United States
Environmental Protection
Agency
Communications, Education,
And Public Affairs
(1704)
Volume 21, Number 2
Spring 1995
EPA175-N-95-003
JOURNAL
Looking Ahead at Environmental Education
Only through education can we build
a sustainable future
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&EPA JOURNAL
United States
Environmental Protection Agency
Carol M. Browner
Administrator
A Magazine on National and Global Environmental Perspectives
Spring 1995 • Volume 21, Number 2 • EPA 175-N-95-003
Communications, Education,
and Public Affairs
LorettaM. Ucelli
Associate Administrator
Miles Allen
Director of Editorial Services
Karen Flagstad, Ph.D.
Senior Editor
Catharina Japikse
Assistant Editor
Ruth Barker
Photo Editor
Marilyn Rogers
Circulation Manager
Andrew Mountain
Intern
Leighton Price
Editorial Consultant
Design Credits
Ron Farrah
James R. Ingram
Robert Flanagan
From the Editors
Front cffoer: As part of the GLOBE
program, students collect environmental
data in the area around their school. Tliey
send their results over the Internet to
scientists, who combine data from schools
around tlie world into environmental maps,
such as this one showing maximum air
temperatures (background). Students then
view and learn from the maps on their
computers (inset). (See article on page 14.)
Inset picture by Steve Delaney. EPA.
Computer map courtesy of GLOBE.
From kindergarten through junior and senior high school, from
undergraduate college programs to graduate business schools
and teacher-training seminars, environmental education is at work in
the classroom in increasingly innovative and interdisciplinary ways.
Almost by definition, environmental education lends itself to interdis-
ciplinary study—a point that comes across in several articles in this
magazine; among these is a "For the Classroom" piece on EPA Journal
as an interdisciplinary teaching tool.
Perhaps more important, environmental education is not just for
classrooms. In Brooklyn, New York, for example, it reaches into the
urban community to teach appreciation of the built environment and
urban community stewardship to adults and children. In Las Vegas,
Nevada, Silverado High School students work with EPA scientists
and practice environmental problem-solving in their community; as
part of their work, they exchange e-mail with science teachers around
the world. On several continents, elementary and junior- and senior-
high-school students are participating in the newly launched GLOBE
program by collecting real-worid environmental data that feed into
sophisticated computerized data bases that, in turn, will boost our
collective scientific understanding of the planet.
How can we measure the success of environmental education?
Its ultimate success cannot be measured in terms of projects, programs,
or mandates, although clearly these are important means. As several
of our contributors point out, the real success of environmental
education is how well it translates into actions that are consistent with
a sustainable future. Q
CO
a.
LLJ
EPA JOURNAL Subscriptions
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EPA journal is printed on recycled paper with vegetable-based inks.
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1
Contents
.^ C
Looking Ahead at Environmental Education
Only through education can we build a sustainable future
Articles
Departments
.'
Why Environmental Education?
by Carol M. Browner
EPA's Environmental Education Program
by Diane Berger
Preparing for the Next Century
by Senator John H. Chafee
The Environmental Education Advisory Council
by Arva Jackson
12 Where Are the Gaps In Environmental Education?
by David B. Rockland
14 GLOBE Partnership Launched
by Thomas N, Pyke, jr.
16 Eco-Ed Grows in Brooklyn
by David Lutz
18 Problem Solving in Las Vegas
by Gregory Budd and Don Curry
The President's Environmental Youth Awards Program
by Doris Gillispie and Catharina fapikse
23 A Toolbox for Training Teachers
by Paul Nowak, S r.
25 State Profiles in Environmental Education
by Abby Ruskey
2o Environmental Literacy and the College Curriculum
by Richard Wilke
Educating Environmental Managers for Tomorrow
by Julie Jubeir
34 Learning for Life in the 21st Century
by Noel}. Brown
37 Agenda 2Ts Plan for Education
From Chapter 36 o/Agenda 21
Jo Rescue Mission: Planet Earth
by David R. Woollcombe
EPA ROUNDUP
40 HABITAT
A Comeback for Prospect Park
by Roy Popkin
43 FOR THE CLASSROOM
EPA journal As a Classroom Tool
by Stephen Tchudi
and Nancy Starnes
96 ON THE MOVE
48 LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is charged by Congress to protect the nation's land, air, and water systems. Under a mandate of national
environmental laws, the Agency strives to formulate and implement actions which lead to a compatible balance between human activities and the ability
of natural systems to support and nurture life. EPA Journal is published by EPA. The Administrator of EPA has determined that the publication of this
periodical is necessary in the transaction of the public business required by law of this Agency. Use of funds for printing this periodical has been approved
by the Director of the Office of Management and Budget. Views expressed by the authors do not necessarily reflect EPA policy. No permission needed to
reproduce articles except those showing a specific copyright claim; no permission needed to reproduce photos credited to EPA. Contributions and
inquiries are welcome and should be addressed to: Editor, EPA Journal (1704), Waterside Mall, 401 M Street, SW., Washington, DC 20460.
SPRING 1995
I
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EPA ROUNDUP
President Announces Regulatory Reforms
Launching a new era of
partnership between regulators
and the businesses they
regulate, the President has
announced landmark environ-
mental, drug, and medical
regulatory reforms that provide
flexibility, demand accountabil-
ity, and provide greater
protection to the American
people at lower cost. Joined by
industry and environmental
leaders, the President visited a
print shop in Arlington,
Virginia, to emphasize how the
reforms ivill reduce the regula-
tory burden on businesses,
especially small businesses. He
announced a package of 25
environmental reforms,
including changes that will
reduce the number of toxic-
emission forms the print shop
owner must fill out from 20 to
one. He also unveiled a set of
reforms that will make drugs
and medical devices available to
consumers more quickly and
cheaply.
The New York Times
reported:"... The Clinton
Administration today said it
would significantly broaden
opportunities for industries
to cut the costs of pollution
control through a novel
method that relies on free
markets rather than regula-
tions to decide where and
how to clean up the environ-
ment. The proposal is one in
a broad package of changes
in environmental and other
regulations the Administra-
tion put forth today. More
than a year in the making,
the package is a central part
of the White House strategy
for fending off a campaign
by Congressional Republi-
cans to roll back Federal
rules governing health,
safety and the environment
.... Many of the proposals
offered today deal with the
mundane annoyances faced
by businesses large and
small, like the print shop
Mr. Clinton chose as the
setting for a speech today
.... But other changes, like
several planned by the
Environmental Protection
Agency, could save billions
of dollars each year for
major industries, like the
chemical industry, officials
said. The most notable
would be the expansion of
trading in pollution credits
and allowances, a novelty
introduced by the Clean Air
Act of 1990 and until now
mainly restricted to sulfur
dioxide, the pollutant that
contributes to acid rain.
Citing the success of the
acid rain program in
towering the costs of
pollution control for electric
utilities and other indus-
tries, the Administration
said it would now adopt the
same approach in its efforts
to control smog and water
pollution. Under this
approach, companies that
surpass pollution standards
can earn extra credits that
they may sell as if they were
commodities like soybean
futures or stock options. The
credits could be bought by
companies that are falling
short of pollution standards.
If the market works effi-
ciently, the overall level of
pollution will decline, but
the gains will come at the
lowest possible price. The
details of the trading
schemes have not yet been
worked out, and in some
cases, especially where
water pollution is involved,
they will be complicated to
develop, agency officials
conceded...."
The Los Angeles Times
commented: "... Clinton
visited a small print shop in
Northern Virginia to unveil
a number of steps that will
reduce business paperwork,
consolidate environmental
rules and speed the ap-
proval of new medical
devices and drug-manufac-
turing techniques. The event
marked the first step in a
year long campaign to
reduce bureaucracy and
narrow government
intervention in private
industry. The effort is being
Officit! White House photo.
directed by Vice President Al
Gore as the second phase of
his 'reinventing government'
initiative [T]he Environ-
mental Protection Agency will
cut the paperwork burden on
business by a fourth, combine
reporting for air, water and
solid waste emissions,
broaden the ability of busi-
nesses to trade pollution
credits and allow small
businesses a six-month grace
period to correct first-time
pollution violations.... The
proposal would also allow
small businesses who violate
federal regulations to escape
fines if they show good-faith
efforts to comply. Another
new rule would allow
companies to apply money
that previously would have
been paid in fines to remedial
efforts. Clinton said that the
Republican approach—which
would freeze all new federal
regulations and require
detailed cost-benefit analyses
of all future federal rules—
would endanger consumers
and the nation's air and water.
The GOP moratorium has
passed the House but has
not been acted on by the
Senate...."
EPA JOURNAL
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Great Lakes Water Quality Initiative Announced
A six-year collaborative effort
between state agencies,
industry, environmental and
other citizen groups, munici-
palities, academia, and EPA
has resulted in a comprehen-
sive guidance document for
restoring the health and
economy of the Great Lakes.
The document, called the
Great Lakes Water Quality
Initiative, provides the Great
Lakes states and tribes with
community-based flexibility to
tailor solutions to local
conditions. The Great Lakes
supply drinking water for 23
million people and support
agricultural, recreational, and
industrial activities for many
millions more. In announcing
the initiative, Administrator
Carol Browner said: "Today's
plan embodies the principles
that are at the heart of the
Clinton Administration's
approach to environmental
protection: common sense,
cost-effectiveness and a firm
commitment to strong
environmental goals combined
with flexibility in how we
reach those goals."
The Washington Post
reported:"... The Great
Lakes Water Quality
Initiative establishes toler-
ance levels for 29 different
pollutants, including such
highly toxic chemicals as
mercury and dioxin, in
Lakes Superior, Michigan,
Huron, Erie and Ontario.
Industry and environmental
groups long have been
divided on the issue of how
strict Great Lakes cleanup
standards should be.
Environmentalists point out
that the lakes, which contain
95 percent of the country's
fresh water and provide
drinking water for 23 million
Americans, are highly
polluted. Industry groups
counter that an overly strict
cleanup plan could cost
thousands of jobs. Twenty-
five percent of U.S. industry
is concentrated in the Great
Lakes region. The plan
comes at a time when the
EPA faces a barrage of
attacks from GOP lawmak-
ers for devising programs
that critics say are more
costly to industry than they
are of benefit to the public.
State officials also complain
that the agency is too rigid in
its enforcement methods. In
apparent response to the
criticisms, the initiative was
crafted to allow the eight
Mike Brisson photo. Copyrighted
states bordering the lakes an
opportunity to establish
their own criteria for
industrial discharges. If state
officials fail to devise plans
within two years, the EPA
will issue them instead. The
plan also gives states the
option of determining
whether emissions into the
lakes are best reduced only
by regulating pollutants
discharged in water. In
order to reduce the lakes
levels of mercury, for
instance, which is believed
to come largely from air
particles, the states have the
option of establishing
stricter air-quality controls
rather than more stringent
water discharge rules. The
states' share of the cost of
the 20-year cleanup plan is
likely to be about $100
million a year, EPA officials
said. Without the plan's
built-in flexibility, the states'
cost could have been as high
as $380 million a year, they
said. The actual cost will
depend on the pollution
abatement programs that
the states eventually adopt.
The plan's architects
reduced its projected cost by
applying rigid cost-benefit
analyses to the proposed
cleanup standards and then,
in response, relaxing some
of them, EPA officials said.
For example, the standards
for mercury levels allowed
in the lakes, originally
stricter than those for
mercury levels in air, were
loosened and thus made
achievable at a lower cost,
the officials said...."
The Cleveland Plain Dealer
commented:"... States have
two years to find ways to
meet the standards, which
deal with 'point source'
pollution—that is, dirty
water or fluid discharged by
industry. The plan does not
address run-off from farm
fields or the raw sewage that
is dumped into water when
sewers overflow during
storms. If state officials fail to
devise plans within two
years, the EPA will issue
them instead. The EPA wants
to get rid of 22 chemicals that
can remain in the water for
200 years. One such chemi-
cal, mercury, can cause
kidney failure. Another,
chlordane, may lead to
anemia. To determine how
many parts per million of a
given toxin a factory can
emit, states will have to
measure the quality of
surrounding waters. Any-
thing that degrades existing
water quality will have to
stay in the factory. Browner
and her allies—Sens. John
Glenn of Ohio and Carl
Levin of Michigan, and
Indiana's Gov. Bayh—argued
there was no time to lose.
Forty million people get their
drinking water from the five
lakes.... Consumption of
Great Lakes fish by pregnant
women has been linked to
developmental problems in
children. Eagles and water
birds eating the fish have
suffered deformities. Al-
though water quality has
improved in recent years,
some beaches are often
closed and sediment
amounting to poisonous
mud lies at the bottom of
many harbors and tributar-
ies. Channel catfish caught in
Lake Erie continue to be
dangerous to eat, according
to the Ohio Department of
Natural Resources. Certain
types of salmon and trout
can be safely eaten only 12
times a year. 'We must never
go back to the pollution and
degradation of the past,'
Browner said. 'We must keep
going forward....'"
SPRING 1995
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EPA ROUNDUP
National Research Council Endorses Changes to EPA Research
In an interim report, a
committee of the National
Research Council has
concluded that changes now
being made to EPA's
research program will
improve the program in
many ways. The report cited
as crucial the Agency's
efforts to improve strategk
planning for its research and
development activities.
Congress asked the council
to assess the program last
year when it approved EPA's
$378 million research budget
for fiscal 1995. The legisla-
tion prohibits the Agency
from spending 75 percent of
this budget until it receives
the interim report and begins
to implement the
committee's recommenda-
tions. The committee has
scheduled a final report for
1996. Administrator Carol
Browner said: "I am very
pleased that the report
expresses clear support for
the changes we have
initiated. These changes will
help us to achieve our goals
for a quality science program
that provides a strong
foundation for environmen-
tal decision making."
Science magazine reported:
"... Over its 25-year history,
the Environmental Protec-
tion Agency (EPA) has been
told many times that much
of its science is second-rate
and that the clean-up agency
needs to clean up its act.
Now this may be happen-
ing: In a report released
earlier this month, the
National Research Council
(NRC) praises the agency's
efforts to improve its
research program. Over the
past year, EPA administrator
Carol Browner has initiated
major changes, including
reorganizing EPA's 12 main
research labs to eliminate
redundancies, strengthening
peer review, doubling funds
for extramural research to a
proposed 585 million in
1996, and launching a highly
popular graduate fellowship
program (Science, 29 July
1994, p. 599). The NRC
panel, convened last fall and
chaired by Miami University
President Paul Risser,
concurred with the 'general
scope and direction' of these
changes. Still, it is pressing
for even more. It says EPA's
Office of Research and
Development can do 'much
better' at disseminating
research results and demon-
strating their pertinence to
agency actions. And it com-
plains that EPA has not given
its science adviser—now
research chief Robert Huggett
... —enough clout. Says panel
member Raymond Loehr, a
civil engineering professor at
the University of Texas and
longtime agency adviser,
There is still no clear signal
from EPA that it values good
science.' Huggett says the
agency is working on tighten-
ing the links between research
and policy. Staffers will be
following up on each extramu-
ral grant to ensure that the
research products—EPA
reports—get to key agency
officials "
Environmental Science and
Technology said:"... Al-
though Robert Huggett has
headed EPA's Office of
Research and Development for
only a year, it has been a
period of tremendous changes.
Huggett is hammering out a
more research-focused model
for ORD: 'Our premise is that
we are going to prioritize our
research in order to reduce the
uncertainty in risk assessment.'
To reach that goal, Huggett is
overseeing the reorganization of
ORD's research laboratories into
'mega-labs' based on a risk
assessment-risk management
paradigm. At the same time, he
has moved quickly to expand
ORD's research horizons
through increased funding for
extramural research grants, a
new graduate fellowship
program, and strengthening ties
with EPA program offices and
with other agencies such as the
National Science Foundation
(NSF). Huggett is also answer-
ing criticism about the direction
and quality of ORD's research
by increasing support for peer-
reviewed long-term research...."
BNA Environment Reporter
commented:"... The committee
endorsed several changes EPA
is making to improve the ORD
program:
• Resources for long-term
fundamental and anticipatory
research are being increased
approximately 30 percent to at
least 50 percent of ORD's
program resources, with
corresponding reductions in
applied products and technical
services for EPA's regulatory
and regional offices;
Release of Toxic
Chemicals Down
in'93
According to the latest Toxics
Release Inventory (TRI), U.S.
manufacturers released 2.8
billion pounds of toxic
chemicals to the environment
in 1993, a decline of 406
million pounds or 12.6
percent over 1992 and a
decline of nearly 43 percent
when compared to the base
year of 1988.
The Emergency Planning
and Community Right-to-
Know Act of 1988 required
manufacturers to report
annually to EPA the amounts
of 316 different chemicals
they release into the environ-
ment. They must also report
amounts they transfer to
other facilities for disposal or
recycling. EPA publishes the
unedited data for use by
individual citizens, public
interest groups, state and
local governments, and other
interested parties.
The 1993 TRI shows that
releases to land fell sharpest,
down 15 percent from 1992.
Air emissions were down 11
percent, especially emissions
of ammonia and a variety of
solvents. Discharges to rivers,
lakes, and other bodies of
water declined about two
percent.
Although the amount of
waste chemicals transferred
from manufacturing plants to
other facilities increased over
1992, most of the increase was
in transfers for recycling—318
million pounds. Transfers for
disposal were up by 61
million pounds; transfers to
privately owned treatment
works and other treatment
facilities decreased.
The chemical manufactur-
ing industry reported releases
of 1.3 billion pounds for 1993,
including underground
injection of wastes. This
represents 47 percent of total
releases. Other top industries
include primary metals (329
million pounds), paper (216
million pounds), transporta-
tion equipment (136 million
pounds), and plastics (127
million pounds).
The 1993 TRI marks the
third year in which EPA and
EPA JOURNAL
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• EPA laboratories and
assessment centers are being
consolidated, and research
management authority is
being decentralized from
headquarters to the labora-
tories;
• Annual funding is being
increased from $21 million
to $100 million for extramu-
ral, investigator-initiated,
peer-reviewed competitive
research grants and centers;
• Peer review practices are
being strengthened and
expanded; and
• A national program of 300
graduate fellowships is
being created.
The National Research
Council is planning to issue
a final report on ORD
programs in 1996. It will
address the structure,
funding, and long-term
plans for EPA's research and
development program, in
addition to procedures for
laboratory site review and
research staff evaluation...."
Ongoing Enforcement
the states have asked manu-
facturers to report on efforts
to reduce the amount of waste
generated through pollution
prevention and in-plant
recycling. The latest data
indicate that, while some
facilities have chosen to
recycle toxic chemicals
instead of releasing them to
the environment, the dramatic
declines reported in earlier
inventories have ended—for
the second year in a row, the
total amount of waste gener-
ated has increased slightly.
Sterilant Testing
Concludes With
$3.1 Million in
Penalties
Following through on its
testing program to ensure
the effectiveness of sterilants
sold for health-protection
purposes, EPA is seeking a
total of $3.1 million in civil
penalties against the
registrants of eight sterilants
and the registrants of two
disinfectants that failed the
tests. The enforcement
action also includes a
number of distributors who
sold unregistered sterilants
and disinfectants.
Sterilants are used in
hospitals and in other
dental, medical, and veteri-
nary facilities to destroy
spores, bacteria, fungi, and
viruses, particularly on
medical and surgical
instruments and equipment.
Disinfectants are also used in
these facilities and in the
home to control microorgan-
isms. Under the Federal
Insecticide, Fungicide, and
Rodenticide Act (FIFRA),
sterilants and disinfectants
must satisfy testing require-
ments for registration with
EPA, and distributing or
selling an unregistered
product is an unlawful act.
The sterilants named in
the complaint are: Clidox-S,
Perfecto Germ-X/Ucarcide
602, Cetylcide-G, Wavicide-
01, Wavicide-01 Concentrate,
Alcide Expor, Alcide ABQ,
and Wipe Out. The hospital
disinfectants are Broadspec
128 and Broadspec 256. Most
of these products have
undergone label changes to
reflect new use patterns.
The seven unregistered
products include: Wipe Out
Disinfectant Towlettes (8-by
12-inch folded wipes); Wipe
Out Disinfec-
tant Towlette
(flat packs);
QuicKit
Biological
Fluid Emer-
gency Spill Kit;
Wipe Out
Household or
Office Disinfec-
tant Spray (12
ounces); Wipe
OutMedi
Disinfectant
Wand; Wipe
Out Infection
Control Travel
Kit; and Wipe
Out Disinfec-
tant Spray (2
ounces).
Oil Spills in Six States
Charged to Koch
Industries
EPA, the Department of Justice,
and the Coast Guard have filed a
civil suit against Koch Industries
and several of its subsidiaries for
unlawfully discharging millions
of gallons of oil into the waters
of six states. One of the largest
and most environmentally
harmful spills occurred in
Corpus Christi Bay on the east
coast of Texas, an area popular
with college students on spring
break. Other spills polluted
waters, including wetlands,
across the states of Kansas,
Oklahoma, Texas, Louisiana,
Missouri, and Alabama. Koch
Industries, headquartered in
Wichita, Kansas, operates
pipelines that transport crude oil
and related products from oil
fields to refineries and tank
farms. The spills occurred
primarily as a result of breaks in
gathering lines caused by
erosion.
