is to develop a clearinghouse
for teacher, training types of things.....we are in sort of talks
all the time with EPA and Michigan to determine how the three of us
can come up with something that adequately meets the needs of what
we're hearing out there. It's not a small task. I think Tom Kane has
been known to go around, to talking about the foundation as a
resource bank. And we really would like to be a resource bank. It
sounds good, it's a great concept, it's how you do it. So we
are looking at that. And, it's going to require a lot of money and a
lot of effort. But we feel that clearly it is an important aspect. I
think the corollary to that is whether or not, then, we will try to
evaluate, or put in, within certain parameters those materials.
Because without some type of classification it gets to be a very
mundane listing that has, in my opinion, little value when you look
at the plethora of materials out there.
DORI JACOBSON: There are very,
just quickly, there are very high hopes for this grant to University
of Michigan. They have an interesting consortium of people who are
involved. They got EDF, which many of you may know, which is
basically into satellite distribution, working with Turner
Educational Services, which is Ted Turner's network, Apple computer,
they are looking towards new technologies as a way of driving, the
ability to exchange materials in this ..environmental education
clearing house.
BARBARA LINK: And I should also
just say that the foundation is very much involved in that. We are
looking at Time-Warner and some relationships with Time-Warner, to
help us do that, so we feel we've got the right support, now it's
coming up with a concept and really getting going.
MALE AUDIENCE MEMBER: I have
the same challenge. My popular report from Rio and the Global
Forum. We have 500 audio tapes. Back form Brazil. And all we have is
titles on them. And these resources sit idly in our companies back
room, waiting for some input. If we could cull out the best half
dozen and have them distributed to every highschool or environmental
(unclear) in the country, (unclear) Jacques Cousteau, they were
wonderful.
BARBARA LINK: Do you have a
sense what that would cost?
SAME MALE: Low end 8 grand,
high end 36 grand. Less to spend for our human future (unclear)
needs a survival piece. They are co-copyright holders, I think they
could be right.
DORI JACOBSON:
[Unclear: Harry?]
all right, you've been (unclear) say something for a long time.
UNIDENTIFIED AUDIENCE MEMBER:
While we are doing announcements about our favorite pet projects, I
thought it would behoove me to inform you to what the
[Unclear—Island?]
foundation is doing. And, OK.....(Takes the microphone). So I start
it again? While we are doing announcements about our favorite pet
projects, I thought it would behoove me to inform you to what the
Island foundation in Massachusetts is doing in this domain. We
decided to allocate a significant amount of our money on an
educational project which has a distinctive environmental overtone.
The organization that we have created, through a grant is called
Ecos, ..which is, as we know, has the root word from which both
environment and economics are derived. the mission of Ecos is
twofold: One is to disseminate Montessori practices of instruction
throughout public education; and the other one is to redesign the
Montessori model for the next century.
Our take on this enterprise is a
little bit more radical, ..than we've heard this morning. We are
deadly serious about what the, the question about what does an
education for sustainability look like. ..and in that regard we are
really taking a look at how schools are structured, how classrooms
are structured, and our emphasis really is based on children and
what developmentally appropriate education looks like. ..
We've seen the Mont...Montessori model
as the best existing model that we have at this point for providing
a developmentally appropriate hands on, ..multicultural education to
a diverse population of kids in a sustainable manner. ..where
Montessori has been implemented in public schools we're blowing the
doors off the achievement scores that are out there. Kids are
achieving 10 to 20 points higher on all the standardized achievement
tests. Not that we believe in the standardized achievement test, but
for those that believe in that sort of thing, there we are. but
beyond that in the Montessori classroom environment, children are
profoundly exposed to an educational experience that fosters their
physical development, their social development, and their spiritual
development. Citizenship skills are fostered in that environment, as
are,...a sense of sound,...social responsibility. And it's in that
regard that we consider ourselves as really providing, or working
towards trying to develop the model, to provide the best model, for
environmental sustainability. Anybody that would like to talk me
more about that with me, I've brought on brochure. Those of you that
can slide me a business card, I'd be delighted to give you, ..a
packet of information in the mail that describes the rational and
what we think we're about.
