United Stales
Environmental Protection
Agency
Office Of The Administrator
(A-101F6)
101/F-90/042
November 1990
P/EPA
The Urban Environmental
Education Report
EPA
101/F
90-042
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The Urban Environmental Education Report
prepared by:
RoryE.Verrett
Patricia Roberts Harris Public Affairs
Howard University
and
Charles Gaboriau, Donna Roesing, and David Small
Worcester Polytechnic Institute
for
The National Advisory Council on
Environmental Policy and Technology (NACEPT)
Committee on Education and Training
- Library
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
75 Hawthorne Street 13th Floor
San Francisco, California 94105
The United States Environmental Protection Agency
Office of Cooperative Environmental Management (OCEM)
401 M Street, SW A-101-F6
Washington, DC 20460
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
\EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
CHAPTER I. The Washington, DC Urban Environmental Education Report
Introduction 1
Outline 2
An Urban Perspective on Obstacles and Issues 4
Urban Environmental Education: The Federal Government 7
Urban Environmental Education: Non-Federal Organizations 12
Recommendations 17
Appendixes:
A. Center for Environmental Quality Report:
"Environmental Education in the Federal Government"
B. U.S. EPA, Office of Research and Development:
"Catalog of Minority Support Programs"
C. Environmental Action:
"Environmental Action: Beyond White Environmentalism"
D. Status of Women and Minorities in Supervisory Positions in EPA
E. Contact List
CHAPTER n. The Report on Environmental Education and Training for Urban Poor
and Minority Populations
Executive Summary 1
Introduction 3
Methodology 4
Urban Environmental Education: Federal and State-level Programs 6
Urban Environmental Education: Non-Governmental Programs 10
Analysis of Results ; 24
Conclusions 27
Recommendations 29
Appendixes:
A. Target Cities
B. Organizational Survey
C. School Survey
D. Contact List
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THE URBAN ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION REPORT
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The Urban Environmental Education Report is the summary of two research
projects which were conducted during the latter part of 1990 by a group of interns for the
Education and Training Committee of the National Advisory Council for Environmental
Policy and Technology (NACEPT). Carried out in two stages, this project included an
examination of what EPA, and the Federal Government as a whole, is doing to provide
environmental education and training programs that are targeted toward inner-city minority
populations, an assessment of the availability and efficacy of local grass-roots efforts, and
finally, through research .of select urban areas nationwide, an assessment of the availability
and efficacy of similar efforts across the country. The areas of the country which were
studied, were selected in an effort to represent a cross-section of urban minorities
throughout the United States.
The Urban Environmental Education Report was submitted to the Education and
Training Committee of the National Advisory Council for Environmental Policy and
Technology (NACEPT). The Committee was very impressed with the quality of this
research and with the variety of concrete suggestions regarding the potential for EPA to
play an active role in assisting efforts to provide quality targeted urban environmental
education and training. At thier October meeting, {he Committee voted unanimously to
endorse these recommendations for consideration and potential adoption by NACEPT.
"The Washington, DC Urban Environmental Education Report", which is Chapter
1 of the The Urban Environmental Education Report is a summary of research conducted
by Rory E. Verrett of the Patricia Roberts Harris Public Affairs Program, Howard
University. Mr. Verrett researched environmental education and training programs in the
District that either specifically targeted urban minorities or general environmental programs
that included strategies transferable to an urban minority audience. The methodology of the
research included data analysis, personal and telephone interviews, as well as actual
participation in some of the environmental programs. The wide variety of research
methodology used in this project enabled Mr.Verett to gain a highly accurate understanding
of the opinions held by the District's urban minority population regarding environmental
education and training programs. The recommendations of this report reflect this
understanding.
The Report on Environmental Education for Urban Poor and Minority Populations,
which is Chapter 2 of the The Urban Environmental Education Report, is a summary of
research conducted by Charles Gaboriau, Donna Roesing, and David Small, a intern team
from Worcester Polytechnic Institute. The scope of their project was to investigate in a
broader, national way, environmental education and training programs targeted to urban
minorities. To accomplish this, they investigated efforts in five ethnically diverse cities
across the country: Boston, Massachusets; Atlanta, Georgia; Chicago, Illinois; Austin,
Texas; and Sacramento, California as well as environmental education and training
programs in other cities (not necessarily urban) that included strategies transferable to an
urban audience. During the spring of 1990, while still in residence at Worcester
Polytechnic Institute, the students developed and disseminated several hundred
organizational/school surveys intended to determine the extent of environmental education
efforts of a given organization/school and whether any of these efforts were targeted to
minorities. Upon coming to EPA in September and October 1990, the team followed up
this effort with a data analysis of the survey results and telephone interviews. The
recommendations of this report reflect this national perspective.
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It is important to note that although these two projects employed differing research
methodologies to assess effective environmental education and training efforts directed to
the urban sector, they produced similar conclusions. These conclusions agree that there is:
• minimal federal activity on urban environmental education training;
• significant grassroots work being done to educate urban minorities of
environmental risks in their community;
• duplication of environmental education programs in many urban communities
across the country;
• distrust on the part of urban minorities of environmental organizations,
particularly federal agencies like the EPA;
• differing perspectives of "environmentalism" between mainstream and minority
environmentalists.
Similarly, both reports offered similar recommendations regarding the potential for
the Environmental Protection Agency to assume an active role in urban environmental
education and training. The reports included suggestions concerning:
• partnerships between federal agencies/urban/minority institutions
• the EPA, as a clearinghouse of information on environmental
education programs;
• participation of EPA regional offices;
• EPA public relations with urban communities;
• production of environmental materials suitable for an urban minority audience;
• research funding to minority colleges and universities.
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CHAPTER 1
The Washington, D.C.
Urban Environmental Education Report
by:
Rory E. Verrett
Patricia Roberts Harris Public Affairs Fellow
Howard University
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INTRODUCTION!
Purpose:
This report assesses the environmental education efforts in Washington D.C. that
are sponsored by various sectors of the community including the federal government, non-
government organizations, and community groups. This report represents the first segment
of a national project that will assess environmental education and training programs in
several urban areas across the United States. These cities, intended to represent a cross-
section of ethnic and geographic diversity, will be similarly studied. By first taking a
microscopic view of environmental programs in one community, the report will identify
some effective methods for urban environmental education and training, and thus serve as a
starting point for similar studies in the other urban areas.