The action, filed in the U.S.
District Court for the Southern
District of Texas, charges that,
since 1990, Koch and its subsid-
iaries were responsible for more
than 300 separate oil spills. The
suit is being brought under the
Clean Water Act, as amended by
the Oil Pollution Act. It seeks
penalties and a court order
requiring Koch to take such
actions as are necessary to
protect U.S. waters against future
spills.
Laboratory studies show that
even small amounts of oil—less
than 1 part per million—can
adversely affect a variety of
organisms that provide food for
fish. In addition, floating oil can
asphyxiate fish and animals that
live at the bottom of lakes and
rivers (benthic fauna), harm
waterfowl, and can cause
economic loss by fouling shore-
lines and beaches. The spills in
this case damaged waters, fish,
and waterfowl in various bays,
lakes, rivers, and streams. Q
Steve Delaney photo. EPA
SPRING 1995
-------
Why
Environmental
Education?
It is critical to
maintaining our
quality of life
by Carol M. Browner
In the past 25 years,environmental
education has helped the people of
this country to reach a new under-
standing. Today, more Americans than
ever before understand that to ensure a
good quality of life for ourselves and our
children, we must act as responsible
stewards of our air, our water, and our
land.
Over the past generation, environmen-
tal education has helped this nation to
harness the creativity, the imagi-
nation, and the tenacity of Ameri-
cans from all walks of life and to
put that creativity to work in the
service of public health and our
environment.
As a result, our nation has made
tremendous progress in protecting public
health and our environment. We no
longer have rivers catching on fire. Our
skies are cleaner. And U.S. environmen-
tal expertise and technology are in
demand throughout the world.
But more remains to be done. If we are
to meet the environmental challenges of
the next 25 years, we must deepen
environmental awareness among all
Americans. And we must involve many
more Americans in protecting our health
and the world we live in.
The Clinton Administration is commit-
ted to building a new generation of
environmental protection, in which those
who are affected by environmental
decisions have the maximum opportu-
nity to help make those decisions.
An informed and involved local
community always does a better job of
environmental protection than some
distant bureaucracy. If we are to move
beyond environmental regulation to true
environmental protection, Americans in
businesses and communities throughout
this country must be full and active
participants in solving environmental
problems.
Industry by industry, community by
community, the Clinton Administration
is creating new opportunities for all
Americans to do what they can best do
to protect what we all share.
Through our Common Sense Initiative,
the Clinton Administration brings people
to the table to put their heads together
and find new solutions for major indus-
tries—to achieve results that are cleaner
for the environment, cheaper for the
taxpayer and industry, and smarter for
the future of this country.
We are bringing people together to
make tough decisions and find the
solutions that work best for their com-
munity. In the San Francisco Bay Delta,
for example, we ended 30 years of water
wars by recognizing that the competing
(Rronmer is Administrator of EPA.)
The National Environmental Educa-
tion Act of 1990 charged EPA with
the responsibility for coordinating
federal environmental education
initiatives and for providing leadership
at a national level to the public and
private sectors. The act also mandated
the creation of an office of environmen-
tal education within EPA and the
operation of a number of environmen-
tal education programs and projects. As
directed by Congress, EPA created an
office at its Washington headquarters,
which developed the following
mission, goals, and programs with
support from the 10 EPA regions.
Mission:
To advance and support national
education efforts to develop an
environmentally conscious and
responsible public, and to inspire in all
individuals a sense of personal respon-
sibility for the care of the environment.
Goals:
• Expand communication
and partnerships
• Educate youth
to protect the environment
• Promote the pursuit
of environmental careers
• Educate the adult public
to increase environmental literacy
• Educate across
international boundaries.
EPA JOURNAL
-------
demands for scarce resources had to be
solved not through continued confronta-
tion, but by building consensus. Farmers,
families, and fishermen—all have a right
to water. We brought people together,
and now all will have fair access to water
resources.
Fundamental to full participation is
public access to information. Our recent
expansion of the community right-to-
know program gives citizens more
information about toxic pollution in their
neighborhoods, so they have the tools to
protect themselves, their children, and
their community.
Environmental education is essential if
Americans are to participate fully in
solving environmental problems.
This issue of EPA Journal is packed
with inspiring examples of how schools,
universities, community organizations,
businesses, and EPA are working to
deepen environmental awareness across
the country.
University educators are working to
build environmental education into a
wide variety of college courses and reach
all students, not only those majoring in
environmental sciences.
Young people are studying Agenda 21,
the document put forth at the 1992 Earth
Summit in Rio, and translating it into an
environmental action manual for kids.
EPA's Environmental Education Program
—Diane Berger
Primary Programs
and Partnerships:
• Environmental Education Grants are
awarded by EPA to promote excellence and
innovation in environmental education at
the grassroots level. Each year, universities,
schools, nonprofit organizations, and state,
local, and tribal agencies compete across
the nation to receive approximately $3
million to support local initiatives. In 1995,
approximately 250 environmental educa-
tion grants will be awarded, with much of
the funding directed into small grants of
approximately $5,000 each. These environ-
mental education grants ensure that a large
number of organizations receive seed-
money to implement projects to close gaps
in environmental education. When this
year's grants are awarded, almost 1,000
innovative projects will have been
supported by this program since it began
in 1992.
• An Environmental Teacher-Training
Program was established in 1992 through a
three-year cooperative agreement between
EPA and a consortium of universities and
organizations headed by the University of
Michigan. The consortium developed a
program to provide educators with the
materials and skills to infuse environmen-
tal education into existing curricula. Their
materials for grades K-12 and their teacher
workshops have been welJ received by the
educators involved in the training. EPA has
solicited applications for the next three-
year cooperative agreement and is cur-
rently evaluating the submitted proposals.
• The National Network for Environmental
Management Studies (NNEMS) is a fellow-
ship program that encourages college
students to pursue professional environ-
mental careers. The program provides
students from over 150 participating
universities with the opportunity to receive
stipends for completing research projects.
Each year, EPA program managers and
scientists design new NNEMS research
projects based on agency priorities. Out of
a field of over 1,000 organizations, NNEMS
was named "One of America's Top 100
Internships" in the Princeton Review.
• The President's Environmental Youth
Awards (PEYA) Program recognizes youth
across America for creating projects that
demonstrate their outstanding commit-
ment to the environment. All PEYA
nominees receive certificates from EPA's 10
regional offices; one from each region
becomes a national winner. The national
winners are brought to Washington, DC,
for an annual awards ceremony. (See article
on page 20.)
• The Tribal Lands Environmental Science
Scholarship Program provides college
students with funding to pursue under-
graduate and graduate degrees in the
environmental sciences. EPA created this
program to increase the number of Native
Americans working at EPA and on
reservations to improve the environmental
protection of Indian lands. Over 50
students per year now receive scholarships.
• Environmental Education Awards are
issued bi-annually by EPA to recognize
outstanding career contributions to
environmental education. Four award
categories honor excellence in teaching,
literature, natural-resource management,
and film/broadcast media. Recent award
recipients were: Howard Michaud for over
70 years of contributions to the field of
environmental education; Bradley Dean for
his book Faith in a Seed; Terry Daniel for
development of "Green Scene," an environ-
mental education kit for teachers and
students focusing on forest ecology and
wilderness issues; and Shirley Briggs for
her book Basic Guide to Pesticides.
• The National Environmental Education and
Training Foundation (NEETF) is a nonprofit
organization that fosters partnerships
between the public and private sectors to
fund and develop environmental education
programs and initiatives. Congress
authorized NEETF in the same legislation
as EPA's Environmental Education
Division to create two organizations which
complement each other in advancing
environmental education nationally and
internationally.
• Youth Programs and Conferences of various
types have been developed through
partnerships between EPA and other
organizations. Examples of such projects
include: development of an educational
computer game, "Operation Watershed," in
partnership with the National 4-H Council;
development and implementation of the
Teaching Resources and Individual Leadership
(T.R.A.l.L, Boss) Manual with the national
Boy Scouts of America; and cosponsoting a
national environmental youth summit
planned and organized entirely by youth.
(Berger is a program analyst with the
Environmental Education Division of EPA's
Office of Communications, Education, and
Public Affairs, where she manages tfie Tribal
Lands Scholarship Program.)
SPRING 1995
-------
EPA
Administrator
Browner shows
sixth-grade sctetice
students how to
filter water for a
science project.
This Earth Day
event took place at
Ross Elementary
School,
Washington, DC.
Jim Johnson photo EPA.
Twenty-five business schools have
teamed up to teach future managers
how to incorporate environmental
protection into their day-to-day
decisions.
Vice President Al Gore has launched
a new program, called GLOBE, that
links school children and scientists
around the world to make measure-
ments and observations of the environ-
ment.
Through grants, EPA is funding
state and local programs that are
bringing environmental education into
the public-school classroom and to the
adult public. Other programs are
training teachers to teach about our
environment. Still others bring envi-
ronmental education to tribal lands.
A program in Brooklyn, New York,
teaches children and adults to value
and preserve the best in their urban
environment.
The President's Environmental Youth
Awards recognize outstanding envi-
ronmental achievement by young
Expanding informa-
tion, expanding
involvement: These
are key to solving
environmental
problems.. . .
people—such as the Georgia students
who started a recycling center and
reduced trash in the county landfill by
300,000 pounds.
All of these fine efforts are educating
Americans old and young, so that they
can participate fully in protecting their
family, their community, and their
world. This vital work must continue
and expand.
Two in five Americans still live in
areas where the air is dangerous to
breathe. Forty percent of our rivers
and lakes are not suitable for drink-
ing, fishing, or swimming. In Milwau-
kee in 1993, hundreds of thousands of
people got sick from contaminated
drinking water; 100 died. Asthma is
on the rise. Breast cancer is on the rise.
And we face complex global environ-
mental problems.
Expanding information, expanding
involvement: These are key to solving
environmental problems—problems
as small as the contamination of the
local creek and problems as large as
the ozone hole.
Working together—as educators,
governments, businesses, and citi-
zens—we can continue to deepen
environmental understanding
throughout this country and enable
millions of Americans to participate in
passing along a safe, healthy world to
our children and our grandchildren. Q
EPA JOURNAL
-------
Preparing for the Next Century
Public understanding is critical
by Senator John H. Chafee
Discovering life
at the shoreline.
Environmental
education leads
to public
support for
environmental
protection.
Mike Brisson photo. University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. Copyri&ted.
Last November's election sharp-
ened profoundly the debate on
environmental issues in Congress.
Although protection of the environment
was not a determining factor in the
Republican takeover of Congress, the
current anti-government, anti-regulation
mood is directed more and more at the
environment. Unfortunately, the attack
is fueled in part by sometimes mislead-
ing anecdotes of duplicative and costly
regulations required under various
environmental laws, such as the Clean
Air Act and the Endangered Species Act.
(Senator Chafee [R-Rhode Island] chairs t\ie
Senate Environment and Public Works
Committee.)
Day after day, newspaper and televi-
sion reports detail the burden of environ-
mental regulation—requirements for safe
drinking water, industrial clean-up and
the preservation of wildlife habitat—
with little mention of the great advan-
tages of a safe and healthy environment.
However, many of the complex and
interrelated problems plaguing our
environment cannot be explained
adequately in a newspaper article or a
two-minute segment on the evening
news. As the vast majority of Americans
receive no formal education or training
on environmental issues, the media
remain the major source of information
and guidance.
Certainly, some environmental issues,
such as cleanup of our nation's lakes and
streams, are much easier to understand
than others. So many of us live near
bodies of water and benefit directly and
tangibly from these resources. Citizens
are outraged, and rightly so, by the
dumping of chemicals and sewage into
our recreational waterways. All across
the country, people have become part of
the public policy process demanding
cleaner water.
Congress and state governments have
responded by developing water-quality
guidelines and providing funding for the
construction of sewage treatment plants.
Take the Clean Water Act—approved in
1972 by a Congress that was shocked
when the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland
SPRING 1995
-------
caught fire as a result of pollution. In that
law, Congress set some very ambitious
goals, including the elimination of all
discharges into surface waters.
We have not attained zero pollution
yet, but we have made tremendous
strides. Some of our most polluted
waters, like Lake Erie and the Potomac
River, have made remarkable recoveries
because of the public call for clean water.
Narragansett Bay in my home State of
Rhode Island is another illustration of
what an informed public and, in turn,
regulation and funding can do to
preserve a precious water resource.
Not all environmental problems—nor
their solutions—are as easy to under-
stand and to solve as point-source
pollution, however. How many people
understand the devastation of the Earth's
ozone layer by chemicals such as
chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs)? Without the
proper information or a scientific
background, people understandably
have difficulty grasping how a hole in
the atmosphere, thousands of miles
away, could affect their livelihoods. Yet,
according to EPA, ozone depletion is one
of the most serious environmental
threats facing the planet.
Likewise, how many people under-
stand the concepts of cost-benefit
analysis and risk assessment so often
talked about with respect to environmen-
tal laws? I would guess not many. And
yet these concepts have been viewed as
the guiding principles of the environ-
mental reform movement and this
Congress' "First 100 Days."
It is imperative that we prepare for the
coming century through environmental
education. We cannot hope to implement
solutions to our environmental threats
without the involvement of an educated
and scientifically literate public. Only
then will the political debate and
direction of environmental policy focus
on real risks and not anecdotes that make
catchy news copy. Education is the key.
Environmental education will lead to
the development of public understand-
ing of, and support for, national and
international efforts to protect our
limited natural resources. The need for a
broad, interdisciplinary approach to
environmental education—both in
formal settings such as school curricula
and through less structured channels
such as community involvement—has
never been more urgent than it is today.
As Congress races to complete action on
the agendas of the "Second 100" and
"Third 100" Days, our citizens need to be
informed so that decisions are based on
sound science, not sound bites.
Our nation makes a substantial
investment, billions of dollars, in protect-
ing human health and the environment
With that level of commitment, it is
important that we do it right, and with
Citizens need to be
informed so that decisions
are based on sound
science, not sound bites.
the best tools available. Times have
indeed changed. Until this century,
humans have been virtually incapable of
causing irreparable harm to the environ-
ment. We lived on a seemingly limitless
expanse of land with plentiful water
resources. If we overutilized a particular
area, we could always move farther west
and south. That time is no more. Even
the most remote areas of our country are
facing development. Over the past few
years, we have become painfully aware
of the tradeoffs between development
and environmental protection. Coastal
erosion, oil spills, and contamination of
our drinking water supplies are no
longer mere threats, but real world
problems.
The most important tool we have to
deal with these assaults on our environ-
ment is education. Already we have
made progress. In 1990,1 joined in
authoring the National Environmental
Education Act. This legislation was
designed to increase public understand-
ing of the natural environment, and to
advance and develop environmental
education and training. Administered by
EPA, the Environmental Education
Grants Program created by that law has
educated students, individuals, and
communities in all 50 states about air
and water pollution, watershed and
ecosystem protection, and a host of other
pressing issues. The vast majority of
grants is directed to local communities
for grassroots projects where the need is
greatest.
In Rhode Island, education grants have
funded a university project to teach
middle-school students about global
climate change, an Audubon Society
effort to teach seventh and eighth
graders about the effects of pollution on
Narragansett Bay, and a study by the
Rhode Island Zoological Society to
provide an international perspective on
water conservation by monitoring
ecosystems in Rhode Island and Colom-
bia. The aim is clear: to bring environ-
mental education into the classroom and
the community. Environmental educa-
tion and science are not only for the
professional in the field or laboratory,
but for all of us.
This kind of personal involvement in
our environmental future is essential.
The environmental-education-policy
mission cannot be carried out by a few
from the top down. It must come from
the bottom up, through local communi-
ties, grade schools, high schools, and our
colleges and universities. The best way
to encourage environmental protection is
to demonstrate how environmental
degradation hurts each one of us. And
that means education. This is our
mission for the 21st century and beyond.
Over the years, our nation has enjoyed
some impressive environmental suc-
cesses, but there is much more to be
done. And education is the key. We must
make environmental education a part of
our lives. If education is encouraged,
citizens will understand and take on
their role as stewards of this Earth.
Together we will be in a position to get
beyond the rhetoric and deal with the
real threats facing our environment The
goal is worth it. We have only one planet
to ride on—let's pass it on to future
generations in better condition than we
found it. Q
10
EPA JOURNAL
-------
The
Environmental
Education
Advisory
Council
by Arva Jackson
I he outcome of the contest de-
scribed by H.G. Wells as "a race
between education and catastro-
phe" will be determined, in part, by our
resourcefulness and creativity in educat-
ing the public on the interdependency of
the environment and humanity. EPA
established the National Environmental
Education Advisory Council in Novem-
ber 1991, as mandated under the 1990
National Environmental Education Act
to assist, the Agency in realizing this goal.
In recently appointing new members to
serve on the council, EPA Administrator
Carol Browner encouraged the council to
play a strong role in helping EPA guide
its environmental education program
and stated her belief that "the Council's
perspective will greatly enhance EPA's
efforts to support the field."
Eleven citizens serve on the council.
They hail from the heartland (Nebraska,
Dlinois, and Kansas), the coasts (Georgia,
Maryland, Massachusetts, Maine, and
Washington state), the desert (Arizona),
the Great Lakes (Wisconsin), and the
nation's capital. They are six women and
five men; they include a teacher (and
several former teachers); two university
professors; representatives from several
conservation, education, and environ-
mental nonprofit organizations; state
government representatives, including
an extension forester; two businessmen;
and myself, a "senior American" and
retiree from the federal government, now
serving as chair of the council.
The common thread that binds the
members in their individual and collec-
tive interests is support for EPA's
successful implementation of the act.
Here are some perspectives from council
members on why environmental educa-
tion is a priority:
Judy Braus, Director of Environmental
Education, World Wildlife Fund
"Environmental education is important
because it helps people understand how
their actions and choices affect the
environment. I am involved in environ-
mental education because I believe it will
help create an informed and committed
citizenry that understands the connec-
tion between a healthy environment and
a quality life."
Richard Wilke, Associate Dean, College
of Natural Resources, University of
Wisconsin-Stevens Point
"Prevention is a better strategy than
enforcement or remediation, and envi-
ronmental education is the best approach
to preventing environmental problems. I
firmly believe that environmental
education is our best hope of achieving a
sustainable society and that there is no
better way for me to contribute to the
preservation of both environmental
quality and our quality of life than by
teaching about the importance of
protecting the environment."
Peter Corcoran, Associate Professor and
Chair of the Education Department,
Bates College, Maine
"Environmental education is important
because it provides the knowledge to
make intelligent decisions, the values
and skills to implement them, and, at its
best, the hope that they will make a
difference. I am involved in environmen-
tal education because it feeds the fire of
my passion for the Earth."
Council Priorities
The current priorities of the council
include:
• Developing a report to Congress which
assesses the state of environmental
education in this country. The report is
expected to discuss why environmental
education is critical, timely, and relevant,
especially in light of current education
reform efforts. It will provide recommen-
dations to the field—to EPA and other
federal agencies, states, schools, universi-
ties, and nonprofit organizations—on
how to improve existing efforts. It will
also suggest ways for EPA to strengthen
its role in providing leadership for the
field as envisioned by Congress in
passing the act.
• Providing advice and recommenda-
tions on EPA's September 1995 award of
a three-year cooperative agreement to a
university or nonprofit organization to
operate the National Environmental
Education and Training Program.
• Providing advice and recommenda-
tions on EPA's annual Environmental
Education Grants Program, which
provides funds to support programs
operated by states, schools and universi-
ties, and nonprofit organizations. The
1995 grant awards were announced this
past spring.
• Helping EPA improve its communica-
tion, coordination, and information
exchange with environmental and
educational groups, and other sectors of
society.
In addition to those named above, the
following currently serve on the council:
Kristina Allen, Arizona Department of
Education
Rodney Bates, Bates and Associates,
Nebraska
Kathleen Blanchard, Quebec-Labrador
Foundation, Massachusetts
Steve Hulbert, Hulbert Pontiac,
Washington
Kathryn Fox May, Blue Ridge Elemen-
tary School, Georgia
Virginia Sue Smith, Keep America
Beautiful, Illinois
John Strickler, Kansas State Univer-
sity/Kansas Department of Wildlife and
Parks. Q
(Jackson chairs EPA's Environmental
Education Advisory Council. Sfie is retired
from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration.)
SPRING 1995
11
-------
Where Are the Gaps
In Environmental Education?
Disadvantaged kids have different needs and concerns
by David B. Rockland
eaders of EPA Journal most likely
place environmental protection
.high on a list of society's priori-
ties. But what about a kid growing up in
Anacostia or in the Bronx? Where
violence, guns, and drugs are everyday
concerns, do Wds see the environment
as comparably important? And how
should environmental education pro-
grams be designed to reach disadvan-
taged children, who are most likely to be
exposed to environmental risks, and not
just middle-class kids?