MALE AUDIENCE MEMBER: Good
morning, my name's Bob Fry. I'd like very much to reinforce
(unclear) comments that Barbara made about the (unclear: access to
the?) educational system. I'd like to make four comments on my role
on the school board (coughing obscures voice). The first, in our
state, I suspect this is true in any state, they are changing the
teacher certification requirements. Among the requirements,
prospective teachers must now display confidence in is, ..issues
involving child abuse, alcohol and drug abuse, sexually transmitted
diseases, students with special needs and diversity issues.
Secondly, there are changed expectations for our public educational
system to include provide, to include providing health and family
services. There is, a very important declining financial support for
education especially based on property taxes. There's increased
requirements for retention of students. Keep them in school at all
costs.
There is a demand for individualized
educational programs for students and especially for those with
special needs. Thirdly, there is a,...a great competition right now
in public education for empowerment. This... this competition is
among patents and teachers. In New York State we have what's called
a compact for learning. It's required by 1995. And every public
school district demonstrate a system by which, parents and teachers,
and in our state that means teachers unions, will have a role in
determining the curriculum and how funds will be expended in our
particular district.
It also requires to provide writing
across the curricula whole language programs, continuum across the
curriculum. And all of this is done within the context of the system
which is very hard to change, no one quite, knows who's in charge,
and it's, ..much like trying to, ..nail jello through a tree.
(Laughter: unclear) ...in terms on how your going to inculcate this
particular issue, as important as it is, it's important to recognize
the full context of the competition for time, energy, and resources
that your going to encounter. And I can tell you as a school board
member for nine years, board president for three, and this is my
last year, every time someone comes in with a new mandate, a new
requirement, a new concern, you simply hold your head and say how
does that relate to the removal of asbestos from our schools, how's
that relate to a bond effort to put new roofs on our buildings, and
what is the translation going to be and what is our budget going to
be next year, which in most of our communities the taxpayers vote on
what the budgets are. So it's important to keep in context these
kinds of issues you guy's are raising.
DORI JACOBSON: Well I hope the
tape picked that up, because that was a profound statement of
reality of what is happening in our schools. It also reinforces what
Barbara and I and so many, I think, in this group feels which is
infusion and you have got to work within the disciplines that are
established already in the curriculum. Because, I mean I can, I can
argue, environmental education is not going to find a role here.
Seven years ago when we started poking at geography education
superintendent of schools Bill Honig out in California said don't
talk to me about geography education, talk to me about how you're
going to put geography into history. Or put it into literature. Well
that has changed, and perhaps someday this will change, but right
now the system has, has dictated there are five core disciplines,
and unless we work in that area we are going to be fighting a major
battle. Joe?
JOE: Hi, I have a question. ..I
would like various responses and that is if we could get more
specific about, exciting arguably model programs focusing on
teacher education, either at the local community level, within the
kind of context that, that he just described, ..or perhaps a larger
regional area like a state such as North Carolina. And whether,
whether they're government sponsored, publicly supported within the
departments of instruction or whether they're independently
sponsored, such as privately supported teacher training centers of
some sort. Can you just throw out to us some notable exemplary
programs that go directly to the teacher that are on line who within
those kind of restraints, or are open, or receptive and motivated to
go ahead and do some of the infusion that I think you both are
advocating.
DORI JACOBSON: Take it.
BARBARA LINK: I'm not sure I
can really answer your question. and that's one of the things we're
trying to look into is trying to identify models like that that have
some replicability or have some meaning for other people to sort of
look at and say well this made sense here maybe if we modify in this
way we can do it. ..I'd have to point to Wisconsin and Kentucky
again, Wisconsin in particular just has had a tremendous history in
working within a broad coalition of groups at the state and regional
levels to get environmental education both, mandated legally and
really demanded from the grasssroots up. And I think it's that kind
of an effort, you know, as Dori was saying there's tremendous
interest at the grassroots level for environmental education.
There's a tremendous interest within the k through 12 students
themselves to become better environmentalists. That all equates into
some factor of political pressure. we're, you know, we're just
beginning to, our foundation I should say, is just beginning to
review some of the programs out there. There are things like Project
Wild and Project Learning Tree which, you know, do, ..deal with
curricular materials and training over regions of this country. but
they have, while they have been successful, they really have not
served this purpose of really helping E.E. to become infused within
schools, so I, I, I'm not...
MALE AUDIENCE MEMBER: We're
targeting teachers, too.
BARBARA LINK: ...targeting
teachers, yes I said teachers are the key, here, in a sense, or one
of the keys in getting this to, to happen.