The complete Urban Environmental Education Report will serve as a tool for
discussion for the Education and Training Committee of the National Advisory Council on
Environmental Policy and Technology (NACEPT). With the report as a starting point, the
Committee can discuss methods for successfully reaching out to urban/minority
communities and other currently disenfranchised groups with environmental and training
programs. Ultimately, the report should provide the Committee with some basis for
adopting recommendations to the Administrator of EPA concerning what role the Agency
should play in urban environmental education and training on a national level.
Definition:
The ultimate goal of any environmental education program is the formation of an
enlightened citizenry that is committed to preserving and protecting our natural
environment. Ideally, it would be desirable to have pervasive environmental education
efforts both longitudinally as well as laterally; that is, environmental education that reaches
from our youngest to our senior citizens and spans every cultural, ethnic, and socio-
economic level. To achieve this, environmental education programs must be as innovative
as they are comprehensive and as easily understandable as they are profound in their
treatment of environmental issues. To be sure, organizations concerned with urban
environmental education must be willing to abandon traditional methods of education and
training for more innovative techniques. Moreover, urban communities must be made to
realize the connection between local environmental concerns and global environmental
issues. Environmental education and training programs must, however, meet the specific
needs of the particular community. Therefore, any attempt to educate or train an
urban/minority community toward responsible environmental stewardship mandates the
establishment of effective linkage mechanisms-ones that link the local issue to the global
perspective, the community organizer to the environmental policymaker.
This linkage process, however, is tremendously enigmatic. As community
concerns reach up the ladder of influence and national policies attempt to embrace the
disenfranchised, the realization of this often distant relationship is hazy, ambiguous, and
ineffective decisions from which neither side truly benefits. Government still seems to
operate from an ivory tower and community concerns dissolve before they reach
policymakers. The environmental crisis plaguing our urban communities requires not only
prioritized attention, but demands clarity and consistency in this linkage process. No
longer can the environmental movement confine itself to certain ethnic and economic
constituencies while claiming to chart a global campaign to save the planet. Seemingly,
those most impacted by environmental hazards are those least affected by environmental
policies and programs. The Urban Environmental Education Report seeks to link the
government to the urban community by assessing successful strategies in environmental
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education and training. The report has, as its primary focus, the realization of the
Environmental Protection Agency's role in urban environmental education and training.
Scope:
As it is enigmatic to define what is and what is not to be considered environmental
education, so too is it problematic to define "urban environmental education," There exists
a broad array of activities that are intended to promote the responsible stewardship of urban
minorities toward the environment. Yet, this report does not intend to be too narrow nor
too general in its classification of urban environmental education. While a minority
internship program at a national science observatory might introduce minority students to
research careers in geology, it may not be appropriate to include such (nonetheless
worthwhile) educational programs in an assessment of Washington, DC urban
environmental education and training programs. Contrastingly, it would be appropriate to
consider a music video about global warming, which was produced by a District
environmental organization for minority communities, as an example of an urban
environmental education program. For definitive purposes, an effort will be considered
"urban environmental education or training" if it satisfies one or more of the following
stipulations:
• it informs an urban minority audience about the specific environmental risks in their
particular community;
V
• it educates an urban minority audience on global environmental issue(s) or establishes a
connection between local and global environmental issue(s);
• it suggests specific actions that can be taken by community residents to affect/change
their immediate and/or global surroundings.
Moreover, when such a definition is placed in context of existing programs in the
Washington DC area, this report establishes clear parameters for the classification of urban
environmental education and training. Only programs with strategies transferable to an
urban minority audience (Washington DC, for instance) will be similarly included.
Content:
The Washington D.C. Urban Environmental Education Report intends to answer
the following questions: »
1. Is the D.C. community actively seeking ways to educate minorities on local and and
national environmental concerns? What organizations are involved? Are there any
coordinated efforts among organizations? Are there any national programs (outside of
the District) that could be considered?
2. Do the existing programs address all of the minority community's environmental
concerns?
3. Do the existing programs administer to all of the community's needs for the successful
implementation of the program? Is training provided? Are the programs offered in
languages other than English?
4. What are some suggestions for improving urban environmental education efforts in the
Washington D.C. community? What role should the Environmental Protection Agency
play in urban environmental education in Washington D.C.?
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WASHINGTON, DC URBAN ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION REPORT
Outline
I. What Is Needed: An Urban Perspective on Obstacles and Issues
A. Obstacles
B. Issues
1. Energy Conservation
2. Water Quality
3. Airfollution
4. Toxic Waste
5. Toxic Chemicals in Homes
n. What Is Being Done: Samples of Urban Environmental Education Programs
A. Federal Government Programs
B. Non-Federal Programs
•%,
HI. What Can/Should Be Done: EPA's Role in Urban Environmental Education
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AN URBAN PERSPECTIVE ON OBSTACLES AND ISSUES:
In order to be truly successful in urban environmental education, interested groups
must first gain an understanding of the vantage point from which an urban population
views the environment. Similarly, it is crucial to grasp how these communities perceive the
environmental movement, as well as certain environmental organizations, including the
EPA. Before any suggestions can be offered concerning the role of the EPA in urban
environmental education, these key perceptions held by many urban residents should be
first considered. They are not necessarily viewpoints of Washington DC residents only,
but reflect a somewhat national consistency of urban perceptions of the environmental
movement, issues and participants. Once these perceptions are fully understood, the
Agency will be able to Affectively organize an appropriate strategy in urban environmental
education that is truly beneficial and productive to all parties involved.
Obstacles:
Many of the perceptions of urban residents on the environment are rooted in their
inability to meet some of the basic requirements for normal living. That is, the
environment, as a separate issue, is not embraced until the essentials of health, housing,
food, and safety are met. Unfortunately in many urban communities, many of these basic
needs remain unfulfilled. Poverty, racial discrimination, poor housing, financial
insecurity, and violence are all barriers to the achievement of what is considered a normal
standard of living. Thus, the environment is viewed as a superfluous topic; other topics,
which are viewed as more important than environmental issues, occupy the daily agendas
of urban residents. Moreover, the seemingly evident environmental crises facing these
urban communities—problems of lead poisoning, weatherization, and asbestos—are not
confronted as environmental problems; rather, they are realized as health and housing
issues. Thus, many organizations that address the environmental concerns of these
communities are often organizations such as housing agencies or social justice groups,
reflecting the growing sentiment in urban communities that the current status of the urban
environment is a result of racial and socio-economic injustice.