Many of us with children have found
that they are our environmental con-
science. When my seven-year-old asks
me to set up a recycling center at home,
and my six-year-old berates me for not
turning off the water when I brush my
teeth, I know who the real environmental
activists in the family are. But where do
they get their environmental informa-
tion? What motivates them? And as they
grow older, will their environmental
awareness have been a fad?
To find the answers to these questions,
the National Environmental Education
and Training Foundation (NEETF), with
funding from EPA, conducted a national
survey of students, grades 4-12, on their
environmental concerns, education, and
actions. The survey includes a special
focus on disadvantaged youth (defined
as students from neighborhoods where
30 percent or more of the population is at
or below the poverty line).
Chartered by Congress in 1990, NEETF
works to create a national and interna-
tional environmentally literate citizenry
and workforce; facilitate partnerships
among federal, state, and local govern-
(Dr. Rockland is President of the National
Environmental Education and Training
Foundation.)
ment, business, industry, academia,
environmental groups, and international
organizations; leverage public and
private resources for environmental
education, training, and research; and
foster an environmentally conscious and
committed public. As part of this
mission, NEETF conducts research to
identify critical gaps in environmental
education to discern how the foundation,
and others, might best focus available
resources to fill gaps in environmental
education.
To develop a better understanding of
the level of environmental knowledge
and behavior among today's youth,
NEETF contracted Roper Starch World-
wide in 1994 to conduct a two-part
national survey; the resulting report is
called Environmental Attitudes and
Behaviors of American Students.
Part One surveyed a representative
cross-section of American students
nationwide, grades 4-12. Part Two
focused on students from disadvantaged
areas. The survey used a school-based
methodology to interview a nationally
representative cross-section of 982 youth
in 42 schools and 2,139 youth from
disadvantaged areas in 91 schools.
Interviewing for the cross-section was
conducted between April 28 and May 31,
1994; interviewing for the sample of
youth from disadvantaged areas was
conducted between September 23 and
October 24,1994.
This was the first comprehensive
survey on environmental views and
educational needs to focus on disadvan-
taged youth. It is important to study
students living in disadvantaged socio-
economic circumstances due to their
higher exposure to environmental
hazards; their often limited opportunities
to experience nature; and the many other
critical concerns in their lives relative to
environmental issues. The results of this
survey should open the gateway for the
public and private sectors to join forces
to fill the discernible gaps in environ-
mental education, especially regarding
disadvantaged youth.
Key results from the two surveys are
summarized below.
All Students
•Among 10 critical issues affecting
youth today, solving environmental
problems is second, behind only AIDS,
among things youth would personally
like to make better.
•Seventy-four percent of the students
said they learn about the environment
from television, 50 percent from school,
31 percent from newspapers, and 28
percent from their families.
• Younger children (grades 4-5) report
the highest levels of knowledge about
the environment; they also give the
highest ratings to the quality of environ-
mental education, they receive itv school.
There is a rapid decline in both ratings
each year thereafter, with high school
students reporting the least knowledge
and the lowest quality of curricular
environmental education.
•Girls are more likely than boys to
worry about the environment
• Protection of the rain forest and the
consequences of the ozone hole are the
top environmental issues of concern to
American students; lead poisoning and
energy shortages are rated at the bottom
of the 19 issues listed.
•American youth and their families take
environmental actions including saving
energy (78 percent), recycling (69
percent), and saving water (67 percent).
Those with a higher level of environmen-
tal knowledge and education in school
also report higher levels of action.
12
EPA JOURNAL
-------
For
disadvantaged
youth, their
health is
the main
environmental
concern.
Sam Kittner photo. Copyri&ted
• Recycling, air pollution, and littering
are environmental issues that students
say they know most about, whereas
damage to the ozone layer, endangered
species (animals, plants, and insects),
and global warming are environmental
issues they want to learn more about.
• The key to getting youth involved in
environmental issues is getting them
close to nature; 56 percent report this as
their top choice for getting involved with
environmental issues, compared to 27
percent for the second most selected
choice, being rewarded with coupons
redeemable for prizes.
Students from
Disadvantaged Areas
•The environment ranks eighth among a
list of 10 societal issues that students
from disadvantaged areas want to make
better; AIDS is number one, and the
economy is number two.
• Despite the more pressing concerns in
their lives, students from disadvantaged
areas are as likely as all students to say
they are interested in helping the
environment.
• Students from disadvantaged areas
ranked shortages of good drinking water,
lead poisoning, acid rain, and energy
shortages as issues of greater concern
than did students from non-disadvan-
taged areas.
• Human health is by a wide margin the
number one reason students from
disadvantaged areas give for protecting
the environment in general.
• Disadvantaged kids want to focus on
solving immediate environmental
problems, such as air-pollution sources
or waste sites in their neighborhoods, to
a far greater degree than do non-
disadvantaged students.
• Students from disadvantaged areas
place greater emphasis on a clean
environment here and now than do non-
disadvantaged students; the latter opt for
a clean environment in the future and for
protecting plants and animals.
Several significant implications for
environmental education emerge from
the survey. High-school environmental
education, for example, appears to fall
short. These students are about to
become adults, and we need to make
sure they are as well prepared as possible
to deal with the environmental issues
they will face.
Kids enjoy and learn well through
experiential, hands-on techniques, and
TV is clearly kids' top choice for getting
environmental information. Although
the fact that kids watch so much televi-
sion is generally considered negative,
this could be seen in a positive context.
In the next few years, the TV, computer,
and telephone could all become one
instrument and the primary source of all
household information. The environmen-
tal education world needs to keep the
pending transition to multi-media
information-and-entertainment sources
in mind as we develop programs for the
future.
The data clearly show that non-
disadvantaged youth, as compared to
their disadvantaged counterparts, have a
more altruistic focus on environmental
problems and are relatively more
concerned about plants and animals, and
about future generations. Youth from
disadvantaged areas are more concerned
about present and immediate environ-
mental problems, most likely because
they live with health-threatening
problems day in and day out. However,
all students agree that human health is
the top reason to protect the environ-
ment.
Environmental Attitudes and Behaviors of
American Youth is the first comprehensive
survey on environmental views and
educational needs with a focus on
disadvantaged youth. As the public and
private sectors join forces to develop
programs and to set goals, standards,
and expectations for environmental
education, NEETF will continue to
explore key questions.
To find out how you can receive a copy
of the survey, call NEETF at 202 628-
8200.a
SPRING 1995
13
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GLOBE Partnership Launched
Kids and scientists are collaborating worldwide
by Thomas N. Pyke, Jr.
magine a program that:
• Boosts worldwide scientific under-
standing of the Earth.
• Spurs environmental awareness of
people everywhere.
• Raises students' achievement in
science and mathematics.
An extraordinary new program called
GLOBE—Global Learning and Obser-
vation to Benefit the Environment—is
pursuing all three of these goals in a
real-world framework. The program
works through partnerships, effectively
joining together the minds and hands of
thousands of young people, school
teachers, scientists, and others around
the world.
GLOBE was launched on Earth Day
1995. Charter participants included
students in hundreds of schools around
the United States and in other nations,
all ready to begin making scientifically
sound measurements and observations
of their environment and to share the
resulting data by using state-of-the-art
communications systems. That was just
the kick-off. Almost 2,000 schools have
signed up to take part in the program,
and we expect the numbers to keep
growing.
To see how GLOBE works, consider
some representative scenes:
A group of 10-year-olds gathers
outside their grade school early in the
morning to measure air temperature
and precipitation, and to record the
amount and type of cloud cover.
At the same time in another state,
some high schoolers carefully record
the amount of moisture in the soil at
three different levels below the surface.
They discuss their findings with their
teacher and punch data into a com-
puter.
Later that day, some junior high
students in still another part of the
country use their computer's Internet
"electronic highway" hookup to trans-
(Pyke is Director of t)ie GLOBE program.)
14
mit information on the acidity of local
rainwater to a science-data-collection
center.
Meanwhile, students on other conti-
nents carry out identical work and study.
This is not busywork: They are student-
scientists gathering technically sound
measurements that they—and well-
known scientists—will use to learn more
about our planet.
At the data center, scientists and
technicians combine the information
from the many GLOBE schools with that
received from other sources, such as
satellite-carried instruments. Together,
those data help form global pictures of
various Earth environmental conditions
such as temperature and soil moisture
levels.
The next day, students at GLOBE
schools flip on their computers and see
what the data center has returned:
visualizations in vibrant color and clear
design depicting the knowledge the
students helped gain about the world.
The students may first choose to
examine atmospheric measurements and
then, with a touch, switch to biomass
readings. They consider the findings:
What do the patterns say about global
conditions? How do their local data
compare to global data? They discuss
these issues with their teachers, who are
trained in GLOBE's science-education
technical program.
With another touch, students shift
from the global to a regional view of
various findings. Where else in the
country—where else in the world—are
there data like their own? They commu-
nicate directly with some schools in their
state and a school on another continent,
discussing their findings. They also
check their own files on local and global
measurements to see how the new data
compare to last month's.
Back at the GLOBE science center, the
data collected by students are prepared
for use by scientists who need data
gathered from far-flung places. The
Students
record daily
maximum
and minimum
temperatures
taken by
special
thermometers.
Shelter reduces
influence of
sunlight.
StevsDtlamy photo. EPA.
EPA JOURNAL
-------
Students participating in
GLOBE consider data gathered
by their counterparts from
around the world.
Steve Delaney pbcto. EPA.
scientists' deductions from studies using
GLOBE and other data will be shared
with the world at large, increasing our
collective understanding of the Earth.
Starting Up
The vision for GLOBE was first ex-
pressed by Vice President Al Gore. The
program has been planned and imple-
mented by a U.S. government inter-
agency team. Participating agencies
include the National Oceanographic and
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA),
the National Aeronautic and Space
Administration (NASA), the Departments
of State and Education, the National
Science Foundation, and EPA. Following
are some highlights of the startup phase
of the program:
• Over 100 nations have expressed
interest in GLOBE. As of this writing, the
United States has signed bilateral
agreements with more than 20 countries.
Each participating country will operate
the program within its own borders.
• GLOBE conferred early on with
leaders of successful environmental
education projects and programs to enlist
their advice and their involvement in this
new worldwide system.
• GLOBE worked with prestigious
scientists from various disciplines to
determine what data would best serve
the needs of science, and with leading
educators to decide what would best
enhance students' learning.
* GLOBE brought educators and
scientists together to determine what
knowledge and training would be
needed by teachers and students to
enable them to conduct the work; what
data such students can accurately obtain;
and what kinds of conceptual and
analytical skills students will be building
through their participation.
• GLOBE involved top-notch systems
analysts and computer-visualization
specialists for Internet and school
computer support, to process GLOBE
data, and to develop pictorial informa-
tion that is informative, understandable,
and attractive to youngsters of various
ages.
• GLOBE education teams have held
training sessions around the country to
show teachers how to institute the
program, supervise the gathering and
transmission of data, and analyze the
results with the students.
• Several hundred schools won limited
federal assistance in securing computers
and scientific measuring instruments and
helping teachers attend GLOBE training
workshops.
Growing and Growing
With GLOBE's startup underway,
scientist-educator teams are working to
enhance the scientific and educational
content of the program—and to reach
out to thousands of schools. As the
program grows, more schools will be
looking for assistance. To help on this
front, a nongovernment partner is being
selected to coordinate the gathering of
financial support from the private sector.
Even schools that cannot yet conduct
GLOBE measurements can benefit from
the program by using the Internet to
receive GLOBE data, on-screen global
visualizations based on those data, and
on-line educational material. Anyone
with access to the Internet will be able to
"look in" and learn. Also, as GLOBE
expands, its data and imagery may be
publicly disseminated by news and
weather organizations and through
various scientific, educational, and
governmental information systems.
Given the reception GLOBE has
received in the United States and around
the world, I am confident the program
will grow rapidly in the coming years
and contribute on a large scale to the
environmental awareness of many
millions of people and an improved
scientific understanding of our planet. Q
GLOBE Measurements
Atmosphere/Climate
• Air temperatures
• Precipitation levels
• Cloud cover
Hydrology/Water Chemistry
• Water temperature and pH
• Soil moisture
Biology/Geology
• Biometrics
• Species identification
• Land cover
• Phenology (seasonal change)
Note: Additional measurements to be added
in the future
For further information contact:
GLOBE
744 Jackson Place, NW.
Washington, IDC 20503
Phone: 202 395-6500
Fax:202395-7611
A GLOBE overview on the Internet is at:
http://www.globe.gov/
The E-mail address is: info@globe.gov
SPRING 1995
15
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Eco-Ed Grows in Brooklyn
by David Lutz
Education can build sustainable urban communities
' hether bringing children to a
park pond to discover tad-
poles or teaching them about
the strength and structure of the Brook-
lyn Bridge by suspending ropes from
their shoulders, the Brooklyn Center for
the Urban Environment (BCUE) is not a
traditional environmental education
organization. The center was founded in
1978 by Brooklyn's own John Muir, who
sees the city as an intricate and positive
part of the environment Consistent with
that vision, he has structured a program
that encourages young people to appre-
ciate the city's built and designed
aspects, as well as study and care for the
islands of green space that help lend
harmony to the built environment Thus,
a day spent with BCUE is as likely to
include searching for animals carved in
stone as for insects under rotting logs in
Brooklyn's Prospect Park.
Mr. Muir never shared the antipathy
for things urban displayed by his 19th
century relative and namesake. Never-
theless, he came gradually to his commit-
ment to teaching others about the riches
of urban life. A former university
teacher, Muir joined the staff of a large
Staten Island park and nature preserve in
the 1970s. "I learned that people had a
high perception of crowdedness and dirt
in the city—and a low perception of the
amenities of an urban environment," he
recounts. "I realized that I had been
unwittingly contributing to these anti-
urban attitudes. We used to get bus loads
of kids from inner city neighborhoods
and often they would leave our park
(Lutz is program director of Neighborhood
Open Space Coalition, a New York-based
advocacy organization. A lifelong urban
environmentalist, he was among the original
volunteers who started South Street Seaport,
an architectural and maritime preservation
project in lower Manhattan. He is the
principal designer of New York's Metropolitan
Greenways System, a 350-mile system of
multimodal trails being built with Federal
Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency
Actfunds.)
with the attitude that the forest was good
and their neighborhood back home was
bad. It was not the kind of message that
contributes to self-esteem or a sense of
stewardship and responsibility."
When BCUE started in 1978, Muir and
his staff tried to get people to look at
elements of the built environment the
same way they look at the natural
environment "Buildings really are as
diverse and classifiable as trees," he says.
"There are natural processes taking place
on buildings; the stones weather like
boulders, contain visible fossils, and
have been placed here from all over the
world."
Looking at the urban environment in
this way brings surprising discoveries.
For example, Bedford-Stuyvesant,
widely perceived as an enormous slum,
is in many ways among the finest urban
neighborhoods in the country. It contains
a large stock of sturdy and elegant 19th
century row houses on tree-lined blocks.
It has an effective and energy-efficient
infrastructure. The urban disinvestment
of the 1960s, reported nationwide in the
pictures of burning buildings and
confirmed in the abandonment of whole
neighborhoods by the middle class, has
resulted in significant amounts of new
open space that are being re-cycled into
community gardens, ball fields, and even
re-naturalized spaces. In Bedford-
Stuyvesant and elsewhere, preservation
and planning build community and
empower local people to resolve neigh-
borhood problems. As John Muir says,
"There will be a future when this kind of
[urban community] space is valued
above today's unsustainable suburban
sprawl. And we are training the environ-
mentalists of the future to help sustain
our urban environments."
The not-for-profit BCUE accomplishes
this ambitious mission with a daily
program of classes for students ranging
from kindergarten through 12th-grade
levels, after-school programs, adults' and
children's tours, an urban environmental
science summer camp, and exhibits on
the urban environment at BCUE's
headquarters in the Tennis House in
Prospect Park.
Currently on exhibit are photographer
Brian Rose's pictures of Prospect Park,
including sections that will be closed to
the public during the major landscape
restoration project that is about to begin.
[See story on page 40.) Over 100,000
school children have experienced one or
more of BCUE's programs, and many
more have been influenced by the
organization's efforts to pass environ-
mental education skills on to the city's
teachers through teaching seminars and
courses. A weekly program of walks and
tours for adults, encompassing natural,
historic, and built elements of Brooklyn,
is publicized through the organization's
newsletter, CityGreen, and attracts both
residents and visitors to the borough.
Recent tours have included such off-beat
explorations as neighborhood noshing
(snacking) tours, tunnel tours, and boat
touis. Also offered are inside looks at
Brooklyn's environmental attractions
such as the Coney Island Aquarium and
tours of the "renaturalizing" parts of
Brooklyn, such as Gateway National
Recreation Area, among the most
biologically diverse places in North
America. (A free copy of the newsletter is
sent to all who write for one.)
This spring, BCUE celebrated the
newly completed renovation of its
Prospect Park headquarters with a series
of parties and events. The Tennis House
is a 1910 classical revival Palladian-style
building with an arched court open to
the air. The structure sits on a short bluff
above a meadow in the park that was
designed by Frederick Law Olmsted in
the 1860s, following his work on Central
Park; Prospect Park has long been
considered his masterpiece.
Mr. Olmsted was as ambivalent about
the placement of this kind of structure in
his parks as many environmentalists are
about the growth of cities on the green
planet. The irony of this is not lost on the
contemporary Muir, who instills in his
staff a working knowledge that playing
out our nation's "house-and-land"
16
EPA JOURNAL
-------
philosophy in the contemporary world
will destroy what our nation has for so
long prized. If we continue to ring our
cities with newer and bigger develop-
ments of unattached houses, shopping
strips, and malls, increasing amounts of
formerly rural landscape will be changed
into environmentally inefficient minia-
ture "estates." Q
Building the Eiffel
Tower in Brooklyn.
At the Brooklyn
Center for the Urban
Environment, fourth-
grade students in the
Arches and Bridges
Program learn some
important engineering
principles.
Sixth and
seventh
graders are a
little
frightened as
they enter
America's first
urban railroad
tunnel, built in
1844.
A Subterranean Excursion
On a BCUE field trip to an abandoned railroad tunnel, 20 sixth
and seventh graders climbed down the cold metal ladder into
the manhole in the center of a busy Brooklyn avenue. About six
feet below the street, they followed a narrow passage until they
reached a hole in the wall. On the other side of the hole was an
apparently large arched chamber with a 15-foot staircase down
to solid ground. The world below was dark, damp—and
warmer than expected.
The children were noisy and a little frightened as they
entered America's first urban railroad tunnel, the precursor to
the subway, built in 1844 and only recently rediscovered. They
also got quite dirty. Below ground, the children learned about
the living ecology of the lost tunnel: the fungus that grows on
the walls, the absence of rats (no running water), the spider
webs on the roof that capture moisture and create a sparkling
Pi ul Sheridan photo. Copyrighted.
display when flashlights are shined on them, and of course, the
"ghosts" believed to inhabit the space. A ritual moment of silence
in total darkness followed the ghost stories.
Preparation and follow-up for the trip were more practical.
These included a participatory demonstration on how a catenary
arch is built, information about other arch forms, insight into the
careers of architecture, engineering, and construction, a history of
railroads, ferries, and trolleys, and a "city planning" exercise in
which the young people planned trolley lines to their schools and
learned some principles of transportation planning. Toward the
end of the program, the young people were asked if they would
like to volunteer to help with the job of excavating the tunnel.
About two-thirds of them said they would. This may lead to a
summer camp program doing an archeological dig in the tunnel
where a steam locomotive is thought to be buried.
SPRING 1995
17
-------
Problem-Solving in Las Vegas
Students are building skills and a global network
With assistance from EPA,
students at Silverado High
School in Las Vegas, Nevada,
are learning first-hand about the collec-
tion, analysis, and interpretation of
scientific data. The project started when
one of us—science teacher Don Curry—
received a grant to assist students in
using telecommunications to collect
information about the environment.
Initially, the students selected a portion
of the Flamingo Wash, which runs west
to east across Las Vegas, to monitor the
water for dissolved oxygen, carbon
dioxide, nitrates, phosphates, pH, and
temperature. To reach this stretch of the
wash, the students had to travel over a
busy city street, and this made them
aware of the number of vehicles in the
area, the noise they created, and the
malodorous exhaust that fumigated
passers-by. Consequently, the students
added air quality to their concerns and
decided to take measurements of carbon
dioxide, carbon monoxide, and ozone.
Some students also became interested in
radon.
At this point Curry sought help from
EPA's Radiation and Indoor Air Labora-
tory in Las Vegas, and our collaboration
began. We agreed that the lab would
train the students in radon-analysis
procedures and supply charcoal canisters
for taking measurements. The canisters
could be used to measure radon levels at
schools in other states as well as at local
schools.
