Teaching about the earth

SHARING ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION KNOWLEDGE, www.seek.state.mn.us. The state of Minnesota, which has operated an Office of Environmental Education since 1990, offers extensive resources that could provide a model for other states.

SIERRA CLUB ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION, www.sierradub.org/education/. Check out the Sierra Club's selection of news, articles, programs, Web sites, and other resources for environmental education.

SIERRA CLUB ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION ACTIVISTS LIST. Apply to join this listserv if you want to discuss public policy and help counter assaults on environmental education. For more information, send an email to LISTSERV@LISTS.SIERRACLUB.ORG with no subject and the message INFO CE-EE-ACTIVISTS.

the outdoor classroom

by Julie Monahan

Sunny Friday afternoons can seem interminable, as students gaze longingly out the windows and teachers struggle to keep their attention. But in Kirkland, Washington, the 120 middle-schoolers at the Environmental and Adventure School are already outside, exploring the forested wetlands of neighboring Big Finn Hill Park.

This public school centers its entire curriculum around environmental and outdoor activities. Students learn science by calculating biodiversity losses and English by reading nature essays. They meet county park naturalists, ethnobotanists, and salmon preservationists and learn about the roles these people play in their communities.

At the end of the school week, students fan out to one of four outdoor classrooms, where they may sweat through riverbank restoration at a former salmon-bearing creek, plan a schoolyard habitat for native plants and birds, or continue construction on a Salish tribe plank house. "At my old school, field trips meant we had to stay still a lot, `says Cory Zeitlin, 12. "Here we really get to go out and explore.' What students see around this Seattle suburb are salmon-depleted streams, heavily logged woodlands, and sprawl. At least to some students, the conclusions are obvious. "I'm learning that the earth might be completely destroyed, but if we help now, we might be able to preserve it,' says Francine lacono, 12, who wants to start her own environmental organization one day.

Research by the State Education and Environment Roundtable in San Diego indicates that students learn better when teachers relate their curriculum to the kids' cultural and natural environments. Test scores increase, reading levels rise, and teachers report fewer disciplinary problems. Such programs also give students an appreciation for the natural world and a desire to help take care of it.

every place a holy place

by Carol Schuck Scheiber

An increasing emphasis on the links between faith and ecology is showing up in classes, camps, and projects aimed at teaching that loving God means loving the earth (see "The Second Creation Story,' November/Decemher 1998). Religious education can help develop two badly needed faculties: the ability to embrace the wonder of creation and a sense of ethical responsibility to care for it.