These community organizations have taken on tremendous responsibilities as voices
of urban residents, providing numerous mobilizational measures including protests,
marches, boycotts, community meetings, and local, as well as national lobbying. These
organizations are quite confident of their own ability to address the community's concerns.
This community self-reliance is a result, organizers say, of the resource mobilizational
strength of community organizations. For instance, social justice groups that organize out
of churches point to the fact that the church provides a consistent audience through worship
services and offers facilities that are readily available to the community. Few, if any,
organizations can claim to have a more consistent assembly than a church, community
residents claim. Sermons, they add, are effective mechanisms to instill environmental
awareness; ministers urge environmental protection as one of mankind's responsibilities to
the Creator. As a result of these and other mobilizational strategies, organizers argue,
community organizations are "in the trenches," and constantly aware of the needs of
urban/minority citizens. Comparatively, government agencies are perceived as operating
from an "ivory tower," far removed the immediate urban crises. This perceived contrast in
the proximities of government versus community organizations to urban environmental
needs is one of the central obstacles that must be overcome if the development of a
productive, working relationship is to occur between these groups. Certainly then, these
perceptions deserve elaboration.
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Community Perceptions: Federal Government
As many local organizations feel confident in their ability to meet the community's
needs for environmental programs, these groups view some of the environmental education
attempts by the federal government with disdain and caution. Community leaders are
skeptical of the motive behind government environmental education programs. Organizers
propose that the government is suddenly reaching out to embrace urban environmental
concerns now that the environment is a popular issue; that the recent attention directed
toward urban environmentalism is political in nature and is not necessarily rooted in
genuine concern. Many community leaders recanted incidents in which the federal
government attempted to "introduce" environmentalism to urban residents through short-
lived programs thai appeared to fulfill a bureaucratic mandate rather than realistically
educate minorities on environmental protection. Thus, community organizations largely
feel that they must bear the responsibility to educate the community.
These are not the only reservations that the urban community has with the
government. Some minority communities that have battled against the siting of toxic
facilities in their communities allege that the EPA is allied with many toxic polluters. This
government-industrial complex has, they maintain, led to the placement of many toxic
facilities in minority areas. Community leaders point to emerging studies which hold that
the racial composition of the community* is the greatest common denominator of
communities near hazardous waste sites. With scarce numbers of minorities at the EPA
and few, if any, on local toxic waste site boards, many in minority communities conclude
that the growing number of toxic sites in minority communities is no coincidence. To
guard against the disproportionate numbers of hazardous waste sitings in minority areas,
community leaders urge agencies like the EPA, as well as national environmental groups,
to increase minority recruitment
Having significant numbers of minorities employed at these environmental
organizations will do more than protect minority communities from toxic waste placement,
these organizers argue: it would hopefully be one significant step in catapulting urban
environmentalism to the national forefront. Specifically, community organizers hold that
national environmental organizations need "translators" that will be able to effectively
communicate with urban minorities. One of the biggest obstacles to community
organizations educating urban citizens is the lack of technical information on the
environment. Moreover, to many minority communities, national policymakers are
seemingly unaware of urban environmental needs. These translators could facilitate the
effective exchange of information between, for instance, the EPA and an urban minority
community. In this manner, the government would be constantly aware of urban
environmental concerns while offering concrete assistance toward urban environmental
Issues:
Therefore, to fully comprehend the environmental crises facing an inner-city
community, it is necessary to confront the issues from a non-traditional perspective. Too
often, analyzing urban environmental concerns from a bureaucratic vantage point yields a
perspective that is both narrow and shallow. It becomes increasingly difficult to grasp the
complexity, if not the origin, of urban environmental problems when the issues are treated
separately, apart from their relationship to other urban frustrations. To be sure, the
environmental issues in the inner-city cannot be studied unless the complex entirety of
inner-city life is embraced. That is to say, the issues of economics, race, health, education,
and environment are all inextricably bound.
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The inner-city resident does not view a problem like poor water quality as an
environmental issue-it is realized as a mixture of many issues-health, economic, and
educational to state a few. The resident initially confronts the quality of his/her water when
usage/consumption becomes unhealthy. The issue is addressed when, for instance, a
family member, say a small child, develops an adverse reaction to the water. Further, if
adopting the necessary measures to improve the quality of water were financially feasible,
and if the tenant were aware of the means to correct his condition, then he/she would
probably change the situation. However, with limited financial means, little, if any,
education on the hazardous effects of lead-ridden water and what can be done to improve it,
the urban resident is powerless. Thus, to equip the urban resident with environmental
education is to catalyze individual behavioral changes that will ultimately instill a sense of
environmental stewardship toward an individual's immediate and global environment.
Consequently, effective Durban environmental education programs should:
1) Inform the resident about the specific environmental risks in the particular community;
2) Establish a connection between local and global environmental issues;
3) Suggest specific actions that can be taken by community residents to affect/ change their
immediate surroundings.
Though environmental needs differ from community to community, there are certain
common environmental concerns that are prevalent in many of the District's urban areas:
A. Energy Conservation:
Most of Washington's urban population live in houses that are over fifty years old.
Many urban families cannot afford necessary weatherization measures, such as energy
efficient doors and windows, to insulate homes from Washington's harsh seasonal
temperatures. As a result, these urban families face uncomfortable living conditions as well
as abnormally high energy bills. Proper efforts must be undertaken to provide these
residents with a comprehensive strategy to weatherize their homes.
B. Water Quality
Dilapidated plumbing systems in Washington homes carry poor quality water that
contains abnormally high levels of lead and other toxic chemicals. A study issued by the
Agency for Toxics and Disease Registry reported that an alarming 44% of urban African-
American children are at risk from lead poisoning—four times the rate of Caucasian
children. Low-level lead intoxication is known to have caused a range of impairments,
including IQ reduction and mild mental retardation. Since a significant number of District
resident&JBEtirbanareas do not own their homes, they heavily rely on landlords/building
managers to renovate the dilapidated water systems. Efforts must be made to educate these
residents on the importance of quality water sources, as well as measures to promote the
consumption of alternative water sources until efficient plumbing systems can be
constructed.