DORI JACOBSON: I'm going to do
something I didn't think I was going to do. I thought I would
control myself. I was not asked to do this panel to be an advocate
to do what we are doing. I was asked to do it to just sort of bring
some perspective to the floor. But, I'm gonna seal another few
minutes and tell you about what it is we have been able to do over
the last seven years. National Geographic established a national
network of what we call geographical alliances. These are teacher
training programs that combine K-12 educators with university
professors. There is a geographic alliance in every single state.
The geographic alliance in Texas for example, has about 3000 K-12
teachers involved, It has two university focuses on, at, ..Southwest
Texas University which is a major teaching institution. And Texas A.
& M. Again these are replicated in all other 49 states. Every
summer we provide funding to them to conduct a teacher training
institute. They all look to local funding to do that. They bring in
anywhere from 20 to 40 teachers who spend between 2 and 3 weeks
either in the field, looking at geology, topography, climate issues,
basic fundamental physical sciences. They go back and they learn
teaching methods, and they learn how to use teaching materials.
Those are either, print materials, or
they are new computer driven tele-communications driven materials.
In every instance, we require that these teachers come away and
commit to us that they will go out and conduct workshops in their
schools. We in essence are not just training a teacher, we are
training a teacher consultant. Somebody who has enough grounding,
confidence and competence in the subject, that they can go out and
share that expertise. In seven years we have reached approximately
75,000 teachers across this country through this 50 state network.
this summer for example we conducted with Kraft General Foods and
the Kellogg foundation a ten day summer institute out in California
on water, fresh water issues.
These hundred teachers, two from every
state, were joined for the last couple days for this institute, by
their respective water agency personnel from their state, so that
the two teachers from Texas had the Texas water agency personnel
join them for the last couple days. They talked about how, what they
had learned over ten days could be localized so that when those
teachers go back to Texas this fall, they were equipped to handle
not just the general issues of water conservation, water use, and
water abuse, but they were linked up with somebody who could help
them with localized issues. We have spun this around. and this fall,
every fall there is something called National Geography Education
Awareness Week. Every one of those teachers, those hundred teachers
when they left California after, after ten days with us, committed
to us that they would develop a state wide plan to work with
teachers across their states during Geography Awareness Week on the
subject of fresh water resources.
Working with CitiBank,
we put together packets of materials that have gone to 180,000
educators across the country. That curriculum is forming the basis
for what is being looked at during Geography Awareness Week. And
believe me there are probably 3 million kids this fall that are
going to be doing activities this fall beginning with the week
intensive program and going on through the year on fresh water
resources. What you have got to find in your, in the funding
programs that you have is a system of delivery, a system of
dissemination. And we feel very confident about what we have been
doing. I know that the National Science Teachers Association is
doing the same thing on science, I know that the history people are
doing the same sort of things in history. There are mechanisms out
there and it is the most efficient way to utilize your dollars if
you tap into that system. There. I didn't mean to make it a
commercial, but it is very important that these systems exist out
there.
BARBARA LINK : Yeah, and I'd
just like to comment on it because, as, an organization that's going
out and trying to evaluate, you know, how we do our business, once
we figure out what that is. National Geographic's model, I think,
without contention has been an incredibly successful model in a
very, very short period of time. One of the other programs that the
foundation is looking at doing is, how in fact, how do we build
these state by state alliances of people interested in environmental
education. Who should they consist of, you know, what are the
benefits, because without that delivery system on a state by state,
basis we feel that we're never really gonna get anywhere with both
understanding what's out there, evaluating what's out there, being
able to measure it. And being able to monitor it from a very, basic
stand point. So we're looking at doing that and, I'd certainly be
interest in hearing if any of you have ideas on that. There are a
lot of networks out there and, most of them don't really, haven't
been very functional for environmental education. So we're looking
to do that.
DORI JACOBSON: And we're
certainly hoping to change that as environment and society has been
articulated as a key to geography. I mean science has a major, major
responsibility in environmental education, and hopefully as they go
through their assessment framework and develop their standards for
testing they will look at environment as well. But there is a home
that has already been established.
BARBARA LINK: And I should comment. I
don't even know if Dori knows, this, you probably do, we're, the
foundation in this first grantmaking cycle did fund, they, we are
assisting with funds for the environment in society piece of this,
.....geography framework. We're also working, ..with National
Academy of Sciences on how we can participate in the science
standard settings as well because we feel that they're both core
disciplines, they're both interested in the foundation is trying to
bring people together who will represent environmental education in
these areas. It is not an easy task, I might add. And it's one that
I don't want to see driven by, within the beltway mentalities, it's
one that needs to be driven by people who have been involved, across
the United States in, in different environmental education
initiatives so we're struggling with this and believe there's not a
lot of time and there's not, there's never enough money to do any of
what you want to do.