Meanwhile, the students exchanged
their water-quality data for data from
their peers in other states via the
Internet. As messages flowed back and
forth between Las Vegas and such places
as Texas, Georgia, Massachusetts,
Hawaii, and Alaska, students gained
(Budd is a health physicist with EPA's Office of
Radiation and Indoor Air Laboratory in Las
Vegas. Curry teaches chemistry, biology, and
marine science at Silverado High School.
Graduating senior Mark Kelleher {University of
Nevada, Las Vegas] also assisted with this article.)
insight into issues other than water
quality. Messages contained information
about school dress codes, sports, movies,
and music. Connections increased to
include schools in Russia, Poland, the
Czech Republic, Italy, Africa, Australia,
and the Ukraine. The students enlight-
ened each other on social conditions,
family life, homework, entertainment,
weather conditions, and dating customs.
Education took on a new meaning for
the students when they learned that
many things taken for granted in the
United States are considered luxuries in
other countries. They became intrigued
by comparisons of all kinds. Some of
their peers had to wear uniforms to
school; one group attended classes in a
building constructed 180 years ago—
decades before Nevada became a U.S.
possession. In one European school there
was no telephone. The teacher had to use
a phone in a community office to send
and receive e-mail messages. Perhaps the
biggest surprise was that students in
other countries could communicate in
English.
Excitement grew as students used their
PC and modem to extend invitations to
other schools to join their radon assess-
ment "network." They scheduled library
time to study the health effects of radon
and locations where radon levels were
especially high. Most of the students
were enrolled in foreign language
courses, and they were encouraged to
use their budding linguistic skills to
communicate in the native languages of
other countries. Teachers in the Silverado
High School foreign language depart-
ment helped them compose e-mail
messages, and instructors in the English
Silverado High School students analyze radon
charcoal canisters at EPA's laboratory in Las Vegas.
D. Gardner photo.
18
EPA JOURNAL
-------
department assisted them in structuring
their written reports. Math instructors
guided them in preparing graphs of their
data. When the end of the school year
brought work to a temporary halt, the
project had become truly cross-curricu-
lar.
At the EPA lab that summer, the
students received a one-week training
session in the nature and extent of the
radon problem, and that was followed
by a "hands-on" laboratory period to
instruct them in the use of instruments
and equipment. Additionally, they were
required to complete a radiation-safety
class.
For the next school year, EPA's Na-
tional Network for Environmental
Management Studies (NNEMS) pro-
vided a fellowship for someone to
coordinate activities between the Agency
and the school. NNEMS is a federal
environmental fellowship program
designed to give university students the
opportunity to work with environmental
professionals and encourage them to
pursue careers in environmental protec-
tion fields. Mark Kelleher, a senior
pursuing an environmental studies
major at the University of Nevada, Las
Vegas, was chosen to fill this part-time
position; his initial responsibilities
included assisting students with the
distribution of radon test canisters,
assisting them with radon analysis at the
EPA laboratory, and trouble-shooting
telecommunication problems.
By October, radon assessment activi-
ties were in full swing. The Las Vegas
students were working with schools in
Texas, California, Florida, Vermont,
Georgia, Montana, and Pennsylvania, as
well as other schools in Nevada. Radon-
testing canisters were shipped to the
individual schools, exposed for a seven-
day period, and returned by express mail
to the EPA lab. A specialist at the lab
assisted students in analyzing the
canisters and interpreting the data. The
students reported the results back to the
other schools.
As a result of their efforts, by mid-
December Curry and his students were
invited to make a presentation about the
radon project at a National Science
Teachers' Association Conference being
EPA health physicist Gregory Budd (standing) and University of Nevada senior
Mark Kelleher work ivith a database that stores student data on radon content.
held in Las Vegas. More than 3,800
science teachers from throughout the
United States and from foreign countries
participated. The students handled the
bulk of the presentation, which was well-
attended. A number of participants
remained after the session to discuss
radon assessment with individual
students. In the weeks following, e-mail
messages from science teachers around
the world requested additional informa-
tion or asked to be included in the
network of radon-project schools. The
Silverado students were elated to have
their work recognized by "science
people."
Then, an unanticipated problem
surfaced. The students, eager to expand
their program to include schools
throughout the world, discovered they
couldn't use the charcoal canisters
overseas. Radon absorbed by the
charcoal in the canisters decays over a
relatively short period of time. The time
between exposure and analysis is critical.
Project schools in the United States were
sending back canisters via express mail
immediately upon completion of
exposures. They arrived at the EPA lab
within 24 hours and were analyzed
immediately. Mail from Europe, on the
other hand, often takes two weeks or
more to arrive in Las Vegas. As a remedy,
the lab is considering a radon-measure-
ment method that uses ionization
chamber technology and is not subject to
the time constraints of the charcoal
method.
What does the future hold for this
project? There is potential for increased
collaboration between the students and
EPA scientists on air-quality and other
environmental issues. Nearly every day,
local news articles detail controversies
over water use as Las Vegas continues to
be one of the fastest growing cities in the
United States. Earlier this spring, the
county court house had to be evacuated
because employees and citizens became
mysteriously ill as a result of "something
in the air." For its part, EPA's Las Vegas
laboratory is actively involved in the
investigation of other indoor air pollut-
ants besides radon and would like the
students to expand the project to include
them as well. Q
0. Gardner photo.
SPRING 1995
19
-------
The President's Environmental
Youth Awards Program
Young people show the way in their communities
by Doris Gillispie and Catharina Japikse
Young people from every state
participate annually in the
President's Environmental Youth
Awards (PEYA) program. This nation-
wide program is designed to encourage
individuals, school classes, summer
camps, public interest groups, and youth
organizations to promote environmental
awareness and community involvement.
EPA and the White House Office of
Education began the program in 1971.
Students compete at two goals: the
regional certificate program and the
national awards competition. Regional
certificates with the President's signature
are awarded to each participant by the
EPA regional offices. National individual
project winners, or one representative
from a national award-winning group
project, along with one project sponsor,
receive an expense-paid trip to Washing-
ton, DC, where they are honored at a
national awards ceremony.
In 1994, over 18,500 projects were
submitted, from which the 10 regional
winners were selected.
1994 Winners
In Maine, 18 fifth-graders formed the
Zippel Energy Group to raise community
awareness of environmental concerns.
They organized a patrol to monitor the
conservation habits of their teachers,
families, and friends and encouraged
them to reduce, reuse, and recycle. They
wrote letters to their elected officials
expressing their environmental concerns.
They energized their local community
(Gillispie is Coordinator of Youth
Programs with the Environmental
Education Division ofEPA's Office of
Communications, Education, and Public
Affairs. Japikse is Assistant Editor of
EPA Journal.)
through presentations to civic groups
and displays in businesses, and orga-
nized environmental fundraising
activities to benefit their favorite charities.
Josh Melt; and other members of
Fayetteville, New York, Boy Scout Troop
152 planned and constructed a stream
improvement project to provide a new
habitat for stream trout at the
Carpenter's Brook Fish Hatchery. The
highlight of their project was a pool
digger: a log dam with a section of the
top cut out to form a waterfall. The
churning action of the falling water
created a basin with enough depth, food,
and shelter to support trout living in the
stream. Mele and his troop also received
the Governor's Citation Award and the
Onondaga County Parks' Award of
Excellence.
Heather Sprague, an llth-grade
student from Hockessin, Delaware,
organized an "all kids" Delaware State
Environmental Conference. High school
f. ' '
Camillas. New York. Advocate photo. Copyrighted
.'0
EPA JOURNAL
-------
(Wfffl
EC 1L L"""- "-^^
>gion4 photo. EPA
Student members of Future Fanners of America, set up the first
recycling center in Morgan County, Georgia.
students throughout the state learned
how to begin their own environmental
clubs and discovered types of environ-
mental projects their clubs could adopt.
Invited exhibitors, speakers, and group
leaders shared information and an-
swered questions about environmental
careers. The "all kids" conference in-
spired many students to start environ-
mental clubs and new projects. After the
conference, Sprague distributed a
directory and statewide newsletter.
Student members of the Future
Farmers of America planned, con-
structed, and organized the first recy-
cling center in Morgan County, Georgia.
In its first year, the center reduced the
amount of trash hauled to the county
landfill by over 300,000 pounds. Pro-
ceeds from the center paid for the
construction and maintainance of an
outdoor environmental study area and
classroom. This area was built by club
members and contains a three-acre
"wildlife habitat" around a one-acre
pond. The students served on city and
Josh Mele stands by "pool
digger" that creates new
habitat for stream trout. He and
other members of Boy Scout
Troop 152, Fayetteville, NY,
won Region 2 award.
county recycling committees, and they
introduced local proclamations and a bill
in the state legislature in support of
recycling and other environmental
concerns.
Jason Spanel, a 15-year-old Eagle Scout
from Eldorado, Illinois, created a 3.1-acre
wetland in partnership with private,
corporate, and government agencies. He
designed the wetland using a computer-
aided design system to map the location
for trees and moist plants. He organized
his fellow scouts to plant the 250 trees, 88
shrubs, and 300 moist plants donated by
local nurseries. After the wetland was
established, he contacted an architect to
help design and build a boardwalk with
interpretive signs through the wetlands
to educate visitors about the importance
of restoring and protecting wetlands.
Eighteen third-graders at Becker
Elementary School in Austin, Texas,
formed the "Junior/Senior Alliance for
the Environment." Senior citizens and
other community members joined with
the students in constructing an aquacul-
ture pond in the school garden, conduct-
ing water-quality testing in a nearby
creek, making litter bags, landscaping a
"Green Habitat for Humanity" house,
and sharing their knowledge of garden-
ing with deaf and blind students. In
addition to the environmental improve-
ments, students with special needs in
math and science earned confidence in
their abilities, and the senior citizens
gained increased self-respect and new
focus in their lives.
Kids Involved in Community Klean-
up (KICK) is a group of sixth-graders
from Aurora Middle School in Aurora,
Nebraska. The students set out to
educate and improve their community
through a variety of environmental
projects. They worked closely with city
officials and the county extension office
to develop project ideas. For example,
after the town landfill banned yard
waste, KICK hosted a workshop for
Aurora residents to demonstrate better
disposal techniques. Other activities
included: a paper recycling program at
their school; designing booths and
presentations for several conferences and
fairs; and a video presentation for the
local PBS station.
Every teacher and student at Hygiene
Elementary School in Hygiene, Colo-
rado, participated in Project SOS (Save
Our Species), a year-long study of
wildlife and global habitats focusing on
endangered species. The cross-curricular
study emphasized research, hands-on
activities, and problem-solving initia-
tives. It culminated in a community
environment festival, which included
student research projects, environmental
artwork, posters, murals, and displays.
SPRING 1995
21
-------
Homemade
mudzvalking shoes
prove useful to this
student surveyor on
tidal flats of lower
Columbia River.
Mapping program to
improve salmon
habitat won Region
10 award.
Region 10 photu. EPA
Invited experts and many of the students
gave presentations. Most of the commu-
nity, including state representatives and
the Superintendent of Schools, attended.
As a community-service project to earn
their Silver Award, six members of Girl
Scout Cadette Troop 460 restored a
portion of Hawaii's Kanaha Pond
wildlife sanctuary, used by both native
and migratory waterfowl. The pond had
become overgrown and had been used as
a dump. The scouts cut a 10-foot-wide
path through invasive non-native brush
to the pond. Around the pond's perim-
eter, they removed about 20 tons of
cuttings and trash and reintroduced
native grasses and plants. As a result,
native waterfowl have returned to the
pond. Three other youth groups have
since joined them in restoring more of
this wildlife habitat.
Oregon students at the Coastal Studies
and Technology Center at Seaside High
School worked with
research scientists,
community members,
and government agencies
to develop their science
skills while carrying out
environmental projects.
Students from Seaside
and other area high
schools collected and
identified benthic and
invertebrate samples
from Trestle Bay and
used a computer-
mapping program to
generate maps of the
lower Columbia River that are being
studied for salmon habitat restoration by
local agencies. Together, the students
and agencies will identify a segment of a
jetty to be removed; this will allow tidal
influences to return to the bay and
improve salmon habitats.
How to Enter
Interested individuals or groups in
grades K-12 may obtain application
materials and contest rules by contacting
the appropriate EPA regional office (see
box). The regional certificate program is
conducted year-round; therefore,
applications can be submitted at any
time. To be eligible for the national
award competition, applications must be
postmarked on or before July 31 of the
award year. Contact your EPA regional
office for a PEYA brochure/application
which contains additional information. Q
Environmental
Education Regional
Contacts
Region \
CT, MA, ME, NH, RI, VT
USE PA Region 1 (RE A)
Office of External Programs
JFK Federal Building
Boston, MA 02003
Phone: 617565-3574
Region 2
NJ, NY, PR, VI
USEPA Region 2 (2EPD)
External Programs Division
290 Broadway
26th Floor
New York, NY 10007-1866
Phone: 212 637-3678
Region 3
DE, MD, PA, VA, WV, DC
USEPA Region 3 (3EA20)
841 Chestnut Street
Philadelphia, PA 19107
Phone: 215597-6685
Region 4
AL, FL, GA, KY, MS, NC, SC, TN
USEPA Region 4
Office of Public Affairs
345 Courtland Street, NE
Atlanta, GA 30365
Phone: 404 347-3004
Region 5
1L, IN, Ml, MN, OH, WI
USEPA Region 5 (P-19J)
77 West Jackson Boulevard
Chicago, IL 60604
Phone: 312 886-0995
Region 6
AR, LA, NM, OK, TX
USEPA Region 6 (6X)
Office of External Affairs
1445 Ross Avenue
Dallas, TX 75202-2733
Phone: 214 665-2204
Region 7
1A, KS, MO, NE
USEPA Region 7
726 Minnesota Avenue
Kansas City, KS 66101
Phone:913551-7003
Region 8
CO, MT, ND, SD, UT, WY
USEPA Region 8
Office of External Affairs
999 18th Street, Suite 500
Denver, CO 80202-2466
Phone: 303 294-1113
Region 9
AZ, CA, HI, NV, AS, GU, TT
USEPA Region 9 (E2)
75 Hawthorne Street
San Francisco, CA 94105
Phone: 415 744-1581
Region 10
AK, ID, OR, WA
USEPA Region 10 (SO-141)
1200 6th Avenue
Seattle, WA 98101
Phone: 206 553-1207
or 1-800-424-4EPA
22
EPA JOURNAL
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A Toolbox for Training Teachers
Environmental education can fit any lesson plan
by Paul Nowak, Sr.
Ihe 1990 National Environmental
Education Act provides federal
funding for preparing educators
to teach about the environment. Since its
inception in 1992, the National Consor-
tium for Environmental Education and
Training (NCEET) has been awarded
EPA funds to help teachers make
environmental education (EE) an integral
part of their instruction.
During its first year of funding,
NCEET sought others' input to identify
approaches which would be the most
helpful to teachers. We conducted focus
groups and interviews, convened
roundtable discussions, and developed
and distributed surveys to gain input
from environmental educators, main-
stream educators, resource professionals,
and students.
Those surveyed suggested that
existing training programs provided
good avenues for teachers seeking new
materials, but that teachers often had
difficulty finding materials that fit the
local setting and that addressed student
interests. Teachers also sometimes
doubted their own ability to cover
environmental education materials
adequately. Finally, our outreach efforts
suggested that approaches and materials
beyond those traditionally used in
environmental education might be
particularly useful in meeting the
environmental interests of teachers and
students in urban settings.
In response, NCEET developed some
materials that would be directly useful
to teachers and local resource specialists:
Getting Started, a teachers' manual; and
EE-Link, an online information resource
(Gopher/World Wide Web sites on the
Internet). Further, NCEET developed
other components of what came to be
known as the EE Toolbox in collabora-
tion with dozens of experienced practi-
tioners and noted experts in environ-
mental education and complementary
fields (see box on next page). The EE
Toolbox and EE-Link are now the major
focus of our programs.
The EE Toolbox materials are re-
sources in the workshops that NCEET
and various in-service providers
conduct for teachers and teacher
trainers. In arranging these workshops,
we typically collaborate with existing
state and national organizations that
teachers already recognize as avenues
for enhancing teaching skills. NCEET
has conducted training workshops with
participants from more than two dozen
states and has distributed over 10,000
copies of Getting Started and other EE
Toolbox publications to teachers and
teacher trainers throughout the country.
NCEET's electronic network, EE-Link,
has been accessed by tens of thousands
of users since its introduction in Septem-
ber 1993; it currently serves over a
thousand users daily.
NCEET continues to explore areas in
urgent need of creative solutions.
Specifically, we are currently supporting
urban, multicultural, and Native Ameri-
can initiatives. The findings indicate that
these audiences have been traditionally
under-served by environmental educa-
tion, in part because of their atypical
educational needs and circumstances.
During its final year of funding under
the current three-year grant, NCEET has
sponsored national gatherings and
working groups, has conducted focus
groups and surveys, and is compiling
information on a variety of successful
programs in an effort to better under-
stand and serve these audiences.
For more information on EE Toolbox
components and workshops or on EE-
Link, or to receive a free catalog, please
call NCEET at 313 998-6726, or write to
NCEET, University of Michigan School
of Natural Resources and Environment,
430 East University Avenue, Ann Arbor,
Michigan 48109-1115. Contact
nceet-info@nceet.snre.urnich.edu to
receive information by e-mail. Q
(Dr. Nowak is Director of NCEET at the
University of Michigan.)
SPRING 1995
23
-------
The Workshop Resource Manual
consists of eight units, all written
specifically for people who plan and
conduct in-service workshops about
environmental education.
• Designing Effective Workshops: It helps
to have an important and relevant topic,
but the success of a workshop depends
considerably on how its message is
delivered. This unit is a how-to guide
for facilitators, with techniques for
guiding discussions, leading role-plays
and field trips, and giving interactive
lectures. Program planning ideas cover
needs assessment, workshop design,
evaluation, and follow-up.
• Defining Environmental Education:
Understanding the accepted purposes
and goals of environmental education
helps explain the value it offers to both
the educational and environmental
communities. Ten workshop activities
suggest interactive strategies for
exploring the essence of environmental
education.
• Integrating Environmental Education
into the School Curriculum: Environmen-
tal education in-service programs are
more successful when they help
teachers understand that environmental
education can enhance their curricular
objectives without adding extra lessons.
This unit offers three different workshop
strategies along with tips and examples.
Ten activities demonstrate how environ-
mental education can help teachers
achieve their content and learning-
process objectives.
EE Toolbox
• Approaching Environmental Issues in the
Classroom: Addressing issues, even
controversial ones, is essential for
environmental-education programs that
prepare learners to solve environmental
problems. This unit explains the choices
teachers have for approaching environ-
mental issues. It includes tips on how to
organize workshops and activities that
illustrate different approaches and help
build teachers' skills in handling issues
with their students.
• Urban Environmental Education:
Understanding the ecology of the urban
community, becoming knowledgeable
about urban environmental issues, and
building the skills to engage learners in
resolving those issues are important
elements of urban environmental
education. The guidelines, examples,
case studies, and workshop activities in
this unit will help facilitators plan and
conduct environmental education
workshops in urban areas.
• Using Community Resources: Schools
are not isolated institutions, but
interactive elements of their communi-
ties. This unit describes how people,
agencies, and institutions in the commu-
nity can enhance environmental
education. It lists specific guidelines for
working with community resources
through field trips and in-class projects,
and describes techniques for helping
teachers discover community resources.
• Computer-Aided Environmental
Education; Technological advances
should not leave environmental
education teachers in the woods! This
unit offers an overview of the
opportunities (and pitfalls) that
computers offer to environ-
mental educators. Among the
topics covered are instructional
software, interactive networks,
and Internet resources.
• Evaluating Instructional Resources:
Teachers may be overwhelmed with the
number of instructional resources that
beg for their attention. This unit
describes several alternatives for
evaluating these materials.
The EE Reference Collection is a
compilation of reprinted articles that
complements the Workshop Resource
Manual. The articles are authored by
leaders in the fields of education and
environmental education, and cover
environmental literacy, pedagogy, and
conflicting perceptions of environmental
education.
The Slide Resource Kit is an audiovi-
sual tool for teacher educators, natural
resource management professionals,
and environmental educators. The slides
and accompanying script describe the
key ideas of environmental education,
offer diverse examples, and make clear
connections to the goals of education
reform. The kit includes a synchronized
audio tape as well as suggestions for
using the slides in customized presenta-
tions.
The National Survey of EE Teacher
In-service Education summarizes
NCEET's findings from interviews with
state environmental education coordina-
tors. It includes recommendations for
improving and expanding environmen-
tal education staff development at all
levels.
Getting Started: A Guide to Bringing
Environmental Education Into Your
Classroom contains detailed informa-
tion for teachers interested in initiating
environmental education efforts in their
classrooms. It includes stories about real
teachers, written to inspire, motivate,
and provide concrete ideas on how to
proceed.