C. Air Quality
Due to the proximity, to factories and intense automobile congestion, urban
communities are most impacted by industrial and vehicle emissions. Unable to drift farther
away, these toxic gases become concentrated between buildings and create a carcinogenic
breeding ground in the District's urban areas. While environmentalists urge residents to
use public transportation to decrease the volume of vehicle emissions, urban residents are
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confronted with a troubling dilemma. Since the District's Metro subway transportation
system seems to have bypassed service to many urban/minority areas of the city, increasing
numbers of District residents are forced to use automobiles more often, which, in turn,
contributes to the toxic air quality that is daily ingested. It is imperative that urban/minority
residents be informed of measures to improve air quality. Of particular importance is the
formation of a working strategy to encourage individual efforts to improve air quality.
D. Toxic Waste
Some recent studies have shown that the racial composition of the particular
community, rather than any other factor, including income level and property value, has
been the prevailing common denominator in communities near hazardous waste facilities.
(W. Wilson, 1989). ^To worsen matters, these communities are rarely informed of the
hazardous dangers that they face as residents living near a toxic waste site. Contrastingly,
Northwest Washington residents recently organized, with the help of several community
organizations, a resistance to the siting of the Pepco Benning Road incinerator. In this
case, educational information was provided beforehand on the possible dangers of the toxic
waste site. Once cognizant of the toxic potential of such a facility, area residents were able
to organize to oppose the siting. The Benning Road case provides an excellent example of
the merits of urban environmental education. Specifically, it illustrates the resource
mobilization strength of an urban community once an educational foundation has been
provided. v
E. Toxic Chemicals in Homes
Lead buildup in soil, resulting from old, chipped household paint and gasoline, is
another silent hazard that plagues many urban District residents. Moreover, many are
unaware of the toxic makeup of their yards and nearby playgrounds. Educational efforts,
as well as programs designed to improve the soil quality, are greatly needed. Such projects
could serve as excellent opportunities for local residents to actively interact with their
immediate environment in an effort to establish and maintain healthy land areas.
Asbestos fibers from insulation dissolve into dust particles that become part of
urban residents' air content. This is a common situation in the District; the heavy reliance
on poor quality construction materials, such as the insulation found in many homes,
contributes to a hazardous atmosphere. Residents need to be informed as to what
individual measures can be taken to reduce the ingestion of asbestos. As well,
organizations with such technical information could supply data on potential alternative
sources of insulation.
URBAN ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION: The Federal Government
Over the past two decades, environmentalism has evolved from an issue into a
global crisis. Environmental advocates, who quickly realized the potential, irreparable
effects of rapid technological expansion and resource mismanagement, theorized that one of
the most effective ways of protecting our environment was to educate citizens on
environmental issues--to demonstrate how "special interest" issues like smog, ozone
depletion, wildlife preservation affected every citizen. Thus, as the environmental
movement has expanded in its scope and constituency, so have environmental education
and training efforts.
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Recently, the Center for Environmental Quality produced a report, "Environmental
Education in the Federal Government: An Assessment fo Activities and Strategies." The
report outlined how the federal government has engaged in a plethora of environmental
education efforts including pilot projects, academic grants/internships, technical assistance
to curriculum-based programs, and youth projects. However, when compared to other
environmental education programs, there seems to be little effort directed specifically
toward urban environmental education and training. The compendium of nearly 50 federal
environmental education efforts contained only two programs that specifically targeted
urban minority audiences (Appendix A). While the Washington DC Urban Environmental
Education Report discovered slightly more federal activity in urban environmental
education than the CEQ Assessment, it still appears that while general environmental
education programs hive steadily increased in number and scope over the past two
decades, the amount of comparative federal activity toward urban environmental education
and training has been minimal.
The proposed Office of Environmental Education, as well as the National
Environmental Education and Training Foundation would increase attention to
environmental eduction generally, and certainly boost education and training programs for
minority/urban populations. Both projects have measures that outline strategies for
environmental education and extension for urban minority audiences. Below is a
sampling of some various types of federal environmental education and training programs
that specifically target minority/urban populations or programs that include strategies that
could be transferable to a minority/urban audience. Included at the end of the report is a
more comprehensive catalog of Minority Support Programs within the Environmental
Protection Agency's Office of Research and Development (Appendix B).
Department of Interior: Take Pride in America
Take Pride in America is a national campaign to increase awareness of the need for
wise use of the nation's natural and cultural resources, encourage an attitude of stewardship
and responsibility toward public resources, and promote volunteerism. Supported by a
partnership of 12 federal agencies, 48 states, and many private sector organizations, the
campaign annually sponsors a national awards ceremony to recognize those who have
made outstanding contributions to protecting and enhancing public resources. Award
categories are: constituent organizations; businesses and corporations; youth groups, civic
and citizen organizations; media; educational institutions; individuals; public-private
partnerships; local governments; state governments; federal agencies; and, private lands.
US Department of Agriculture: Cooperative Extension System
CES sponsors youth education and 4-H programs to teach rural and urban youth
about natural resource conservation in summer camps around the country. Additional
emphasis is placed on global climate change education.
US Department of Agriculture: The National Arboretum
The National Arboretum created the Urban Gardening Demonstration on its
grounds in Washington, DC. Funded by Friend of the National Arboretum (FONA), the
National Country Garden is a three-acre demonstration area that shows people how to
grow their own food and flowers in such unlikely places as roofs, decks, and vacant lots.
The demonstration garden, which reached over one million people between 1984 and 1986,
illustrates many techniques useful for urban beautification.
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The US Fish and Wildl(fe Service
The US Fish and Wildlife Service developed and produced a series of educational
packages to provide teachers and other educators with factual information about wildlife,
habitat, and resource management. The material was designed for use in fourth through
seventh grades.
Department of the Army: Corps of Engineers
The Army Corps of Engineers conducts a variety of special events, programs, and
projects at Crooked Creek Lake in Ford City, Pennsylvania. There are numerous
environmental educational programs and resource conservation activities to encourage
citizens to accept their responsibility as public land owners. The Corps' staff influences
thousands of citizens each year from pre-schoolers to senior citizens, and encourages active
participation from all segments of the population. The variety of special events has resulted
in a local populace keenly aware of the environment and their responsibility toward it. The
lands reclaimed and recreation areas created are a result of cooperative volunteer efforts and
have instilled a pride of "ownership" in area residents.
US Department of Health and Human Services: Public Health Service—Agency for Toxic
Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR).