DORI JACOBSON: We've got about
ten minutes. Go ahead.
FEMALE AUDIENCE MEMBER: Have
you explored the awards systems things. Like what you're seeing out
there, you know, you are provided this knowledge base. are you
going to get back from the teachers the thousands that you're
impacting. What they found worked, who was successful truly reaching
those other teachers, what wonderful community problem they
resolved, what's, is there, possibly a possible goal or a need for
or an incentive side? You guy's have a challenge, you put it out
there, you wonder, what's happening?
DORI JACOBSON: I can only
say...
UNIDENTIFIED AUDIENCE MEMBER:
Could you repeat the question, please?
DORI JACOBSON: the question
has to do with rewards, and I think feedback about success. And I
can only speak for what we have been doing. and National Geographic
only does things one way and that is extremely thoroughly. and
sometimes it takes a long time, but part of our efforts have,
focused on evaluation, and it is constant evaluation and that every
teacher who participates in these programs does with us a
pre-evaluation and they do a post evaluation and right now a number
of our states are doing, sort of four year benchmark evaluations as
to how things are changing. Now, not just within the teaching
community but within the student community. Oklahoma, for example,
now, has had eight years behind them and they have two four year
studies as to how things are changing. So we're starting to get some
of that feedback. The other thing, you talk about sort of rewards,
it is absolutely critical for us to teach those, to treat those
teachers as professionals. And that nobody goes through our program
and, ..completes the program without getting some certificate of
merit. We even have little pens, we have tee-shirts, we have bags,
we do everything ewe possibly can to give them something back. And
these rewards are so modest, but I tell you, after teachers have
gone through a professional program, we have seen some of them
weeping because they have never been treated like that before.
Angie?
AUDIENCE MEMBER ANGIE: Just to
continue questioning that what we're doing, we are just so unionized
in Indiana, we have to pay...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You can
come to the microphone.
ANGIE: On that note that Dori
was just mentioning, in answering your question about rewards and
everything, I don't know if Indiana is just so unionized, or, or
what, but we have to actually pay stipends to get the teachers to
come. does everybody else have to do that?
(Audience banter)
DORI JACOBSON: Well actually
there is a bit of a black market out there,
ANGIE: No this is in the
summertime. You know when they're under contract and stuff. Oh, I
meant summer workshops. And it's not just this curriculum it's
English, it's science, it's everything. That's standard practice?
Okay, my board has a real problem with that so that's why I'm asking
the question. Thank you.
UNIDENTIFIED AUDIENCE MEMBER:
It doesn't sound like the teachers are making an outrageous amount
of money, anyway.
DORI JACOBSON: Right. Joe, did
you want to say something?
JOE: North Carolina, but it's a
professional courtesy, based on, particularly..
DORI JACOBSON: Yeah. Yeah. And
virtually every one of our programs we built into their budgets and
we compensate them for paying a stipend and if you're at the teacher
level that can range from $100, well actually range form $60 a day
to about $150 a day. If you're an academic professor it's $500 a
day. To attend a summer workshop often they are compensated at the 4
or 5 hundred level. And it's interesting among those institutes that
draw upon a national population, New Jersey, for example, pays a
scandalous amount of money for somebody to attend. And we have, in
fact, seen some teachers choose to go where the dollars are, so, you
have to be competitive which is unfortunate but that is the case.
Gail.
GAIL: I'm concerned about the
(unclear) and you were mentioning it was (unclear) the content
issue. The pulp and paper industry and the forest timber products
industry is very powerful, and I recently went to a conservation,
went to a conservation program at one of our local nature centers.