EE-Link is an online source of informa-
tion about environmental education. EE-
Link provides access to teaching resources
on the Internet, including articles,
databases, grant information, and
instructional materials. To access EE-
Link's gopher server, connect to
nceet.snre.umich.edu. To access EE-Link's
World Wide Web server, the URL is
http:/ / www.nceet.snre.umich.edu.
You can also e-mail the EE-Link staff at
eelink@nceet.snre.umich.edu for more
information.
24
EPA JOURNAL
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State Profiles
in Environmental Education
The trend is toward comprehensive programs
by Abby Ruskey
An awareness and appreciation of
their natural and built environ-
ment; knowledge of natural
systems and ecological concepts; under-
standing of the range of current environ-
mental issues; and the ability to use
investigative, critical-thinking, and
problem-solving skills toward the
resolution of environmental issues: These
are key traits of an environmentally
literate citizenry. It follows that they are
the key objectives of environmental
education.
Nearly every state in the country
currently has an environmental educa-
tion program in some form. However,
few states have comprehensive programs
of the sort that can foster widespread
environmental literacy in the populace.
Comprehensive programs infuse
environmental education into most or all
subject areas and grade levels through
curriculum requirements, subject-area
(Ruskey is Coordinator for the
National Environmental Education
Advancement Project.)
frameworks, pre-service and in-service
teacher training, opportunities for small
grants for teachers and schools, resource
guides and networks, statewide advisory
councils, interagency networks, and
more. The diagram below shows the
program, structure, and funding compo-
nents that—in one combination or
another—are necessary for an environ-
mental education program to be compre-
hensive in scope.
Even a comprehensive environmental
education program is only as effective as
its implementation and follow-up. For
example, a state that has adopted an
environmental education teacher-
training requirement must ensure that
college-of-education professors and
other teacher trainers are qualified to
provide adequate instruction in environ-
mental education content and methods.
Similarly, a state environmental educa-
tion grants program must be closely
administered and evaluated, and results
of projects disseminated if citizens are to
receive the maximum benefit and if the
project is to receive continued support
Environmental Education: Components of a Comprehensive
State-Level Program
Advisory BoardA Curriculum 4 / Frameworks 8
Council \ Instruction / Assessments
Resource Guide;
& Systems
Interagency
Committee
Teacher Training
• preservke
• inservice
Master Plan
•\.
Grants Program
State & Regional Centers
FUNDING
$ Trust Fund J
Grassroots
Associations'
Public/Private
Geaeral Revenue Brants & Donation!
Fees, Fines
Taxes & Latter,
SPRING 1995
from funders and elected officials. The
initial success of a program can be
determined by state standardized tests,
performance assessments, and other
methods for assessing changes in
students' environmental awareness,
attitudes, knowledge, and behavior. The
ultimate measure of success will be the
maintenance of environmental quality
and the quality of life for citizens.
The National Environmental Educa-
tion Advancement Project (NEEAP),
based at the University of Wisconsin-
Stevens Point, was established in 199T to
assist states and communities in their
efforts to fully incorporate quality
environmental education programs into
K-12 schools. NEEAP has published an
organizing manual, produced a video
and slide program, created organizer
training workshops, established a
networking and resource center, and
conducted a pilot program working
intensively with the states of Hawaii,
Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, and Louisiana.
Through this program, NEEAP has
learned about the status of environmen-
tal education in all states. This article
reviews the extent to which states have
developed comprehensive environmen-
tal education programs.
Status of State Programs
Across the nation, several "model" states
have achieved all or most of the compo-
nents listed in the diagram. These states
include Arizona, Florida, Maryland,
Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and Wiscon-
sin. At least 30 other states have one or
more "cornerstone" components in place
on which to build a comprehensive
environmental education program. Many
of these states, including California,
Colorado, Hawaii, Illinois, Idaho, Iowa,
Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine,
Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma,
Oregon, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas,
Washington, and Wyoming have active
state environmental education associa-
tions or coalitions that are in the process
of strengthening their programs.
25
-------
• Environmental education curriculum
requirements, guidelines/frameworks, and
curriculum guides—Most states with
environmental education legislation (19
states in 1993) had curriculum require-
ments or recommendations. For the
most part, however, these are non-
binding for local school districts.
Without a K-12 curriculum planning
requirement, teacher training, and other
components to back curriculum
initiatives, they will have little impact.
Instead of requirements, most states use
curriculum guidelines and curriculum
guides to infuse environmental educa-
tion content into school subjects.
However, they typically cover limited
subjects and/or grade levels. To date,
no state has a complete program of
study in environmental education for
grades K-12 supported by environmen-
tal education guidelines or outcomes,
and state-specific curriculum guides.
• Teacher training—Environmental
education training programs for
certified and practicing teachers are
available in all 50 states. However,
according to a 1994 study by the
National Consortium for Environmen-
tal Education and Training, this in-
service training is mostly informal, and
coordination between programs is
practically non-existent. Furthermore,
the study points to the low priority that
most state education agencies give to
environmental education in-service
training: "State natural resource
agencies, colleges and universities, non-
profit organizations, and school
districts all rate higher than state
education agencies as providers of EE
[environmental education] in-service
training . .. the goal of infusing EE into
school curricula would benefit from
being supported, or even better,
championed by state education agen-
cies." In contrast to in-service environ-
mental education teacher training, the
majority of states do not provide
environmental education instruction for
teacher candidates or pre-service
teachers. To date, three states—Arizona,
Maryland, and Wisconsin—have
achieved pre-service environmental
education teacher-training require-
ments. Of these, only one state has
achieved full compliance at teacher-
training colleges statewide.
• Environmental education specialists and
other staff positions within state agencies—
This is the most common environmental
education component in place today,
with virtually every state hosting a full-
or part-time environmental education
specialist position. According to an
Environmental Education Associates,
Inc. 1993 report, State-by-State Overview of
Environmental Education Standards, 29
states had full-time specialists; of these,
16 were based in education agencies, and
13 worked for the state natural resource
agency. Five states had two full-time
specialists and seven states had half-time
specialist positions. The remaining 21
states incorporated environmental
education coordination responsibilities
into positions such as wildlife-education
specialist, science-education supervisor,
and public-information specialist.
• Administrative, policy-generating, and
grassroots structures—State environmen-
tal education advisory boards/councils
and interagency committees, state and
regional environmental education
centers, and environmental education
offices in state agencies are vital for
guiding, implementing, and maintaining
environmental education programs.
Approximately half the states have an
environmental education advisory
council/board, or an environmental
education interagency committee, or
both. Half-a-dozen states have state and
regional environmental education
centers with libraries, computer net-
works, in-service training programs,
state-specific curriculum development
projects, and other services for teacher
support. Thirty-nine states have
grassroots environmental education
associations for strengthening state
environmental education programs, in
addition to professional development
and networking.
• Grant programs and environmental
education trust funds—Seven states
(Arizona, California, Florida, Iowa,
Maryland, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and
Wisconsin) have established competitive
programs for small grants that provide
Centralized vs. Decentralized Systems
Under the 10th Amendment to the U.S.
Constitution, the control and adminis-
tration of education fall to the states.
The states vary greatly in the degree to
which they share this responsibility
with local entities. In some states,
education policy, frameworks, and
curricula are determined by the
legislature or state school board and
implemented by the state education
agency through local school districts. In
other states, policy and curriculum are
determined at the level of the local
school district or the school site, and the
state education agency's role is more
that of a resource center. States that
follow the first model, or have a
"centralized" system, typically pursue
strategies such as curriculum and
teacher-training requirements, environ-
mental education boards, grant
programs, and funding from fees and
fines to strengthen their environmental
education program. Arizona, Florida,
and Wisconsin follow this model,
although each has unique programs,
structures, and funding measures. This
year, the states of California, Iowa, and
Louisiana have submitted—or will be
submitting—comprehensive environ-
mental education bills to their state
legislatures.
Environmental education leaders in
states with "decentralized" education
systems work from the ground up. In
Wyoming, one project engaged teachers
from most of its 49 school districts to
develop a Wild Wonderful Wyoming
curriculum guide. The teachers also
trained their peers in the use of the
guide. In Kentucky, a series of state-
wide workshops will highlight model
environmental education school
programs that are achieving the goals
established by the 1992 Kentucky
Education Reform Act. The models will
be analyzed for the state legislature in a
paper prepared by the Kentucky
Environmental Education Council.
Emphasis on locally managed school
programs in Colorado has resulted in a
unique master plan that focuses on
locally oriented environmental educa-
tion, improved communication and
coordination among entities interested
in environmental education, ready
access to information sources, and
enhanced teacher training.
26
EPA JOURNAL
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incentives to state and local entities with
innovative environmental education
programs and with the ability to provide
matching dollars. These states and two
others (Arkansas and Missouri) have
created environmental education trust
funds for raising dollars and interest
income from both public and private
sources. Surcharges on pollution fines,
resource-use fees, license-plate sales, and
private donations are all common
revenue "streams" into environmental
education trust funds.
• Environmental education master plans—
Several states have recently completed or
are in the process of developing compre-
hensive environmental education master
plans. These states include Arizona,
Colorado, Hawaii, Illinois, Minnesota,
Missouri, and North Carolina. The plans
help to chart a collective vision and a
course of action among state-wide
environmental education stakeholders.
Many states have plans that date back to
the 1970s and 1980s and are in the
process of updating these. Wisconsin
held an Environmental Education
Summit in May 1995, to update its
master plan. Q
Cornerstone Programs
The first initiative or "cornerstone"
component that states adopt often
defines the strength of their environ-
mental education program as it grows
and develops. Wisconsin conservation-
ists laid the groundwork in the early
1930s for passage of the first statute to
actually mandate that conservation
education be taught in every public
school and that teacher candidates in
science and social studies receive
instruction in the conservation of
natural resources. The conservation
education statute was passed by the
Wisconsin legislature in 1935. Fifty years
later, Wisconsin's statute was over-
hauled by the next generation of
environmental education leaders, and to
this day the state's teacher-training
programs continue to lead the way
nationally. Other initiatives, including a
K-12 curriculum requirement, environ-
mental education board, environmental
education grants program, state center
for environmental education, environ-
mental education specialist position in
the Department of Public Instruction,
and environmental literacy assessment,
were all made possible because of
Wisconsin's first environmental educa-
tion initiative.
In 1949, a Governor's Resource Use
Education Committee was established
in Florida, one of the earliest efforts to
coordinate conservation education
activities among state agencies and
other entities. Today, Florida's environ-
mental education program is distin-
guished by its model "Environmental
Education Partnership," involving the
Florida Advisory Council on Environ-
mental Education, the Florida Depart-
ment of Education and the Environmen-
Wilhelmim LaBudfa family photo collection. Copyncfited.
tal Education Foundation of Florida,
Inc. As a result of this partnership,
environmental education leaders in
Florida have been able to establish
multiple cutting-edge funding
mechanisms to support the state's
Wisconsin
conservationists
laid the
groundwork in
the early 1930s
for passage of
the first
conservation-
education
mandate.
environmental education grants
program, the environmental education
curriculum, and teacher training in the
Department of Education and five
regional environmental education
centers.
Resources Available
Resources developed by NEEAP with the help of other organizations include:
• Promoting Environmental Education: An Action Handbook for Strengthening EE in
Your State and Community, by Abby Ruskey and Dr. Richard Wilke. This handbook
provides state and local leaders with models and suggestions to enhance environ-
mental education programs. It can be ordered from the National Association of
Conservation Districts for $22.50 plus $5.00 shipping and handling:
NACD Service Center
P.O. Box 855
League City, TX 77574-0855
or phone 713 332-3402.
• Environmental Education Advocacy: Everyone's Responsibility is a 45-minute
motivational video on the need for and elements of a successful environmental
education program. It can be ordered from:
NEEAP
College of Natural Resources
University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point
Stevens Point, WI54481
or phone 715 346-4179.
SPRING 1995
27
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Environmental Literacy and the
College Curriculum b
Colleges and universities have a challenge to meet
As the Associate Dean of the
College of Natural Resources at
the University of Wisconsin-
Stevens Point, I share responsibility for
the largest undergraduate natural
resources program in the country. The
1,750 majors in our college can choose
among 30 different academic programs
and nearly 200 environmentally related
courses. These students are receiving
intensive environmental literacy instruc-
tion. However, they are a minority.
While many institutions offer environ-
mentally related minors or majors, they
do not require even basic instruction in
environmental literacy. Thus, the vast
majority of students are not enrolled in
programs focused on the environment;
most never even enroll in a general
environmental studies course. This
article focuses on reaching these students
with environmental literacy instruction.
Call to Action
Colleges and universities have been
challenged to increase their role in
developing an environmentally literate
citizenry. Agenda 21, the blueprint for
action adopted by the world's leaders at
the 1992 United Nations Earth Summit,
calls for aggressive measures to
strengthen the environmental education
received by the world's citizens. (See box
on page 37.) Universities are specifically
asked to play a prominent role in
preparing citizens to analyze and resolve
environmental issues.
In a similar vein, the Council of State
Governments' 1994 book of Suggested
State Legislation includes model environ-
mental education legislation that is
recommended for adoption by state
legislatures. The model legislation states:
"Universities, colleges and vocational
As part of
environmental
literacy
requirements, UW-
Stevens Point
students gain
experience with
computer
applications.
(Dr. Wilke is Associate Dean of the College of
Natural Resources, University of Wisconsin-
Stei>ens Point.)
institutions are required to implement
programs that encourage environmental
literacy and provide opportunities for
environmental stewardship among the
student population." To accomplish this,
universities are directed to implement
"an environmental studies course
requirement for all graduates, or the
development of an integrated general
education program that accomplishes
environmental literacy through its
integration in a variety of courses."
What Should Be Taught
Much has been written over the last 25
years about environmental literacy and
strategies for achieving it. In the early
1980s, Harold Hungerford from South-
ern Illinois University, Ben Peyton from
Michigan State University, and I worked
together to develop a set of environmen-
tal education instructional goals. Our
goals have been used around the world
for curriculum development and re-
search. We believe that instruction aimed
at enhancing environmental literacy
must aid citizens in becoming environ-
mentally knowledgeable and, above all,
Univearty of Wisconsin-Stevens Pcint photo by Doug Moore. Copyfighted
skilled and dedicated to working
individually and collectively toward
achieving a dynamic equilibrium
between quality of life and quality of the
environment. In other words, environ-
mental literacy needs to focus on devel-
oping responsible environmental
behavior.
Harold Hungerford and Trudi Volk
from Southern Illinois University
reviewed the pertinent literature and
concluded that we can maximize college-
level opportunities to develop respon-
sible environmental behavior if we
proceed along the following lines:
• Teach environmentally significant
ecological concepts and the environmen-
tal interrelationships implied by these
concepts.
• Provide carefully designed and in-
depth opportunities for learners to
achieve some level of environmental
sensitivity that will promote a desire to
behave in appropriate ways.
• Provide a curriculum that will result in
an in-depth knowledge of issues; that
will teach issue analysis and investiga-
28
EPA JOURNAL
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University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point photo by Doug Moore Copyrighted
tion skills as well as provide the time
needed for the application of these skills;
that will teach the citizenship skills
needed for issue remediation and give
opportunities for the application of these
skills.
• Provide an instructional setting that
increases learners' belief that they can
make a difference by acting in responsible
ways.
Faculty from a variety of colleges and
universities have considered what should
be taught in order to develop environ-
mentally literate graduates. In Achieving
Undergraduate Environmental Literacy, a
report of a 1990 Pennsylvania System of
Higher Education Faculty Development
Forum, the following goals were recom-
mended for undergraduate environmen-
tal literacy:
• Students must develop an understand-
ing of how humans relate to natural
systems and the importance of making
wise decisions regarding the use of
natural resources and maintaining human
habitat fit for life and fit for living.
• Students must develop a knowledge
and appreciation of local and global
environmental issues.
• Students must develop a firm knowl-
edge of fundamental scientific principles
so that they can understand the conse-
quences of human actions on natural
systems.
• Students must develop reasoning and
problem-solving skills that lead to
responsible decision making and action
regarding the interaction between
humans and the environment.
Faculty and administrators desiring to
strengthen the levels of environmental
literacy among their students should
consider the curricular recommendations
of Hungerford and Volk and the goals
identified by the Pennsylvania forum
participants.
Approaches Being Used
A variety of approaches are being taken
by universities to strengthen their
environmental literacy instruction.
At Tufts University, an Environmental
Coursework at University of
Wisconsin-Stevens Point gives
students a chance for hands-
on investigation.
Literacy Institute (TELI) was established in
1990. The Institute trains faculty to inte-
grate environmental concepts and issues
into college courses. Faculty members
participate in summer workshops to help
them generate ideas for incorporating
environmental literacy in their courses.
Examples of resulting course revisions: an
English course using novels such as Grapes
of Wrath to discuss how the environment
relates to culture; a drama professor
involving students in role playing using
environmental themes; and a mechanical
engineering course in which students focus
on getting more energy efficiency out of a
machine, thereby consuming fewer
resources. The sixth annual TELI faculty
development workshop was held May 31
through June 9,1995.
In June 1992, Harvard University
emulated Tufts by creating the Heinz
Professorship to encourage Harvard
faculty members who are not specializing
in the environment to integrate environ-
mental elements in their courses. Similar
positions have been created at several other
universities.
While the approaches taken by Tufts and
Harvard create opportunities for non-
majors to take environmentally oriented
courses, they do not reach the majority of
college students. This can only be accom-
plished by requiring environmental
literacy instruction in the general education
curriculum.
The importance of addressing environ-
mental literacy in the general education
curriculum was described by George
Dennison, President of the University of
Montana. Dennison stated: "All institutions
should seek to infuse environmental
content into the curriculum, including
general education programs. The vast
majority of students will not pursue
environmental programs or majors, but
will gain their understanding of environ-
mental issues and problems from their
general education and elective courses. If
we intend to have an effect upon ecologi-
cal literacy, we must do so through
curricular diffusion and general education."
SPRING 1995
29
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University of Wisconsin-Stevens
Point Model
At the University of Wisconsin-Stevens
Point (UW-SP), the general education
curriculum is being used to enhance the
environmental literacy of our students.
In 1990, Chancellor Keith Sanders
appointed a broad-based Curriculum
Task Force to determine whether the
existing general education requirements
adequately prepared students to address
societal needs and expectations. The task
force reviewed the literature to deter-
mine trends in university general-
education requirements. They examined
the requirements at scores of other
universities and held a series of hearings
to solicit faculty input.
After nearly two years of study, the
task force identified 14 competencies
described as "Skills and Knowledge for
UW-SP Students of the 90s and Beyond."
Environmental literacy was identified as
one of the competencies to be expected
of all UW-SP graduates.
Next, the faculty committee respon-
sible for general degree requirements
was asked to determine whether the
existing requirements adequately
addressed each of the 14 competencies.
Regarding environmental literacy, they
concluded that the existing requirements
did not. Consequently, the committee
developed, and the UW-SP Faculty
Senate and Chancellor Sanders ap-
proved, a new environmental literacy
requirement for all students. This means
that environmental literacy is included
with critical thinking, writing, speaking,
civic literacy, and scientific literacy as
part of the basic education provided to
UW-SP students to help them function in
the 21st century.
To graduate from UW-SP, students
must complete a three-credit Environ-
mental Literacy (EL) course. The follow-
ing criteria apply to EL courses: An EL
course may be proposed by any depart-
ment, EL courses should not have
prerequisites, interdisciplinary treatment
of issues is required, team teaching and
cross-disciplinary teaching are encour-
aged, and EL course proposals must
clearly show how the course is struc-
tured to achieve EL objectives.
The goals recommended in the
Pennsylvania report, Achieving Under-
graduate Environmental Literacy, were
used as a starting point in developing the
UW-SP EL objectives. For a UW-SP
course to be approved for EL credit, the
course should provide students with the
ability to:
• Describe the relationship of human
society to natural systems and how the
two have affected each other.
• Analyze a wide variety of historic and
current environmental issues, ranging
from local to global importance.
• Describe the ecological, political,
social, and economic implications of
selected environmental issues and assess
alternative solutions to those issues.
• Identify, describe, and evaluate their
own individual impacts on the environ-
ment.
The box on this page shows courses
meeting the UW-SP environmental
literacy requirement. Most environmen-
tal literacy courses are open to students
from any major. Some, such as "Introduc-
tion to Environmental Study and
Environmental Education," are targeted
to special populations—in this case,
prospective teachers, who learn not only
content but also instructional methods.
Will the environmental literacy
requirement at UW-SP raise the environ-
mental literacy of graduates? I believe it
will. Future graduates should be more
environmentally knowledgeable and,
above all, skilled and dedicated to
working individually and collectively
toward achieving a dynamic equilibrium
between quality of life and quality of the
environment. To ensure that this hap-
pens, efforts will be made to help the
faculty understand and apply the
strategies recommended by Hungerford
and Volk to maximize environmentally
responsible behavior. The application of
these strategies coupled with instruction
focused on the environmental literacy
objectives should result in graduates
who are environmentally literate and
responsible.