ATSDR proposed a minority environmental health initiative to examine current
science issues in three main areas: demographics, health perspectives (e.g., nutritional
status, lifestyle and socio-economic influences, and psychosocial impacts), and health
communication/health education. With this conference, ATSDR will bring together
knowledgeable experts to discuss these areas. The objectives of this conference are to:
• present information on the public health implications of exposures to environmental
contamination
• identify data gaps or problems associated with determining/evaluating and
disseminating such information
• recognize the challenges of addressing the health concerns of minorities living and
working near hazardous waste cites or other sources of environmental contamination
ASTDR invites submission of papers that focus on the main conference topics:
demographics, health perspectives, and health communication/health education. The
conference will also sponsor a student poster/essay competition. Ten poster competition
finalists and five essay competition finalists, selected from the students submitting abstracts
on their research, will receive awards covering travel and per diem (lodging/meal)
expenses^r—
US Environmental Protection Agencv/Cook Colleye: Discovery Program
Discovery is an academic enrichment and apprenticeship program designed to offer
minority and disadvantaged students with academic promise an introduction to college
study and careers in science and technology. Discovery is a comprehensive and residential
five-week summer program for rising high school juniors and seniors. It includes
academic, apprenticeship, and residential components, which offer students a range of
activities including SAT preparation, hands-on research experience, and cultural
perspective seminars. The US EPA, which financially supports the program, provides
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student apprenticeships that involve water sample collection, activities from boats and
helicopters, sample analysis in sanitary chemistry and microbiological sample analysis.
US Environmental Protection Agency/Backus Junior High School
In the Fall 1988, EPA headquarters formed a partnership with Bertie Backus Junior
High School in Washington, DC, a predominantly minority school. The objectives in the
partnership are:
• to stimulate students' interest in studying mathematics and science at the high school
level and beyond;
$
• to inform students about careers at EPA and elsewhere for those with appropriate
scientific and technical training; and
• to educate students about environmental issues that impact their daily lives.
Programs included:
• a recycling project for white waste paper,
• classroom participation by 20 members or" the EPA's Speaker Bureau in which
specialists in forestry, computers, toxic waste, air pollution, an other fields addressed
as many as three classes a day on environmental issues;
• selection of three Backus teachers and two students for summer internships at EPA;
• a "mentor shadowing" experience for 10 students who observed Agency managers in
action;
• frequent visits to the school by the EPA chorus and steps toward creating a Backus
chorus;
• Participation by 30 students in the Agency's observance of the Martin Luther King, Jr.
federal holiday.
• a "town meeting," in which students were made aware of conflicting forces in
environmentally-related decision-making in the development of a community.
US Environmental Protection Aeencv: Minority Institutions Assistance Program (MIA)
The US EPA, through its Office of Exploratory Research (OER), operates a special
assistance program to provide federal assistance to minority institutions. The Minority
Institutions Assistance Program was initiated in 1981 in response to an Executive Order to
increase support for eligible minority institutions and to provide fellowships for students
attending these institutions. The objectives of the program are:
• to identify existing and potential environmental research capability within minority
institutions and to assist them in participating in EPA research activity;
• to help minority institutions to become more competitive with other institutions for
federal funds;
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• to provide an opportunity for minority students to gain research experience in
environmental science fields; and
• to promote good working relationships between the Agency and participating
institutions.
US Environmental Protection Agencv/DC Public Schools: Superfund Seniors
Summer Enrichment Project
Superfund Seniors is a joint venture between the EPA and DC Public Schools that
attempts to foster career awareness and student involvement in science and technology
fields. The Summer Enrichment Project is a pilot 6 week summer program for 10 gifted
high school juniors'tto learn about environmental issues and the role of Superfund in toxic
waste cleanups. Students produce public awareness campaign lecture and support
materials (videos, pamphlets, coloring and comic books, etc.).
US Environmental Protection Agency: Region !! (New York}
The EPA's Region II held a "Rap and Rock" contest for students in grades 7
through 12 in both New Jersey and New York. Music and lyrics were all developed
around the contest's theme, "Pollution Prevention: You Can Make a Difference." Winners
were honored at Region H's Earth Day Festival in late April.
US Environmental Protection Agency.• National Network For Environmental Education
The Agency is working to expand the National Network For Environmental
Education (NNEE), a network of interactive centers across the country serving as regional
centers for teacher training, community outreach, and environmental research. As the
Network reaches its full potential, these centers will serve as environmental education and
information resources for grass-roots America. EPA is now working with other
government agencies and departments interested in contribution to and accessing the
Network.
Smithsonian Institution: The Oakland Museum
The Oakland Museum, a Smithsonian member, sponsors the ScienceReach
Program, which consists of a visit to the Oakland Museum's Natural Sciences Gallery, a
discussion with a professional in the field of resource conservation, and a classroom slide
show. The program attempts to familiarize high school students to concepts such as
adaptation, community, and interdependence. Of particular importance is the efforts of the
ScienceReach program to make minority students aware of how issues like animal
extinction affect urban residents.
US Department of Energy I Center For Environment. Commerce, and Energy:
Urban Weatherization Project
The Center For Environment, Commerce, and Energy and the Department of
Energy have established a partnership to weatherize 40 urban District homes. As of July,
1990,20 homes have been weatherized with energy-efficient doors and windows.
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URBAN ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION:
District Programs, Curriculum-Based Programs, Environmental Advocacy
Organizations, Community Organizations:
While the federal government is currently expanding its role in urban environmental
education, there exists a multitude of organizations that have been engaged in urban
environmental education for some time. Many of these organizations are community-
based, organizing and educating large numbers of urban minorities toward establishing an
environmental ethic. In many of these urban communities, there exists no formal grievance
machinery to represent local residents' needs. As a result, these urban citizens resort to
churches and housing rfgencies—groups with which urban minorities are in frequent, if not
constant contact, to voice their concerns. These local groups, often understaffed
organizations with limited financial resources, are, nonetheless, engaged in a myriad of
mobilizational activities including boycotts, marches, letter-writing campaigns, and
lobbying.
The rising grassroots environmental movement is also beginning to embrace the area of
urban environmental education. Indeed, there are a rising number of environmental
advocacy groups that specifically target urban minority issues. As well, these newly-
established organizations offer some of the most innovative strategies for urban
environmental education. Below is a sampling of some types of urban environmental
education programs that are sponsored by various organizations.
District Government:
District of Columbia Asbestos Removal Program
The District reviews demolition and renovation plans to ensure asbestos will be removed in
a way that will protect the health of the construction workers and the public. Asbestos
removal must be done by qualified workers, and their safety equipment is inspected before
removal begins. To protect the public, access to the building is limited. The District
monitors disposal of asbestos to make certain it is properly packaged and sent to an
approved disposal site. Approximately 372 asbestos removal projects were completed in
the District in 1987.