And the educational materials that were being presented were,
..clear-cut forestry is okay, planting aspen is good, it helps the
deer and crops. And I think the issue the public, because of that
(unclear) very powerful political force, what influence they have in
terms of the content. It's one thing to deplore (unclear)
BARBARA LINK: Yeah, that's
something I'm familiar with too, coming from Houston, and the
Petrochemical companies having a clamp on a lot of what goes on. A
lot of, the way in which they spend their philanthropic dollars in
something non-threatening such as environmental education, and BFI,
for instance, would develop a solid waste curriculum which, you may
or may not always agree with. That is more, that more reinforces
this need, A, for a clearinghouse and a resource bank, but also a
way to evaluate materials. I mean it all gets back to evaluation. In
a sense, are they providing people with the skills and the knowledge
necessary to be environmentally literate. One of my biggest, soap
boxes, coming from the coalition building side of things, is that
information has to have, to mention, it has to have perspective.
This only presenting one side of the issue is not achieving what we
need. It's not providing people with critical thinking tools. And I
don't know how you get around it, other than to say there's got to
be some kind of evaluation for those materials and not providing a
one sided, scenario on any particular issue, and allowing other
information to be developed.
And in fact, ..funding other
information to be developed. It's very tricky and that's sort of my,
also my problem with this plethora of materials out there. To be
perfectly honest, I mean solid waste is an issue I've dealt with
recently and there are a number of people driving that Keep America
Beautiful. Keep America Beautiful for those of you involved with
environmental non-profits, it's funded by the solid waste industry,
you know BFI waste management, you name it and a lot of their
materials are not only poor in content, I know that in the lasko(?)
in Texas they were given $350,000 to develop this solid waste
curricula. They had no teacher training associated with it. The
curricula was not effective, it was not well used, we lost $350,000
down the drain, in my opinion, for an organization, that, you know,
if they're interest in solid waste and that kind of education should
have provided not only well balanced material, and forced the
industry to educate themselves about what the, you know, what the
perspectives are out there because I feel there is a reciprocal
responsibility here. But also, if it's going to be used in schools
or nature centers or wherever, provide teacher incentives and
teacher training to do that. It is a real problem.
DORI JACOBSON: I recently had
an experience dealing with our geographic alliance up in Maine. they
had an offering from the paper industry council up there, ..$50,000
that would match the $50,000 that National Geographic provides, and
I got a call from the alliance coordinator saying hey, this is
terrific, I got some money. And I said, hey, let's take a look at
this. What is it that is part of the agreement with the paper
industry council. And it was a matter of a month or so of
conversations going by to build up my coordinators confidence that
she could go back to the paper industry council and say, Yes we
would like your money, but no, you do not have editorial control.
And, you know, the paper industry got 50 percent out of it which is
what they wanted. They wanted some image and that was fine. What
they didn't get was the other half of what they wanted which was the
editorial control. And I think this points to, unfortunately, some
of the naiveté of grantees, which is Oh god, here's money, this is
what I need, I'll do whatever. And it doesn't really take all that
much to go back to a grantor, particularly a corporation and say,
listen. We would like to do that, we would like some sort of
partnership but here are the ground rules. And we're starting to see
that change, by, you know...(people reader?)...Jack?
JACK: I just want to share
something that the San Francisco Foundation is doing right now with
this....
DORI JACOBSON: And we probably
have this and one other...?
JACK: where, we've been making
environmental education grants for the last three years. About
$200,000 each year, and we are currently conducting kind of a
reality check. We've hired two consultants to review our grantmaking
and to go out into the community and to interview various
environmental educators in the schools, nature centers, folks who do
teacher training. and getting their perspective, finding out what
they see as the needs in the Bay Area and what they see as trends,
and the consultants will be making recommendations to the foundation
as to how we can improve our grant making.
In the looking, we found some look
along four dimensions specifically. One is the diversity issue, and
how environmental education is, where they're affected at reaching
students of color and whether the curriculum values and traditions
of other cultures. That's so very important in the Bay Area.
Secondly, where the environmental education is really changing
peoples, young peoples’ behaviors, we know that the awareness level
is up but is it working along that continuum that was referred to
earlier and really getting young people to change their behaviors.
Third is, where the foundation might be able to help with the
networking and sharing of information and encouraging collaboration
amongst various environmental educators in our region.
And then fourthly, is how can
environmental education encourage young people to pursue
environmental careers. Especially students of color. And, and women.
So we're conducting the study, we're hoping to have a result, by
mid-November, time for our board retreat. If it's a good piece of
work I think we'd be happy to share the results, so come talk to me
and we'll get you on our mailing list.
DORI JACOBSON: I was wondering if you
just tell Pam about what you're doing. Pam Mora. Because it would be
interesting for her to disseminate that. Great.
[END SIDE 2]
[END OF TAPE]
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