Environmental Grantmakers Association 1992 Fall Retreat

Session 8: 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 FROM THE 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 Washingtonspeak 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).

END OF SIDE "A"

  ...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 highschool 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-copywrite 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 Ecose, ..which is, as we know, has the root word from which both environment and economics are derived. the mission of Ecose 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 City Bank, 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 Petro-chemical 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.