District of Columbia Soil and Water Conservation District
The Soil and Water Conservation District provides educational materials to the public, such
as the "Homeowners Urban Guide on Ground Maintenance for Washington, DC." This
guide-disease* seiterosion, drainage, and landscaping and is available at libraries, garden
clubs, and the SWCD.
District of Columbia Soil and Water Conservation District: Thomas L. Avers
Outdoor Classroom Program
The Thomas L. Ayers Outdoor Classroom Program is designed to integrate various
curricula such as science, geography, mathematics, social studies, and language arts in an
outdoor setting. This experience offers urban youth a hands-on approach to learning
activities. The District is one of three co-sponsors of the Ayers Program. The two
remaining co-sponsors are the DC Public Schools-Science Department, and the Soil and
Water Conservation Society-DC Chapter.
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Environmental Advocacy Organizations:
Center For Environment. Commerce, and Energy: Minority Environmental
Internship Program
In 1988, the Center For Environment, Commerce, and Energy Minority Environmental
Internship Program sponsored fourteen (14) interns and one volunteer at thirteen (13)
environmental organizations and Maryland Governor Donald Shaefer's Environment
Office. The objective of the program is to increase the number of minority participants in
the environmental sector. The program is also intended to provide students with the
analytical and technical skills necessary to better their understanding of the environmental
policy-making processes through a paid internship with various environmental, energy,
wildlife, and natural resource organizations.
Environmental Action Foundation
Environmental Action, Inc. is a national membership-based organization which works for
strong state and federal environmental laws. The Foundation uses its educational, legal,
technical and organizing capabilities to promote environmental protection and assist
grassroots organizations. Environmental Action:
• promotes alternatives to incineration and landfills through waste reduction programs
that minimize waste production and maximize recycling and composting;
• champions energy efficiency as the most immediate and cost- effective response to
global warming;
• helps citizens learn about toxic hazards;
• educates citizens on alternatives to chemical pesticides and helps them oppose the use of
chemical pesticides in their communities.
The Morning Star Foundation
The Morning Star Foundation is a non-profit, tax-exempt organization promoting
Native American cultural rights. In 1989, the Foundation established a headquarters office
in Washington, DC, and developed an in-house program of educational and cultural
advocacy. The Foundation also provides organizational sponsorship for Native Children's
Survival, which is international in scope and devoted to youth education and participation
in environmental protection. Native Children's Survival is sponsoring a series of music
videos; thcJirst two of thc^eries deal with missing children and the world environment.
The NatiffQl (7Hflrrf
The Natural Guard is a new national, non-profit, environmental education, service,
and advocacy organization designed for school age youth. Through education and
involvement, the organization hopes to inspire young people to recognize and solve
environmental problems. The Natural Guard's five major goals are to:
• Instill in young people a better understanding of and appreciation for the local
environment and, in turn, the world around them;
• Generate service projects—such as recycling, pollution patrols, litter clean-up, energy
conservation, wildlife habitat enhancement, tree-planting, park and monument
13
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caretaking, urban trailbuilding— designed to protect and enhance the environment,
provide benefits for the entire community, and develop leadership skills in young
people;
• Instill a sense of advocacy, and teach the skills necessary to achieve the goals of
environmental protection and enjoyment;
• Institute a supervised exchange program among chapters that provides opportunities for
outdoor exploration of different environments; and
• Emphasize career opportunities in the environment, conservation, and related fields.
I
Within the next twelve to eighteen months, the Natural Guard plans to establish a
chapter in Washington DC, as well as several other urban areas. The organization hopes to
appeal to young people from many geographic, economic, and ethnic backgrounds.
Special emphasis will be placed on communities that are not being reached by other
environmental education programs. The newly established environmental advocacy group
plans to target the increasing number of communities where the primary language is
Spanish; accordingly, appropriate staff, educational materials, and brochures will be
bilingual.
National Toxics Campaign ^
The National Toxics Campaign, headed in Boston, Massachusets, is a grassroots
organization that helps to organize citizens in toxic neighborhoods to win relocation,
cleanup and fair compensation. A coalition of over 1000 grassroots groups, NTC
publishes "Fighting Toxics," a 500-page manual for protecting citizens from toxic hazards.
National Wildlife Federation: Cool It! Programs
The National Wildlife Federation's Cool It! programs encourage college students to
launch local projects that attack the pollution causing global wanning. Some campus
projects may double or triple the size of existing recycling programs. Other campuses may
promote public .transportation, energy efficiency, bike paths and walkways, or try to
persuade local food establishments to switch from plastic packaging to biodegradable paper
cups and plates. Cool It! emphasizes supporting projects initiated by culturally diverse
groups. Organizers are assisting college students from diverse communities who are not
traditionally active in environmental issues to play an active role in solving environmental
programs.
CurricuJom-Based Programs:
vironmental Education Pilot Protect
The Greenpeace organization produces a student-directed, process-oriented
curriculum that is used in 18 schools across the world, two of which are predominantly
minority schools in the US. The curriculum focuses on the environmental issues of the
local community, rather than environmental science in general. Instead of the traditional
textbook learning method, the students coordinate research and site visits with local
environmental organizations and agencies. After field research, the students initiate their
own projects that are designed to encourage responsible environmental behavior.
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Thames Science Center: Watershed Worlds
Watershed Worlds is an environmental science program for teacher enhancement
and development of teaching materials. Based on a pilot project, the program (grades 6-10)
will be developed and disseminated in a three-year project involving 495 teachers and their
students at 65 pilot sites in the nation. An additional 1350 teachers will be introduced to the
program through in-service programs. The curriculum aims to engage teachers' and
students' interest in a series of investigatory activities exploring current environmental
problems and concerns. At the same time, participants explore concepts and theories of the
planet's environmental systems and analyze the cumulative human impact upon them.
These scientific investigations are highly relevant to the students' everyday lives as they
employ and compare local and global databases. The Watershed Worlds curriculum offers
a thematic and sequential presentation of science concepts that crosses boundaries in all
science disciplines normally taught in secondary schools. It is designed to serve all
students.