The hope is that increasing numbers of
colleges and universities will follow
examples described here and take steps
to incorporate environmental literacy
instruction in their general education
curriculum. There is no other instruction
more basic than that which focuses on
perpetuation of both environmental
quality and the quality of life. Q
Environmental Literacy: A Course Catalogue
American Environmental History—
Students analyze the ways in which one
generation of decisions regarding nature
limit the future decisions or precipitate
reactions that move the human-nature
interactions in a different direction.
Urban Environmental History—Students
evaluate the ways activities within
American cities have placed demands on
resources. They also examine the ways
urban development altered public
perceptions of wilderness, nature, and
human society, and the ways these
attitudes have influenced urban sanita-
tion, conservation, preservation, indus-
trial development, and resource alloca-
tion.
The Physical Environment Under Stress—
Students apply physical geographic
principles and processes to understand
selected human impacts on atmosphere,
water, land, and biota. They are involved
in detailed, interdisciplinary analyses of
several environmental problems,
including their causes, consequences, and
solutions.
Environmental Ethics—Students examine
and evaluate philosophical, religious,
and scientific concepts and values that
have structured human attitudes toward
the environment. A wide variety of
environmental issues are explored, and
students identify, describe, and evaluate
their individual impacts on the environ-
ment. Readings such as The Sand County
Almanac are required.
Introduction to Environmetital Study and
Environmental Education—Students
analyze natural, social, and economic
factors influencing the quality of the
environment. Ecological relationships
and principles are studied and their
relation to population growth, pollution,
resource allocation and depletion,
conservation, technology, and urban and
rural planning. An overview of K-12
environmental education content and
methods is also included.
Politics and the Environment—Students
learn the interrelationship of politics and
the environment. They read Tragedy of
the Commons and consider the role of
government in dealing with environ-
mental regulation. The National
Environmental Policy Act and other
environmental legislation is examined.
Students also analyze organizations
attempting to influence environmental
policy and evaluate their own attitudes
regarding environmental policy.
30
EPA JOURNAL
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Educating Environmental
Managers for Tomorrow
The environment must be part of the bottom line by June
The following article is based on the
experiences of the Management Institute
for Environment and Business (MEB)
and its Business Environment Learning
and Leadership (BELL) program. The
BELL program is a consortium of 25
business schools dedicated to integrating
the environment into their curricula.
Together, these 25 institutions confer
over 10 percent of the graduate manage-
ment degrees given each year in the
United States.
(Jubeir is the Director of Educational
Programs for the Management Institute for
Environment and Business. She holds a
Master of Business Administration degree
from the ]. L. Kellogg Graduate School of
Management at Northwestern University
and a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics
and environmental studies from Bowdoin
College.)
ihe business world has begun to
acknowledge that the environ-
ment is playing an increasingly
prominent role in all facets of American
society. A recent survey by the manage-
ment consulting firm McKinsey &
Company found that 92 percent of CEOs
and board members believe that the
environment should be a top manage-
ment priority; however, only 35 percent
say their companies have successfully
adapted business strategy to anticipated
environmental developments, and only
37 percent believe they have successfully
integrated the environment into every-
day operations. As reported in an article
titled "It's Not Easy Being Green" in the
May/June 1994 Harvard Business Review,
McKinsey & Company concluded that
managers lack a conceptual framework
that allows them to integrate the envi-
ronment into their decision making.
Since business schools are the primary
training ground for future managers,
they should teach their students how to
integrate business and the environment
so that their graduates will be equipped
with this conceptual framework when
they enter the workforce. Professor Mark
Cohen at the Owen Graduate School of
Management at Vanderbilt University
echoes this imperative: "Business schools
should train managers who can under-
stand how to create new opportunities
for their firms and how to manage
environmental risks in a profitable and
responsible manner, because this is what
leading companies are beginning to
demand."
The critical question is, then: How are
business schools incorporating environ-
mental issues into their institutions?
In 1989, EPA conducted an informal
survey to examine the treatment of
environmental issues by the nation's
business schools. The Agency found that
no school offered entire courses or an
environmental major or concentration.
Further, the survey found that very little
time was spent on environmental issues
in core management disciplines. If
attention was devoted to environmental
issues, it was very reactive in nature,
focusing on the environment as a cost to
the company—not as a way to exploit
new market opportunities.
At the time of this informal survey,
there existed very few curricular materi-
als that incorporated environmental
issues. Faculty had difficulty finding
appropriate case materials. Since the
survey, this situation has improved, due
largely to the efforts of the Harvard
Business School; National Wildlife
Federation; Western Business School at
the University of Ontario; INSEAD, a
leading French business school; and the
Management Institute for Environment
and Business (MEB). (See "Case Studies"
box on page 33.) Current case materials
help students realize that integrating
business-and-environment issues into a
company's strategy and operations can
lead to competitive advantages. Material
now exists for schools to integrate such
issues across the curriculum.
As discussed below, the efforts schools
so far have made to integrate environ-
mental issues into their programs can be
categorized into three groups: efforts that
extend beyond the business school, or
the "extension" approach; efforts to create
environmental majors or electives, the
"depth" approach; and efforts to integrate
SPRING 1995
31
-------
the environment into existing business
courses, the "infusion" approach. Most
schools fall into more than one category.
Extension Approach
Several business schools are capitalizing
on existing university resources to create
joint degree programs with their univer-
sities' schools of natural resources.
Examples include: Duke University,
University of Michigan, and Yale
University. Typically, a student obtains
the dual degree in three years, adding an
additional year to the normal business
degree.
Other business schools have created
centers of expertise. The University of
Houston has created the Institute for
Corporate Environmental Management
to foster improved organizational
competitiveness through effective
management of environmental issues
facing industry. This institute serves to
discover the needs of industry and
attempts to fill those needs through
executive programs. Northwestern
University (Kellogg) has established the
Kellogg Environmental Research Center
to provide leadership in defining
managerial perspectives on environmen-
tal issues. This center seeks to serve as a
role model for broadening the environ-
mental agenda of business schools.
Depth Approach
Most business schools have chosen to
address environmental issues within
their own degree programs. They have
created environmental management
majors or business-and-environment
course electives. For example, the
University of Washington offers an
environmental major. The core courses in
the major are team taught and cover the
environment as it relates to all other
business disciplines. Students can also
choose from a variety of electives,
including Environmental Accounting,
Environmental Marketing, a year-long
consulting project, and Environmental
Law.
The American Graduate School of
International Management (Thunderbird)
World Bank photo.
offers a course in which students explore
how the environment affects marketing
decisions. The University of Virginia
(Darden) offers a Governance class in
which students face a real environmental
problem and discover firsthand how
environmental decision making works
by taking the roles of diverse stakehold-
ers. Kellogg has innovative elective
courses which involve trips over spring
break to investigate in the real world
what the students have been studying
during the quarter. Last year students
went to Costa Rica, where they worked
in teams to investigate the eco-tourism
industry and environmental initiatives
such as paper production from the waste
products of banana processing.
Infusion Approach
In addition to extension efforts and the
"depth" approach, most schools are also
opting for the "infusion" approach to
ensure that all students are exposed to
environmental issues. This can be
achieved in a variety of ways. Indiana
University, for example, recently con-
ducted its second annual "Environment
Week," during which the entire class of
250 students focused on business-and-
environment issues for the full week.
Other schools consistently use busi-
ness-and-environment cases throughout
their curriculum. Students at the Univer-
sity of Wyoming's School of Business are
exposed to environmental issues in their
EPA JOURNAL
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Bananas for processing: On a trip to Costa Rica over spring break,
Kellogg students investigated a technique for making paper out of
the wastes of banana processing.
standard economics courses. At
Dartmouth College (Tuck), one of the
core required courses, "International
Leadership," has a strong component of
business and the environment. At the
University of Washington, as well as
many other schools, business-and-
environment cases are beginning to
penetrate the core management curricu-
lum.
Business schools are using a variety of
approaches to integrate the environment
into their programs. The avenue they
pursue depends on the objective sought:
greater depth for interested students or
improved awareness for all students.
Most pursue a hybrid of both.
Through its Business Environment
Learning and Leadership (BELL) pro-
gram, MEB assists schools by developing
and disseminating business-and-
environment case materials, training
faculty, helping to create collaborative
partnerships with communities and
businesses, and creating student intern-
ship opportunities. In this way, BELL is
trying to help create future managers
who will incorporate environmental
considerations into the business decision
making. Q
Case Studies
To aid business schools in their
efforts to bring business-and-
environment cases into management
education, MEB has created a
comprehensive annotated bibliogra-
phy of cases and videos. It includes
cases and abstracts from a variety of
sources including Harvard Business
School, MEB, INSEAD, University of
Western Ontario's Western Business
School, and the National Pollution
Prevention Center. This user-
friendly guide is divided by disci-
pline and indicates whether a case is
a simulation exercise or a conven-
tional case.
MEB has also published a book of
simulation exercises, Stakeholder
Negotiations: Exercises in Sustainable
Development (Available from Richard
D. Irwin, Inc. at 800 323-4560). These
exercises take the form of stake-
holder negotiations in which
students play the role of representa-
tives from different groups involved
in an environmental problem. For
example, a chlorine simulation
exercise, developed by Alan
Beckenstein of the Darden School at
the University of Virginia in collabo-
ration with MEB, describes a
provocative policy debate in which
representatives from industry, EPA,
and Greenpeace come together to
define a common environmental
path for the pulp and paper industry.
Conventional cases, in contrast,
force students to confront a business
challenge with limited information
and to recommend a course of action.
In MEB's BMW case, they learn that
the German government has issued
draft legislation requiring the take-
back of used vehicles and the
reduction of scrap materials from
these vehicles. Students must
decide how, if at all, BMW should
modify its existing takeback
infrastructure and how the com-
pany should handle recovered
scrap materials.
What is MEB?
The Management Institute for Environment and Business (MEB) is
a nonprofit initiative that empowers future leaders to contribute to
environmental progress by engaging business, universities, and
communities in creative problem solving. MEB helps universities,
graduate schools, and corporations integrate environmental issues
into their educational programs and provides new thinking about
the relationship between business and environment. For more
information, please contact MEB at 110117th Street, NW., Washing-
ton, DC 20036.
The MEB program is supported by a variety of organizations
including: Philip Morris Companies Inc.; AVINA; The William and
Flora Hewlett Foundation; National Environmental Education and
Training Foundation; GE Fund; Virginia Environmental Endow-
ment; the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation; the Moriah Fund;
the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation; AT&T; Baxter
International Inc.; Church & Dwight Company, Inc.; the Henry M.
Jackson Foundation; the Curtis & Edith Munson Foundation; the
Rockefeller Brothers Fund; Alcoa Foundation; Bristol-Myers
Squibb; WMX Technologies, Inc.; Kraft Foods; and Amoco. MEB
also has a cooperative agreement with EPA's Office of Policy,
Planning, and Evaluation to study the effects of environmental
regulation on industrial competitiveness and innovation.
SPRING 1995
33
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Learning for Life in the 21st Century
Hope lies in educated choices
by Noel J. Brown
On September 30,1994, Dr. Noel
}. Brown—then the Director of the
United Nations Environment
Programme (UNEP)—spoke in
San Francisco at the National
Forum on "Partnerships Support-
ing Education about the Environ-
ment. " In his remarks, Dr. Brown
examined the interconnections
between environmental education,
economic conditions, and
sustainability in the broadest
sense. An excerpt from his speech
follows.
(Until his recent retirement, Dr. Brown
served as Director of the United Nations
Environment Programme.)
Even the most casual reading of the
Earth's vital signs reveals a planet
under stress. When you look at
the data, they present a rather stark
picture of human presence and rather
ominous prospects for the human future.
Nevertheless, Ted Turner some years
ago remarked that, although the prob-
lems facing our planet have never been
greater, neither have the skills and
talents available for solving the prob-
lems. The ques-
tion is how to tap m^l^^m^mfm^^
into those skills
and make them
work for us and
the world.
Now, I believe
we have an oppor-
tunity. The Earth
Summit at Rio,
whatever else it
may or may not
have achieved,
was able to bring
about a major global consensus on a new
agenda for action. That agenda, as you
know, is called Agenda 21. It would seem
to me that, if you are trying to design a
curriculum, you could do no better than
to make Agenda 21 the basis of that
curriculum. It's a very well documented
statement, and it's science-based. I hope
that you will encourage your young
people to become acquainted with it.
Shortly after our summit, my office
came up with the idea of promoting a
Youth Agenda 21 by encouraging young
people to prepare their own document.
We are rather impressed with the result,
which is called The Rescue Mission. This is
the product of kids who took the original
Agenda 21 document and rewrote it. Let
me share a secret: It may be the only
volume that is read, because it's written
in a language that people can under-
stand. It's also very well illustrated.
If you are trying to design
a curriculum, you could
do no better than to make
Agenda 21 the basis of
that curriculum.
I pass this on to you because you may
want to challenge your own young
people to take a look at Agenda 21 and
rewrite it. Why not have your class take
the action plan of Cairo and rewrite it in
a language that young people can
understand, particularly young people of
child-bearing age? Have them take that
text and make it their own. In the process
they will become familiar with what
their parents have decided in their name.
Agenda 21
,mamam^m^^^^l^mm has 40 chap-
ters. Chapter
36—on educa-
tion, training,
and public
information—
suggests that
we experiment
with new
modes of
learning, that
we look to the
arts, entertain-
ment, and advertising communities to
help us tell the story. We at UNEP are
reaching out to the arts and entertain-
ment communities because they are our
most effective communicators, and we
must find a way of communicating the
knowledge we have acquired. Last
April, I launched a series at the United
Nations called "Art and the Earth: A
Dialogue with Nature," trying to encour-
age artists to use nature as a canvas and
the Earth as a storyline.
My interest is simply to encourage
creativity and innovation. We have also
brought in the advertising community,
because they have become a very
powerful force in any matter dealing
with sustainability and patterns of
consumption and lifestyle. U.S. educa-
tors must find ways of bringing these
subjects into their classrooms.
Chapter 30 of Agenda 21 urges the
34
EPA JOURNAL
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Tourism means big revenues,
but profits depend on
sustainable practices. Here,
tourists explore the Amazon
rainforest.
Photo courtesy of International Expeditions, Inc. Copyrighted
business community to become partners
with us in moving the process of
sustainability forward. It explicitly calls
for new entrepreneurism and for seeking
ways in which we can use the market-
place to ensure that environmental costs
are incorporated in pricing structures.
We in the environmental community
don't fully understand how business
works, and quite often business leaders
seem to feel that environmentalists are
fuzzy little birdwatchers and backpack-
ers who don't know what's happening in
the real world of business. Partnership
between us is something that we need to
encourage immediately.
Let me give just two examples that will
illustrate why I know this can work and
why we need to make it happen. About
three weeks ago, I hosted a conference at
the United Nations on fashion and the
environment. Now, when I tell this story,
people tend to think I'm talking about
receding hemlines or plunging necklines.
But the fashion industry is a $200-billion-
a-year industry. It is a very heavy user of
fibers, of skins and hides, of energy and
chemicals, of transportation and packag-
ing. To make a partner of this industry is
important, and so I introduced a fashion
leadership award for environmental
excellence.
Three companies won the award this
year. The first was called Deja Shoe,
which manufactures a shoe product from
100-percent recycled materials, demon-
strating that waste can be looked at as a
resource the second time around. The
second is called Green Cotton, and they
are experimenting with technologies that
will make for an environmentally
friendly cotton product—cotton tradi-
tionally is a very dirty industry. And,
finally, we honored a group called
Coyuchi that is growing colored cotton—
no dyes, no chemicals, and they already
have five shades.
It's in our interest to make these
companies our partners because they are
demonstrating that sustainability can
work and still be profitable. I want to
urge all my environmentalist friends:
Don't be afraid of profit making! My
hope is that we can bring the environ-
ment into the marketplace, that shopping
can become an environmental experi-
ence. And we can bring that about by
educating the shopper, the consumer, to
make it an environmental experience. If
one cent of every dollar we spend were
spent with the environment in mind, we
would be well on the road. In the end, it
will be the consumer who makes the
difference. Even if I am the Pope, I am a
consumer. And if the full potential of the
consumer were brought to bear on the
marketplace, I can assure you it would
make a difference.
Let me give one other example of how
business and the environment can work
together to move the process of
sustainability forward. Ten days ago I
was in Montreal at a conference on
tourism, sustainable tourism, and the
environment. Again, people tend to think
I'm talking about a cocktail industry
until they discover the statistics of
tourism. In 1992, the industry generated
revenues of $3.7 trillion; that's five
SPRING 1995
35
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Agenda 21 advocates education to improve the environment.
Shown, children attending school in Holetta, Ethiopia.
World Sank photo.
percent of the gross world product. They
employed 100 million people around the
world. That's one out of every 10 jobs in
the world. By the year 2000, they will
become the world's largest industry,
outdistancing petroleum, steel, and
automobile manufacturing. How can you
talk sustainability without talking
tourism and the support systems that are
involved? We can also demonstrate that
tourism is a peace-based industry; it can
even be a promoter of peace. If you have
any doubt about that, try to imagine a
traveler wanting to go to a war zone for a
holiday.
To show you what I mean, let's
consider Ireland. In late August, the IRA
announced a unilateral cease fire. Two
weeks later Hilton announced they were
going to build a $26 million hotel in the
heart of Belfast. Peace and tourism go
together. When Egypt signed the accord
with Israel, Egyptian tourism blossomed.
After partition declined, South African
tourism blossomed. We can see this
occurring across the world.
Tourism, peace, and the environment
can work hand in hand. The challenge is
to create ways of educating the tourist
traveler in environmental sustainability.
What modes of learning can we as
educators design for them? I, for ex-
ample, am trying to bring the Inflight
Entertainment Network into the loop. All
of us who travel a lot know that the
Inflight Network is an unbelievably rich
source of information. Can we design
programs that can be built into inflight
entertainment? Walk into a corridor at
the San Francisco Airport and you will
see that art is now being displayed. Some
very interesting exhibitions are bringing
art to the people. We need to bring the
idea of sustainability to the people.
I would like to encourage you as
educators to look at Agenda 21, especially
those chapters that call for partnerships
with the private sector, and discover the
opportunities that are open to you. My
own feeling as an aspiring optimist is
that trend, as Renee DuBois once said, is
not destiny, and that a future based on
the extrapolation of existing trends is not
inevitable anymore than doomsday. The
future that we choose is the one most
likely to prevail. The challenge is to
develop a capacity for choice. And that is
where you as educators come in. G
What is UNEP?
The United Nations Environ-
ment Programme (UNEP) is
the action agency of the
United Nations for environ-
mental matters. The Secre-
tariat, guided by the Govern-
ing Council, located in
Nairobi, Kenya, is a focal
point for environmental
matters throughout the
United Nations. It serves as a
mechanism for international
cooperation in matters
relating to the environ-
ment—monitoring signifi-
cant changes in the environ-
ment and encouraging and
coordinating sound prac-
tices.
UNEP was created as a
result of the Stockholm
Conference on the Human
Environment in 1972. Under
the plan developed by the
Conference, the programme
is intended to be responsive
to the major environmental
issues facing both the
industrial and the develop-
ing areas of the world, such
as the ecology of rural and
urban settlements, the
relationship between
environment and develop-
ment, natural disasters, and
the preservation of terrestrial
ecosystems. UNEP also
promotes environmental law
and education and training
for managing the environ-
ment. Its tasks are assigned
to the programme by various
U.N. bodies and meetings
and conferences. The plans
and projects drawn up in the
framework of the programme
are usually put into practice
by member country govern-
ments and other U.N.
agencies.
The programme's Govern-
ing Council is composed of
representatives from 58
countries (16 African; 13
Asian; 10 Latin American; 6
Eastern European; 13
Western European and other
countries).
—Eds.
36
EPA JOURNAL
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Agenda 2Ts Plan for Education
The United Nations Conference on Environment
and Development held in Rio de Janeiro in 1990,
adopted Agenda 21, an ambitious program for achieving
sustainable development in the 21st century. Agenda 21
has 40 chapters; Chapter 36focuses on "Promoting Educa-
tion, Public Awareness and Training." A sampling of its
contents follows:
... Both formal and nonforma! education are ...
critical for achieving environmental and ethical
awareness, values and attitudes, skills and behavior
consistent with sustainable development....
Governments should strive to update or prepare
strategies aimed at integrating environment and
development as a cross-cutting issue into education at
all levels within the next three years.
Countries are encouraged to set up national advisory
environmental-education coordinating bodies or round
tables representative of various environmental,
developmental, educational, gender and other inter-
ests, including non-governmental organizations, to
encourage partnerships, help mobilize resources, and
provide a source of information and focal point for
international ties.