Community Organizations:
The Center For Community Action: Robeson County. NC
The Environmental Protection and Policy Project of the Center For Community
Action was formed in 1984 in order to develop creative strategies for the promotion of
environmental protection in Southeastern North Carolina. The Center seeks to:
• organize citizen participation in environmental concerns among the majority Native
American and African-American populations of Robeson County; and
• provide programs and trainings to increase public education and analysis on issues of
hazardous and solid waste management, facility site selection processes and the role of
race and economics in the selection process, waste reduction and disposal methods,
recycling, landfill contamination, and the role of religious communities in
environmental protection.
Christadora. Fou,fl((ajif>n: Monies Education Center
The Christadora Foundation operates in the city of New York as a grant-giving
institution. The Foundation's grants focus on environmental education. The common
ground of all Christadora grants is that they enable underprivileged city children to better
understand and value the environment that surrounds them. Funded programs often bear
an essential relationship to the Manice Education Center. The primary goals of the Center
are to:
• introduce students to the world of nature, stimulating their enthusiasm for learning in
the outdoors;
• nurture sensitivity to and understanding of the human place within natural ecosystems;
• develop students' capacity for leadership, self-reliance, and group cooperation;
• instill in students an appreciation for the natural world, the value of conservation and to
help promote minority participation and leadership in the conservation movement and in
the sciences in general.
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Students and classes are carefully selected from New York City public schools, grades 6-
10, to attend the Center.
The United Methodist Church: General Board of Church and Society:
For: Our Children Video
The United Methodist Church's General Board of Church and Society, a member
of the Eco-Justice Working Group, a network of community environmental justice
organizations, produces a video, "For: Our Children" and an accompanying 40 page
manual that discusses grassroots environmental organizing and issues. The video, which
is about a half-hour long, contrasts community points of view with corporate concerns in
an attempt to demonstrate the problematic nature of commercial incineration of hazardous
waste. It also raises the fundamental question of mankind's relationship to nature. The
video packet is intended to promote discussion of the presented topics and is suggested for
use in adult or youth Church classes.
The United Methodist Church: The Greenhouse Crisis Foundation
The Eco-Justice Working Group of the National Council of Churches and the Joint
Strategy and Action Committee produces a guide on ways that individuals and church
congregations can begin to take to save the earth. The " 101 Ways to Help Save the Earth"
manual presents specific actions that individuals-can take to change their daily habits. It
also includes a section, "52 Weeks of Congressional Activities to Help Save the Earth" that
urges activities from tree donation drives to energy efficiency seminars.
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RECOMMENDATIONS: The Environmental Protection Agency's Role in
Urban Environmental Education
As a result of the research gathered for the Washington, DC Urban Environmental
Education Report, the following recommendations for the US Environmental Protection
Agency's role in urban environmental education have been developed:
Partnerships:
Some of the most effective environmental education programs in the Washington, DC
community are partnerships between various organizations. This working relationship
provides organizations with the opportunity not only to pool resources, but to share
perspectives on environmental issues and strategies.
I •
Action: The Environmental Protection Agency may consider expanding existing
partnerships and establishing new ones with urban schools, as well as
environmental advocacy groups and local community organizations that are
involved in urban environmental education.
Technical Assistance:
A significant obstacle to the success of many urban environmental education programs
(ones not sponsored by government agencies)4s the lack or deficiency of technical
information on environmental issues. Moreover, while many local organizations represent
community concerns when a crisis situation results (e.g. the siting of a hazardous waste j
facility leads to the formation of a hazardous waste prevention organization), many times \
these groups need to be able to "translate" technical information on the environment into \
understandable terms to an urban audience. j
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Teacher Recognition:
One tremendous barrier to the implementation of environmental curricula in schools is the
reluctancy of teachers, either because of time constraints, lack of interest in environmental
issues, or poor reception by school administrators, to undertake environmental education in
their schools. Those teachers that do decide to participate in environmental education
programs should be rightfully acknowledged as innovators in education.
Action: EPA may consider instituting an Environmental Education Award specifically
for teachers who initiate or actively encourage environmental education in their
respective schools.
|
Act as Clearinghouse/Coordinator for Environmental Education Programs:
There are many strategies and programs that operate in a vacuum; that is, successful
methods for urban environmental extension are often not shared, but rather localized to
specific communities. There is a strong need for a national organization to act as
networking center to facilitate the exchange of information among groups, as well as
existing as a catalyst for the formation of partnerships between various organizations.
Action: Through the newly created National Environmental Education and Training
Foundation which is in a unique position to act as a national clearinghouse, the
EPA should carry out a clearinghouse effort for the sundry environmental
education programs that currently exist. The Foundation may consider
extensively researching urban environmental education programs that currently
exist so that it may provide concerned organizations with appropriate program
information and contacts. As well, the Foundation may consider coordinating
federal efforts at urban environmental education en route to establishing an
comprehensive strategy for federal participation in urban environmental
education.
f Establish Pilot Programs:
I One of the most innovative strategies in environmental education is the hands-on approach
I of environmental education pilot programs. Urban youth are more likely to become
| interested in environmental issues if programs allow actual participation and provide
I information and solutions to issues that directly impact their daily lives. Many urban youth
j do not realize the interconnectedness of many environmental issues. As a result, they are
unlikely to devote much attention to programs that discuss "foreign" topics. Developing
innovative urban pilot projects could be tremendously effective in introducing and instilling
an environmental ethic in today's urban youth.
Action: EPA may consider developing pilot projects that are geared specifically toward
urban minority children and the issues that directly affect them. Also, programs
i that connect global environmental issues to local concerns would bring
I environmentalism "closer to the urban home."
i
I
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Regional Publications:
EPA Headquarters cannot bear the responsibility of investigating urban environmental
concerns for every urban community in the country; EPA Regional offices, located in cities
with significant minority populations, could bear some of the responsibility for localizing
urban environmental education efforts.
Action: Regional offices may consider expanding their liaison activities between the local
urban minority communities in the Region and EPA Headquarters. In this role
they could provide detailed information to relevant Headquarters Offices and
become the active interpreters of the specific current environmental concerns of
those communities.
Historically Black College and University (HBCU) Research Budget:
Most, if not all of our nation's Historically Black College and University and Minority
Institutions (HBCU-MI) HBCU-MTs are active in great numbers of community service
projects, many of which include environmental education programs for minority
communities. To support these institutions with significant funding is to feed money into
these already existing environmental education programs.
Action: EPA may consider increasing research funding to HBCU's that are engaged in
urban environmental education. Moreover, the Agency may seek to initiate
programs through partnerships at universities without environmental education
projects.