Schools should involve school children in local and
regional studies on environmental health, including
safe drinking water, sanitation, food, and ecosystems
... linking these studies with services and research on
national parks, wildlife reserves, ecological heritage
sites, etc.
Countries... could ... establish national or regional
centers of excellence in interdisciplinary research and
education in environmental and developmental
sciences, law, and the management of specific environ-
mental problems. Such centers could be universities....
Governments and educational authorities should
foster opportunities for women in non-traditional
fields and eliminate gender stereotyping in curricula.
This could be done by improving enrollment opportu-
nities, including females in advanced programs or
students and instructors, reforming entrance and
teacher staffing policies and providing incentives for
establishing child-care facilities.. ..
There is still a considerable lack of awareness of the
interrelated nature of all human activities and the
environment
Countries and the United Nations system should
promote a cooperative relationship with the media,
popular theater groups, and entertainment and
advertising industries by initiating discussions to
mobilize their experience in shaping public behavior
and consumption patterns and making wide use of
their methods.
Countries, in cooperation with the scientific commu-
nity, should establish ways of employing modern
communication technologies for effective public
outreach. National and local educational authorities ...
should expand ... the use of audiovisual methods,
especially for rural areas in mobile units, by producing
television and radio programmes for developing
countries, involving local participation, employing
interactive multimedia methods and integrating
advanced methods with folk media.
Countries should promote ... environmentally
sound liaisons and tourism activities,... making ...
use of museums, heritage sites, zoos, botanical gardens,
national parks, and other protected areas.
Countries... and non-governmental organizations
should encourage mobilization of both men and
women in awareness campaigns, stressing the role of
the family in environmental activities....
Training is one of the most important tools to
develop human resources and facilitate the transition
to a sustainable world. It should have a job specific
focus, aimed at filling gaps in knowledge and skill that
would help individuals find employment and be
involved in environmental and development work.
National and professional associations are encour-
aged to develop and review their codes of ethics and
conduct to strengthen environmental connections and
commitment. The training and personal development
components of programmes sponsored by professional
bodies should ensure incorporation of skills and
information on the implementation of sustainable
development at all points of policy and decision-
making.
Countries should encourage all sectors of society
such as industry, universities, government officials and
employees, non-governmental organizations and
community organizations, to include an environmental
management component in all... training activities....
Countries should develop a service of locally trained
and recruited environmental technicians able to
provide local people and communities, particularly in
deprived urban and rural areas, with the services they
require, starting from primary environmental care....
SPRING 1995
37
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Rescue Mission: Planet Earth
It's not just a book—it's a call to action
by David R. Woollcombe
following the 1992 United Nations
Conference on Environment and
Development held in Rio de
Janeiro, Brazil, some 10,000 children in
about 100 countries worked in 1993 with
Peace Child, an international organiza-
tion dedicated to education for a better
world, to create a Children's Edition of
Agenda 21. Twenty-eight young editors
from 21 countries came together to edit
the book which they called Rescue
Mission: Planet Earth. There are about
270,000 copies in print in 14 languages,
making it something of a bestseller among
books sponsored by the United Nations.
The young editors were determined
that the book should not remain a "pretty
picture book to sit on coffee tables";
rather, it should become an action
manual, educating young people in how
they can become actively involved in
initiatives for sustainable development.
The U.S. edition is published with an
activity booklet bound into it. In 1994, a
team of students from Sierra Leone
worked to create the first Rescue Mission
Action Update. It contained an "action
challenge" inviting young people to
prepare an Agenda 21 for their school
using the same framework of analysis
used in the original Agenda 21.
A second edition action update was
prepared by interns from the United
Kingdom, Germany, Kenya, Finland, and
Russia in June and July 1994. It reported
on activities that Rescue Mission groups
and other groups such as Greenpeace,
Friends of the Earth, and Lifelink were
pursuing to achieve Agenda 21 goals.
These included, among others, a project
taken on by a group of Finns to work
with their "twin" schools in Namibia
showing them how to build solar box
cookers; young people's involvement in
the saving of the Delhi Ridge; and a 17-
year-old Russian student's personal
campaign to clean up the source of the
River Volga. The update had an action
challenge linked to the United Nations'
50th anniversary. Set an agenda for the
United Nations in the 21st century. This
produced so much material that Peace
Child is producing another book to be
released in the fall of 1995.
The third action update focuses on a
local Agenda 21. It has an action chal-
lenge showing how kids can take a lead
in creating one. The challenge takes
Peace Child back to its musical roots,
proposing that young people invite their
counselors, teachers, parents, and peers
to a performance of the Rescue Mission
musical: The twist is that, 10 minutes
into the performance, it breaks down
into a Donahue-style show where the
audience members are empowered to
create an "Instant Local Agenda 21" for
their community.
It also instructs young people and
teachers on ways to get involved in
monitoring their government's progress
in implementing Agenda 21—in particu-
lar Chapter 25, the one relating to youth
participation in decision-making. This
process is part of the search for "indica-
tors of sustainable development" now
going on worldwide. The youth compo-
nent of this is being handled by Rescue
Mission and will climax in what the
United Nations calls a "Youth
Intersessional Meeting" in April 1996.
Rescue Mission was sponsored by four
U.N. agencies—UNDP, UNEP, UNESCO,
and UNICEF—with assistance from the
Dutch Foundation for Environmental
Awareness. Representatives of these,
plus two youth representatives of Rescue
Mission and the publisher form a
coordinating committee which sets
strategy for the future. The current
strategy being promoted to all Rescue
Mission groups includes:
• Preparation of curriculum material to
get Agenda 21 into the classroom.
• Production of training sheets and
manuals to assist young people in
developing Rescue Mission groups
throughout the world.
• Compiling an action database listing
activities undertaken by young people in
pursuit of Agenda 21 goals.
• Continued outreach and promotion to
youth and educational groups.
• Bi-monthly electronic focal points
meeting at which student interns at the
Rescue Mission headquarters in England
hook up with other members of the
Rescue Mission network for a structured
meeting and training via fax, phone, and
computer conference. (This was one of
the most popular initiatives of our first
year in operation.)
• The creation of a new Rescue Mission
unit within the United Nations which
will be a kind of U.N. youth agency in
which power is shared equally between
youth and adults. It will network
activities between existing groups,
especially those that offer opportunities
for environmental service overseas.
For further information about Rescue
Mission, please write to:
Rescue Mission (USA)
11426-28 Rockville Pike, #100,
Rockville, MD 20852, USA
Fax: 301468-9431
or
Rescue Mission Headquarters
The White House
BUNT1NGFORD, England SG9 9AII
Fax: Oil 44 176 327 4460
For copies of the book, please call the
publisher, Kingfisher USA, at 800 497-
1657. Q
(David Woollcombe is President of Peace Child
International, an educational charity whose
mission is to "empower children." He founded
the organization in 1982 in Washington, DC.,
with the musical Peace Child, a story of
Soviet and American children ending the Cold
War through youth exchanges. It became a
leader in the citizen diplomacy movement,
arranging the first Soviet-US, youth exchange
in 1986. He added an environmental
component to their work in 1988 with a play
called Earth Child.
The organization produced its first book, A
Children's State of the Planet Handbook,
for the Rio Earth Summit. Rescue Mission:
Planet Earth was its second book, and it has
just completed a third. Rescue UN: a Young
People's Guide to the Past, Present and
Future of the United Nations, to be released
in the United States this fall.)
from RfSCUE MISSION.PLANE TEMTH—A
Children's Edition of Agenda 21. copyright © Peace
Child Charitable Tryst 1994. Reprinted with
permission ofLarousse Kingfisher Chambers, New
York. Photograph by Caroline Penn/OXFAM.
Copyrighted.
38
EPA JOURNAL
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74
MAKING IT HAPPEN
TO WANT + TO KNOW = TO ACT
Make environment and development education available to
people of all ages.
Agenda 21, chapter 36
Lack of education is one of the biggest
obstacles to development. If people don't
know what things are harmful to the
environment, how can they respect it?
Many people in the world don't even
know how to read or write. All people,
both adults and kids, have to get primary
schooling before they can be taught
about environment and development.
The Need of Education
Imagine bow dreary life would have been;
Living in ignorance and monotony,
Staring at the everyday life roll by —
Without a care .........
Writing scribbles on the dead sand,
While glancing at the once brilliant horizon.
Someone wants to break the spell,
Their inability to express strong feelings held
back
for so long, the inability to fight for their rights
and get what they longed for.
Dust and steam torment the lonely man,
But to achieve his goal, he must fight.
But when he comes back, he shall be
victorious;
And will bring a thought, an intelligent
teacher,
To bring a colorful, bright rainbow to lighten
the way;
To change our futures, for the better...
To help us live.
Portia Villanueva, II, Philippines
liliUtJlnifllH .
/ personally think if women are given a real
education they will strive bard to do their very
best. For instance, if I had no education I
wouldn't have had the opportunity to attend
the Editorial Meeting of the Children's Edition
of Agenda 21 and get the book published for a
better future. Mary Edet, 15, Nigeria
MMiiin
AGENDA 21 SAYS:
• Make basic education available to as many
people as possible.
• Sec up training programmes on sustainable
development.
• Promote awareness on environment, and make
use of media and the entertainment industry.
• Promote the knowledge of indigenous people.
• Create partnerships with companies in the
developing countries to teach environmental
management.
-------
HABITAT
A
Comeback
for
Prospect
Park
Lessons learned
the hard way
are put to work
by Roy Popkin
(Povkin is a writer-editor in EPA's
Office of Communications,
Education, and Public Affairs.)
Half a century ago, Betty
Smith's best-known novel, A
Tree Grows in Brooklyn,
brought fame to one tree in one
backyard. Today, hundreds of volun-
teers and a dozen or so city employees
are hard at work striving to restore a
525-acre woodland and open area
called Prospect Park, Brooklyn's last
forest and a natural area which serves
as a "community backyard."
Their work begins a 25-year effort to
revitalize the 129-year-old park, which
serves upwards of 6 million visitors
each year. This urban park renewal is
funded in part by the city, and in part
by the Prospect Park Alliance, a group
of private supporters.
According to the New York Times,
Prospect Park has been rated the most
beautiful of New York City's many
parks, outranking even better-known
and much larger Central Park in
mid town Manhattan. Several years
ago, an anonymous New York Times
writer began a story on the park as
follows:
A leisurely stroll across Long
Meadow. A brisk hike through
the woods to the top of Lookout
Hill. Perhaps a picnic in a paddle
boat, mingling with the swans.
This is Sunday in the Park—
Prospect Park—as it was meant
to be.... Prospect Park was
considered the ideal showcase for
what they deemed essential
elements of an urban oasis....
Today's extensive restoration effort
is being undertaken in spite of steep
budget cuts throughout the city's
agencies. It is a tribute to the dedica-
tion of the park's small staff, the
leadership of the Prospect Park
Alliance, and the desire of the commu-
nity to renew and improve the park's
role as their ecological backyard. A $1.3
million grant from the Lila Wallace/
Readers Digest Foundation will be
devoted largely to educational and
outreach activities.
Brooklyn, today, is a crowded area of
almost 3 million people at the western
end of Long Island. Its landscape was
formed by Ice Age glaciers, and Prospect
Park sits on the Harbor Hills moraine,
which runs the full 110-mile length of the
island. The northern part of the park
marks the southernmost point reached
by the Wisconsin Glacier 10,000 years
ago.
The park's southern meadows are
where sand, gravel, and clay spread over
the land from the great river of ice. The
glacier's impact ultimately produced a
diversity of plant life common to eastern
deciduous forests and coastal plains. In
pre-Colonial times, the park's forest
included oaks, chestnuts, hickory, and, in
the lowland areas, red maples, sweet
gum, and sour gum trees. Early settlers
farmed the area but generally left the
forest alone until the Revolutionary War.
Seven years of fighting and British
occupation led to the destruction of the
forests to provide firewood and
vegetables for the British troops.
Prospect Park was created in 1866 by
master landscape architects Frederick
Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux to
provide the growing city of Brooklyn
with open space comparable to the
recently completed Central Park in
Manhattan, and according to Olmsted
and Vaux's 1866 annual report, to give
visitors:
... the feeling of relief experienced
... on escaping from the cramped,
confined and controlling circum-
stances of the streets of the town;
in other words, a sense of enlarged
freedom. .. [emphasis theirs].
EPA JOURNAL
-------
K, i row \inniv
] UiUiyi'tti' Monutnenl
•< ttrH'iliniM-
;; Il.iiioi Hull Memorial
•i Statue
~, Sitcuf M Stt-na^oric ^ NINTH AVESUE
Doagan O«k Monurnenl
7 Flatbush Toll House
*' ,
•
MAP OF
PROSPECT PARK ^
Brooklvn, New York
Show-ing, principal wgittnx, ono€
and tratrrrtnirxty. huildings and
monuments, antl adjacent
institutions
\\
Courtesy of Prospect Park Alliance. Copyrighted.
Some of today's stresses on the park
come from the original design and
subsequent lack of maintenance. Two
thousand workers took six years to build
Prospect Park. Olmsted and Vaux
meticulously plotted the trees and
shrubs; unfortunately, they included
such exotic or non-native varieties as
sycamore, Norway maple, and Japanese
knotweed and paper mulberry plants.
Well suited to poor soil and a city
environment, these trees and shrubs
crowded out native species or deprived
them of light and moisture. Recent
surveys show that about a fourth of the
forested area has lost its natural cover
and that 22 percent of the ground in the
core forest is bare or eroded.
Prospect Park now sits in the middle of
a crowded, diversely populated area of
apartment houses, row houses, small
single-family homes, and small neigh-
borhood businesses. Its most famous
neighbor was Ebbetts Field, home of the
Brooklyn Dodgers. The park is on the
National Register of Historic Places; one
well-known thoroughfare passes along
its eastern edge—Flatbush Avenue.
The park has many outstanding
features. The Soldiers and Sailor's
monument commemorating the Civil
War dead at the Park's main entrance is
one of the few of its type in Brooklyn
that is found in guidebooks for New
York City. A beautiful fountain, just
north of the memorial archway, is the
background for thousands of wedding
party photographs. An ingenious
interlocking series of falls, pools, and
streams winds through the park and
enters a man-made 60-acre lake. The
Italianate-style Boathouse was built in
1905. The Picnic House overlooks a large
picnic grove, a small children's historic
house and museum, and a lovely cul-de-
sac, called Lullwater, that features a
stalwart Scottish elm descended from
one of the original trees. In a grove near
SPRING 1995
41
-------
A lot of work will be done by
volunteers, in exchange for a course on
forest ecology, horticulture, and
related matters.
the 120-year-old Concert Pagoda,
towering London plane trees and small-
leafed lindens look down on busts of
Mozart and Beethoven. There are
facilities for nature education classes,
and the park's ranger takes school
children on nature walks.
Over the years, improvements have
been made: upgrading and reopening
the park's small zoo, closed for nine
years for restoration; replacement of the
old rowboats with paddle boats; restora-
tion of the carousel as a piece of folk art;
and construction of an ice-skating rink
(visitors used to skate on the lake in the
winter, but many fell in).
All these points of interest and im-
provements notwithstanding, the forests,
lawns, and plantings have been deterio-
rating. The number of people visiting the
park has doubled in the past 20 years to
its current level of six million a year,
most of them from within a 20-block
radius of the grounds. Off-road biking
and the trampling of many feet compact
the soil, encouraging erosion during
heavy rain and leaving tree roots
exposed. Vandalism and the consequent
clearing of low growth to enhance
security added to the problems.
The restoration work, like the original
park construction, will be done by hand.
According to the park's information
office, Prospect Park Alliance funds are
expected over the 25 years to pay for 40
miles of snow fence to shield new
plantings; 90,000 feet of logs to be used
as anti-erosion barriers on hillsides and
to further protect new plantings; 240,000
wildflowers, 134,337 trees, and a vast
amount of topsoil to restore areas where
the earth has worn or washed away. An
example of the painstaking work is that
being done to restore the artificial
Ravine, which runs through the center of
the park. Compacted soil is being
loosened with shovels and planted with
blueberry bushes and other species that
take up fertilizers from the soil before
they can leach into the lake. Non-native
trees like sycamores are being removed.
Tupper Thomas, the park administra-
tor, and Edward Toth, head of the
landscape management office, hope to
recreate the woodlands that existed in
pre-Revolutionary War times. Their
success depends, in part, on keeping the
squirrels from digging up the thousands
of hickory nuts being planted.
A lot of the work will be done by
volunteers recruited by the Alliance,
which provides an eight-week training
course in horticulture techniques, forest
ecology, basic botany, Prospect Park
history, and park programs. Payment for
the course is 50 hours of volunteer time
over two years. A major kick-off and
celebration of the Prospect Park renewal
was the weekend-long "You Gotta Have
Park" annual festival in late May,
dedicated to volunteerism and commu-
nity involvement in parks.
Betty Smith, no doubt, would find
inspiration in all the new trees growing
in Brooklyn. Q
EPA JOURNAL
-------
FOR THE CLASSROOM
EPA Journal As a Classroom Tool
An interdisciplinary unit can be built around the magazine
by Stephen Tchudi and Nancy Starnes
In a number of past issues of EPA Journal,
we have provided "For the Classroom "
exercises tied to particular themes explored
by the magazine—e.g., pollution preven-
tion, indoor air quality, and clean water,
among others. In this article, we shift focus
somewhat: We want to move beyond the
specific lessons we've done to suggest how
teachers can use EPA Journal (or various
other popular science/environmental
magazines) to create their own interdisci-
plinary units and activities. Our planning
strategy is outlined in the figure on the
following page which features some of our
notes from the pollution-prevention issue
(July-September 1993).
A longer version of this article will
appear in the November 1995 issue of
English Journal.
Identifying
Central Disciplinary Concepts
Although we favor "seamless"
interdisciplinary teaching, where
no disciplinary boundaries are
required, we've created three major
divisions in the figure to reflect the
curriculum reality of most schools: For
the likely future, we will still be teaching
subject clusters of math/science, hu-
manities/arts, and community/voca-
tional concerns.
We begin creating our units by reading
the articles in EPA journal and noting the
key ideas or concepts under each of the
major subject-area headings. In the
pollution-prevention issue, for example,
we found math concepts dealing with
estimation, calculation of probabilities,
and all manner of statistics; we discov-
ered science/technology topics centering
on chemical reactions, industrial pro-
cesses, and materials science; we identi-
fied hurnanities/arts concepts related to
group dynamics and organizational
hierarchies, design aesthetics, and
economics. In the community/vocational
category, we identified concepts related
to the side effects of toxic waste, the costs
of cleanup to communities, and careers
in pollution prevention.
Those concepts were just the tip of the
conceptual iceberg, by the way. We have
found that a typical thematic issue of a
publication like EPA Journal may contain
hundreds of interdisciplinary concepts.
In planning our units, we content
ourselves with jotting down the most
prominent few.
The focal concepts for a unit can be
further developed through an examina-
tion of the school or district study guide
in the various disciplines. For example,
an English/language-arts teacher can ask
faculty members in social studies,
science, math, the arts, and the voca-
tional fields to supply summary state-
ments of their aims and goals for the
year.
SPRING 1995
43
-------
As the figure suggests, we also believe
that teachers should factor in their own
interests and backgrounds (What do you
know already about pollution preven-
tion?). We also believe in involving
students in describing additional
questions, themes, and topics they'd like
to explore (What do they really want to
learn?). After giving students some
orientation to the topic (perhaps using
the "For the Classroom" exercises we
have presented in previous issues of EPA
Journal), the teacher can use brainstorm-
ing or webbing to get the students to
identify some crucial questions for unit
study.
Finding Resources
A single issue of EPA Journal (or a similar
magazine) may be all the teacher needs
as an information base for a unit, but
additional resources are very helpful.
Classroom texts are one possibility.
Beyond the textbooks, most school and
public libraries have a good supply of
materials on environmental and other
science themes. A quick search through a
library catalog will turn up dozens of
books, from accessible adult literature to
fiction and nonfiction written expressly
for young adults or children. Local
environmental issues may well be
covered in bin or pamphlet files that one
can find most easily by talking directly
with the librarian. The catalog or the
librarian can also help you learn about
relevant videos, documentary films, and
other media resources that can be
valuable in a unit.
We also recommend conducting a
careful review of the current television
guides in the newspaper, with a particu-
lar eye toward the offerings of PBS, Arts
& Entertainment, the Discovery Channel,
and the Learning Channel.
If you have access to any computer
networks through, say, the Internet,
Bitnet, America Online, CompuServe, or
Prodigy, you can also find additional
information sources and very likely a
bulletin board or two that you or your
students can explore. EPA journal, for
instance, is newly available on Internet.
We are particularly keen on the use of
community-based resources, and our
unit plans for EPA Journal typically
include projects encouraging kids to call
up community leaders and agencies,
executives in business and industry, and
county and state officials. Students can
schedule interviews, line up classroom
speakers, and obtain reams of free or
inexpensive material.
Students can also contact federal
government sources, which can supply
good reading material on almost any
interdisciplinary topic one can name.
(See partial resource list at the end of this
article.)
Whether one works strictly with a
single issue of a magazine or does a
fairly extensive search, the aim is to get
enough materials into the classroom so
that students can learn about the topic
and then move toward hands-on class-
Classroom Planning with EPA Journal
Topic:
Pollution Prevention
Math/Science
Humanities/Arts
Community/Vocational
Central Concepts
EPA Journal
Curriculum
Teacher/student
Estimation
Statistics/probability
Chemical reactions
Materials science
Group dynamics
Values of Thoreau, Franklin
Design aesthetics
Economics
Local problems
Environmental careers
Costs of cleanup
Future planning
Resources
EPA Journal
Class Texts
Library
Media
Networks
Community Resources
Pollution prevention issue of EPA Journal
General science textbook chapter on environment problems
Books such as 50 Things You Can Do to Save the Earth
Materials from Federal Reclamation Bureau: Project WET
Materials from EPA Information Center
County agricultural extension service representative
Parents who work in environmentally related jobs
Classroom Activities
Whole class
Small group
Individual projects
"Fifty-Two Pickup"gameto demonstrate pollution-prevention problems
Discussion: Clean your room: now or later?
Water filtering exercise from Project WET
Small group and individual research into local disposal of grass, paper, Styrofoam and
plastics, toxic chemicals, dead batteries, oil, glass, and photographic chemicals
Class visit to city council meeting on pollution issues
Assessment/Performance
Displays
Writing
Community Action
Individualized Assessment
Schoolwide pollution-prevention week, with posters, articles in school paper, launching
recycling projects
Class debate on cleaning up now rather than later
Individual presentations on local disposal problems
Campaign to get school lunchroom to reduce waste
Student presentations on careers in environmental-disposal/pollution-prevention areas
Letters to editor of local/regional newspapers
44
EPA JOURNAL
-------
\om activities. The quality and diversity
those activities, as well as their
itrinsic interest to students, are likely to
; roughly proportional to the depth and
chness of resource materials offered by
le teacher.
lanning Classroom Activities
here is no easy formula for planning
iterdisciplinary activities. We tend to
are at our accumulated resources until
aching ideas start to flow: "Ah, here's
aw we could use that article." "And let's
link about using tonight's PBS special in
ic unit." Our three rules of thumb are to:
Start with whole class introductory
ssons to tune kids in to the topic, to
rovide them with necessary back-
round information, and to get them
ivolved in raising questions on their own.
Use "hands on" learning where
ossible, employing concrete objects,
assroom experiments and experiences,
nd community resources to make the
arning alive and lively.
Move beyond information to
netacognition," thinking about issues,
roblems, and ways of knowing. For
xample, students might read several
rticles in the October-December 1993
PA Journal, which focuses on indoor air
uality, and consider how scientists
gure out relationships between air
uality and health. Students could look
>r answers to questions such as these:
[ow do we know that invisible pollut-
nts are really in the air and that they are
armful to people? How can the govern-
lent be sure that there is a relationship
etween visible or invisible pollutants
nd health? What does it mean to
prove" something? What do we accept
s evidence? And how do our own
alues warp our evaluation of evidence?
Lssessment/Performance
Ve're committed to the concept of
uthentic assessment through perfor-
lance: Rather than looking at test scores,
?e ask, "What is it that kids can do with
neir learning?" For the unit on indoor air
uality (as with almost any environmen-
il or other science/technology issue),
jarning leads to displays, performances,
nd exhibits, invariably drawing on and
nhancing literacy skills. Students'
mderstanding of the issues can foster
heir creation of posters or displays on
adon problems and detection; a newslet-
ter or pamphlet describing the complica-
tions of and alternatives to asbestos
removal; a cartoon showing how carpets,
even new ones, may serve as sources of
indoor air pollution; a panel discussion
or debate over passive smoke inhalation
and the development of "smoke free"
environments. Other projects might
include: a research notebook, with
pamphlets, advertisements, interview
notes, journal entries, hypotheses and
conclusions; a paper, perhaps done as a
common school report or research paper,
or possibly a piece of imaginative
writing, such as a science fiction story on
an environmental theme; a poster,
advertisement, bumper sticker or other
concise summary/display of findings; or
an oral presentation, panel, discussion,
seminar, or debate.
To assess the results of these units, let's
go back to our original listing of concepts
in math/science, humanities/arts, and
community/vocational. The beauty of
authentic assessment, we think, is that
student projects and performances make
it abundantly clear whether those
concepts have been covered: Either a
project demonstrates the target ideas or it
doesn't.
Moreover, we often find that interdisci-
plinary projects lead to coverage of a
wide range of unanticipated concepts. A
project on passive smoke inhalation may
lead to a discussion of smoker's rights,
which may grow into a discussion of
human rights generally—and may then
lead to a debate over the political ideals
of figures such as Henry David Thoreau
or Benjamin Franklin. When that hap-
pens, we carefully note down what has
taken place, as an example of how
interdisciplinary learning covers far
more than the "basics" and often covers
the mandated curriculum in far more
depth and detail than the mandators
dreamed. Q
(Dr. Tchudi is Professor of English at the
University of Nevada, Reno, where he teaches
interdisciplinary programs and edits The
Phoenix, the newsletter of the Assembly on
Science and Humanities of the National
Council of Teachers of English. Until recently,
Starttes was an Assistant Editor at EPA
Journal in the Senior Environmental
Employment Program.)
Resources at EPA
EPA Journal. Published quarterly by
the Environmental Protection Agency.
Available from the Superintendent of
Documents, P.O. Box 371954, Pitts-
burgh, PA 15250-7954. Subscription
$7.50 per year. Available on Internet
(text only) at gopher.epa.gov or
http:/ / www.epa.gov/
EPA Public Information Center.
Phone: 202 260-2080 or -7751. (For non-
technical information on environmental
topics such as drinking water, air
quality, pesticides, and indoor air.)
Other Federal Information
Sources on
Environmental Issues
Bureau of Reclamation. Phone: 303
236-9336. (Sponsors of Project WET:
Water Education for Teachers)
Civilian Radioactive Waste Informa-
tion Center. Toll-free phone: 800 225-
6972.
Department of Agriculture Extension
Service. Phone: 202 720-5727. (Ask for
guides to the "Ag in the Classroom"
program.)
Energy Efficiency and Renewable
Energy Clearinghouse. Toll-free phone:
800 523-2929. (Information on solar and
wind power)
Fish and Wildlife Service, Office of
Training and Education, Publication-
Unit. Phone: 703 358-1711. (Information
on endangered species, wildlife
refuges, pesticides, and wetlands)
Forest Service. Phone: 202 205-1545.
("Project Learning Tree" and other
information on conservation and
resource use)
Geological Survey, Educational
Outreach Program. Phone: 703 648-
4460. (Information and teachers'
packets on earth science, natural
resources, surface water, mineral
research, and climate change)
Mineral Management Service. Phone:
703 787-1080. (Brochures and other
publications on oil-spill prevention,
marine animal protection, and coastal
restoration)
National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA). "Ask NOAA."
Phone: 202 606-0500.
Soil and Water Conservation Society.
Toll-free phone: 800 THE SOIL.
(Information on soil/water, water-
sheds, and conservation. Also call 202
720-0430 to learn about the Earth Team,
a national volunteer group for children
14 years or older.)
3RING1995
45
-------
ON THE MOVE
Jean Nelson has been named
Counselor to the Administra-
tor. In this new position, she
will take on various special
projects. The first of these is
the United Nations' Fourth
World Conference on Women,
to be held in Beijing this
September. This work is a
continuation of her involve-
ment in the 1994 International
Conference on Population
and Development and her
preparatory work for the
Conference on Women.
From the fall of 1993 until
taking on her new role,
Nelson served as EPA's
General Counsel. In this post,
she dealt with a variety of
environmental issues across
all media and with a number
of Agency initiatives.
Prior to joining EPA,
Nelson was Chief Deputy
Attorney General for the
Tennessee Attorney General
for four years. From 1979 to
1988, Nelson was a partner in
the Nashville, Tennessee, law
firm of Gullett, Sanford,
Robinson, and Martin. She
was an associate with the firm
from 1975 to 1979. While in
Tennessee, she held leader-
ship positions—including a
number of environmental
roles—in state and local Bar
activities and in many other
community organizations.
Nelson received a
bachelor's degree in 1969 and
a law degree in 1975 from
Vanderbilt University.
EPA's acting General
Counsel is Jon Cannon, who
has been Assistant Adminis-
trator for the Office of
Administration and Re-
sources Management
(OARM) since 1993.
Sallyanne Harper, who has
been Deputy Assistant
Administrator since 1992, is
OARM's acting Assistant
Administrator.
Kevin P. Varney is EPA's new
Deputy Chief of Staff in the
Office of the Administrator,
where he is responsible for
long-term and strategic
planning. Before joining EPA,
he served as the Director of
Scheduling and Advance at
the Department of the
Treasury from 1993 to 1995.
He worked closely with then-
Secretary Lloyd Bentsen,
supervising the Secretary's
schedule, directing advance
operations, and accompany-
ing and briefing the Secretary
during domestic and interna-
tional trips.
Before joining the Treasury
Department, Varney served
on the Presidential Inaugural
Committee as a director in the
Office of the First Family,
where he developed the
schedule of events for the
President's family. During the
Qinton/Gore '92 campaign,
he was on the national
advance staff and travelled
the country setting up
campaign events for then-
Governor Clinton. He also
served as coordinator of the
three presidential debates.
Earlier, Varney was in the
restaurant business in Salt
Lake City. He received his
bachelor's degree in political
science from the University of
Utah in Salt Lake City in 1983.
He also attended the London
School of Economics on a one-
year program from 1981 to
1982.
From 1986 to 1990 he was
Assistant Chief of the Envi-
ronmental Enforcement
Section of the U.S. Depart-
ment of Justice; from 1985 to
1986, Senior Attorney; and
from 1982 to 1985, Trial
Attorney. In the Department
of Justice he handled a
number of precedential
enforcement cases and
participated in the Exxon
Valdez prosecution. In 1984, he
served as Special Assistant
U.S. Attorney at the U.S.
Attorney's Office in the
District of Columbia.
Fulton received a bachelor's
degree in business manage-
ment from the University of
Massachusetts in 1976 and a
law degree from the Univer-
sity of South Carolina School
of Law in 1982.
Scott Fulton is EPA's new
Principal Deputy General
Counsel. In this position, he
will serve as the Agency's
senior career legal adviser.
Before joining the Office of
General Counsel, Fulton
served as the Deputy Assis-
tant Administrator to EPA's
Office of Enforcement and
Compliance Assurance.
There, he played a key role in
establishing bilateral enforce-
ment relations with Mexico
and in fundamentally reorga-
nizing the Agency's enforce-
ment program. Fulton joined
EPA in 1990 as Director of the
Agency's civil enforcement
program.
Sylvia K. Lowrance is the
new Deputy Assistant
Administrator for the Office
of Enforcement and Compli-
ance Assurance.
Lowrance came to EPA in
1979, and has extensive
experience in environmental
management. She has served
as Associate Deputy Adminis-
trator for the past two years.
She was a key advisor to the
Administrator on environ-
mental policy and manage-
46
EPA JOURNAL
-------
ment issues, and managed the
development of a number of
environmental initiatives. She
provided leadership on a broad
array of environmental issues,
including improvement of
Agency science programs, risk
assessment, and reform legisla-
tion, as well as key air, water,
and waste policies. She led a
number of management
initiatives to improve agency
planning and budgeting and to
reorganize regional enforce-
ment.
In 1988, she became Director
of the Office of Solid Waste
(OSW), where she was respon-
sible for developing and
implementing hazardous and
solid waste programs under the
Resource Conservation Recov-
ery Act (RCRA) and other
related laws. Lowrance has
worked in policy and manage-
ment positions in EPA's RCRA,
Superfund, and Waste Enforce-
ment programs and in the
Office of Emergency and
Remedial Response and the
Office of Water. She also teaches
environmental law at the
George Washington University
Law School.
Before joining EPA, she was a
government relations represen-
tative for several national trade
associations. Her many awards
for excellence in public service
include the Presidential Award
for Meritorious Service in 1992.
She received a bachelor's
degree from the University of
Michigan in 1975 and a law
degree from the Catholic
University of America in 1982.
Jim Mathews is Deputy
Assistant Administrator for
the Office of Solid Waste and
Emergency Response.
Before coming to EPA,
Mathews was Staff Director
for the Subcommittee on
Fisheries Management, U.S.
House Committee on
Merchant Marine and
Fisheries, from 1993 to 1995.
He was Senior Legislative
Assistant (energy and
environment) for Congress-
man Thomas J. Manton (D-
New York) from 1986 to 1995.
At Friends of the National
Zoo, he was Special Assistant
to the Executive Director
from 1984 to 1986. He
worked as an independent
consultant from 1983 to 1984.
Other positions Mathews
held include: Senior Legisla-
tive Assistant for U.S. Senator
Nicholas F. Brady (R-New
Jersey) from 1982 to 1983;
and Special Projects Assis-
tant, Legislative Assistant
(energy and environment),
and Legislative Director for
U.S. Senator Harrison A.
Williams, Jr. (D-New Jersey)
from 1976 to 1982.
Mathews received a
bachelor's degree in interna-
tional relations from Lehigh
University in 1976 and
pursued graduate studies in
international affairs at the
George Washington Univer-
sity from 1976 to 1978.
Dana D. Minerva is EPA's
Deputy Assistant Administra-
tor in the Office of Water.
Since 1993, she served as
Special Counsel in the Office
of the Administrator. There,
she was responsible for
developing consensus on
administration positions
concerning regulations for all
of EPA's offices. She came to
EPA from the Florida Depart-
ment of Environmental
Regulation, where she served
in several positions, including
Assistant Secretary. In this
position, she took on many
tasks associated with manag-
ing the 1,700-person depart-
ment, particularly in the areas
of water management and the
department's cooperative
efforts with federal, state, and
local agencies.
From 1989 to 1990, Minerva
was Staff Director of the
Florida House of Representa-
tives Committee on Natural
Resources, following six years
as an attorney to Florida
House and Senate commit-
tees. In these positions, she
helped create many of
Florida's environmental
statutes, including the
Growth Management Act of
1985, the Surface Water
Improvement and Manage-
ment Act, and Preservation
2000, the law creating the
nation's largest environmental
land-acquisition program. She
also worked for a year at the
Florida Department of
Community Affairs, provid-
ing legal advice for the
drafting and adoption of state
rules on local land-use plans.
Minerva received a
bachelor's degree in political
science from Stetson Univer-
sity and a law degree and
master's degree in urban and
regional planning from
Florida State University.
William H. Sanders, III, is
EPA's new Director of the
Office of Pollution Prevention
and Toxics.
Dr. Sanders has widespread
experience within EPA. In
1994, he served as the
Agency's Senior Executive for
Resources Management
Training in the Office of
Administration and Re-
sources Management. From
1979 to 1994, he directed the
Environmental Sciences
Division of EPA's Region 5; he
previously served as Deputy
Director of the Water Division
(1976 to 1979). From 1975 to
1976, he was Chief of the
Michigan Program Education
Section. Sanders began his
SPRING 1995
47
-------
career at EPA in 1973 as a civil
engineer in the Water Divi-
sion.
His numerous awards
include the Agency's Gold
Medal in 1992 for outstanding
service on environmental
equity, and the National EEO
Award in 1994.
Sanders received a
bachelor's degree in civil
engineering from the Univer-
sity of Chicago in 1969, a
master's degree in Manage-
ment Public Service in
Quantitative Methods from
DePaul University in 1974,
and a doctorate in public
health from the University of
Illinois at Chicago, School of
Public Health, in 1992.
Penelope A. Fenner-Crisp is
EPA's new Deputy Director of
the Office of Pesticide Pro-
grams. Dr. Fenner-Crisp has
held several positions within
EPA since joining the Agency
in 1978 as staff toxicologist.
For the last five years, she has
been director of the Health
Effects Division in the Office
of Pesticide Programs; before
that, she was Director of the
Health and Environmental
Review Division of the Office
of Pollution Prevention and
Toxics from 1987 to 1990.
Before joining OPPT, she
served as Senior Toxicologist
in the Health Effects Branch
of the Office of Drinking
Water from 1980 to 1987.
While she was there, she was
Manager of the Health
Advisory Program, respon-
sible for the process by which
the office developed its
nonregulatory health-based
guidelines. In addition, she
served as a member of several
groups working in the area of
risk assessment, such as the
Risk Assessment Technical
Committees, the Risk Assess-
ment Forum, and the Steering
Committee of the Science
Policy Council.
Earlier, Fenner-Crisp was
Adjunct Instructor in the
Anatomy Department and
Research Associate in the
Pharmacology Department at
Georgetown University
Schools of Medicine and
Dentistry. In 1975, she was
Visiting Scientist in the
Psychology Department of
the University of Birming-
ham, Birmingham, England.
She completed a
postdoctoral fellowship in
pharmacology-morphology
from the Pharmaceutical
Manufacturers' Association
Foundation in the Anatomy
Department of Georgetown
University Schools of Medi-
cine and Dentistry, with
emphasis on reproductive
endocrinology.
Fenner-Crisp received a
bachelor's degree in zoology
from the University of
Wisconsin-Milwaukee and
master's and doctorate
degrees in pharmacology
from the University of Texas.
a
List of Contributors
Diane Berger (1707)
Program Analyst
Environmental Education
Division
EPA Headquarters
401 M Street, SW
Washington, DC 20460
Phone: 202260-8747
Fax: 202 260-0231
Noel J. Brown
Former Director
United Nations Environment
Programme
Phone: 212 370-4146
(message only)
Fax: 201966-2305
Carol M. Browner (1101)
Administrator
EPA Headquarters
Phone: 202 260-4700
Fax: 202260-0279
Gregory Budd
Health Physicist
Office of Radiation and
Indoor Air
EPA Las Vegas Laboratory
4220 S. Maryland Parkway
Building C
Las Vegas, NV 89119
Phone: 702798-3121
Fax: 702798-2465
Senator John H. Chafee
410 Dirksen Senate Office
Building
Washington, DC 20510
Phone: 202224-6176
Fax: 202224-5167
Don Curry
Teacher
Silverado High School
1650 Silver Hawk Avenue
Las Vegas, NV 89123
Phone: 702 799-5790 ext. 222
Fax: 702 799-5744
Doris Gillispie (1707)
Youth Programs Coordinator
Environmental Education
Division
EPA Headquarters
Phone: 202260-8749
Fax: 202260-0790
Arva Jackson
Chairman
EPA Environmental
Education Advisory Council
11629 Regency Drive
Potomac, MD 20854
Phone/Fax: 301 983-9439
Julie Jubeir
Director of Educational
Programs
Management Institute for
Environment and Business
110117th Street, NW
Suite 502
Washington, DC 20036
Phone: 202 739-0149
Fax: 202 833-6228
David Lutz
Program Director
Neighborhood Open Space
Coalition
72 Reade Street
New York, NY 10007
Phone: 212513-7555
Fax: 212385-6095
Paul F. Nowak, Sr.
National Consortium for
EPA Environmental
Education and Training
430 East University Avenue
School of Natural Resources
and Environment
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, MI 481W-1115
Phone: 313 998-6726
Fax: 313936-2195
Roy Popkin (1704)
Writer/Editor
Editorial Services Division
EPA Headquarters
Phone:202260-2069
Fax 202 260-0231
Thomas Pyke
Director
The GLOBE Program
744 Jackson Place
Washington, DC 20503
Phone: 202395-7600
Fax: 202395-7611
Abby Ruskey
Coordinator
National Environmental
Education Advancement
Project
College of Natural Resources
University of Wisconsin-
Stevens Point
Stevens Point, Wl 54481
Phone: 715346-4179
Fax: 715346-3819
David Rockland
President
National Environmental
Education and Training
Foundation
915 15th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20005
Phone: 202 628-8200
Fax: 202628-8204
Stephen Tchudi
Professor
Department of English
University of Nevada
Reno, NV 89557-0031
Phone: 702 784-6709
Fax: 702784-6266
Richard Wilke
Associate Dean
College of Natural
Resources
University of Wisconsin-
Stevens Point
Stevens Point, WI 54481
Phone: 715346-2251
Fax- 715346-3624
David Woollcombe
President
Peace Child International
The White House
Buntingford
Hertfordshire SG99AH
United Kingdom
Phone: 01144176327-2259
Fax: 01144176327-1460
48
EPA JOURNAL
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Pat Lanza photo tor Folio, Inc. Copyrighted.
Children discover it'citer life on a class excursion.
Hack Cover: Wisconsin high school students visit
a wastewater-treattnent plant.
Photo by University (iraj)bics and Photography,
Ihiiivrsity of Wasbingtoit-Steivns I'ainl.
-------
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U.S. Government Printing Office
Superintendent of Documents
Washington, DC 20402
Official Business
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