I
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APPENDIX A
Center for Environmental Quality Report
Environmental Education in the Federal Government
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
There is a growing network of teachers, government agencies,
non-profit organizations and corporations who are developing and
sharing environmental education programs.
Many Federal agencies whose missions encompass environmental
issues have some environmental education programs for higher
education, for the community, for the workforce and for
elementary and secondary education — the focus of this paper.
The focus is on elementary and secondary education because that
is where some of the greatest opportunities are to develop
environmental literacy and an environmental ethic.
Federal agencies are sponsoring programs ranging from
providing materials to guiding students and teachers in
developing action plans. Although coordination has not always
been effective in the past, there are organizational proposals
which would ensure more effective use of limited funds and a
wealth of creative ideas.
The following issues and recommendations reflect the current
thinking and trends shared by the federal agencies as well as
various non-profit organizations, education professionals and
students:
o The most critical focus for environmental education should
be developing environmental literacy and an environmental
ethic at the K-12 level, when individuals are forming values
for life management.
Further, consideration should be given to targeting limited
resources at those communities which are affected
disproportionately by pollution. For example, the special
needs of inner city schools might be addressed first.
o Overlapping programs should be linked where possible.
The National Advisory Council on Environmental Technology
Transfer has recommended the formation of a new Interagency
Council on Environmental Education to replace the
Subcommittee on Environmental Education of the Federal
Interagency Committee on Education.
o More funds should be specifically allocated for
environmental education.
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DRAFT DRAFT DRAFT DRAFT DRAFT DRAFT DRAFT DRAFT DRAFT
ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION
IN THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT:
AN ASSESSMENT OF ACTIVITIES AND STRATEGIES
Overview
The state of the world's environment has become one of the
most pressing topics of the late 20th century. It will likely
remain a pressing topic in the 21st century. The twentieth
anniversary of Earth Day underscored the importance of individual
action to prevent pollution. Environmental education is the key
to instilling an environmental ethic in society, and perhaps the
most important group that this ethic must reach is our children.
Establishing environmental literacy in America's school age
population will contribute to developing this ethic. Successful
programs have been developed at all levels of government, by non-
profit organizations, and in private industry. The question this
paper seeks to address is the state of environmental education
programs in the Federal government.
Nearly every Federal agency has a project or a program
dedicated to environmental education. Lacking to date has been a
coherent Federal strategy and coordination of activities,
although successful work has continued in spite of this. A
strategy has been emerging in an ad hoc fashion, and agencies
recognize that more coordination and structure are necessary to
target efforts and reduce unnecessary duplications of effort. In
examining the range of environmental education activities, most
if not all also support the Administration's goals for elementary
and secondary education and complement many existing efforts such
as the Department of Energy's initiative in math and science
education.
The Council on Environmental Quality is charged with
coordinating Federal environmental efforts. It is consistent
with CEQ's charter to take a leading position in the coordination
of Federal environmental education initiatives, since educational
and environmental concerns cut across many jurisdictional
boundaries in the Federal government. It is not, however, the
intention of CEQ to dictate educational policy, or exert
authority over the many excellent and innovative programs
underway in Federal agencies.
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Federal Activities
Nearly every Federal agency has some type of ongoing
environmental education program, under the broadest definition of
environmental education. Focussing on elementary and secondary
levels does not significantly decrease this number. Most Federal
environmental education activities can fall into one of the
following categories, although the traditional emphasis has been
on producing and distributing educational materials to local
school districts and educational organizations:
o Curriculum Development and Guidance
'».
o Educational Materials (including software and videos)
o Teacher Training and Instruction
o Field and Laboratory Learning Opportunities
o Educational and Research Institutes
o Learning Networks v
o Mentoring Programs
o [Awards/Recognition Programs]
Many agencies are becoming increasingly proactive in their
approaches to environmental education through these types of
activities. Most agencies focus on their area of particular
expertise, e.g. the U.S. Geological Survey's emphasis on earth
sciences. Only one agency, EPA, has a cross-cutting national
focus on the environment, and its efforts reflect this charge.
The-Tennessee-Valley Authority has demonstrated a similar effort
on a regional basis and has developed a model educational
program, to mention just one agency effort. The following brief
sketches of Federal environmental education activities are
organized by agency:
EPA has convened an Agency-wide Environmental Education Task
Force, under the Office of Communications and Public Affairs, to
develop a comprehensive strategic plan by late June and to
sponsor the Youth Environmental Action Forum, which took place
May 20 - 23. Major activities are also underway in the office of
Cooperative Environmental Management (OCEM) in conjunction with
the National Advisory Committee on Environmental Technology
Transfer (NACETT). The Agency has supported S. 1076, the
National Environmental Education Act. Specific EPA environmental
education activities include the following:
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The Office of Communications and Public Affairs (OCPA) has
developed a curriculum package in a cooperative venture with
General Motors. Titled "I Need the Earth and the Earth
Needs Me," it will provide fourth grade teachers nationwide
with a videocassette plus instructor's guide.
OCPA has coordinated the distribution of educational
materials for K-12 from across the Agency by compiling a
resource guide titled, "Environmental Education Materials
for Teachers and Young People (K-12)".
The Office of Isolid Waste and Emergency Response (OSWER) has
prepared a curriculum to promote recycling and to increase
general awareness of waste in cooperation with national
education and teacher associations.
EPA's Hazards in schools Committee was organized to
coordinate the effort to reach teachers, school
administrators, and parents about environmental hazards in
schools. While strictly speaking this does not target K-12
students, it does directly deal with the education of that
group. The Committee has held ^workshops and is developing a
handbook entitled "Environmental Hazards in Your School."
The Partners In Education Program, which operates at both
the Headquarters and Regional levels, pairs EPA offices with
selected schools. Activities performed by EPA personnel
include tutoring, career guidance, and the provision of
hands-on learning opportunities.
Various regional offices have undertaken activities on their
own initiative such as working partnerships with schools,
poem and poster contests, speaker's bureaus, and information
dissemination. ~
Regions 3 (Philadelphia), 6 (Dallas), and 9 (San Francisco)
administer Environmental Institutes, providing a variety of
educational services.
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o The Student Conservation Association (SCA) program will
be encouraged to expand opportunities for high school
students-at-risk, and minority populations.
o All National Park Sites will be presented to schools as
"Learning Laboratories," and will assist in curriculum
development and media presentations. A videotape
entitled "National Parks—Our Learning Laboratories"
will accompany teacher packets on using park areas as
classrooms and classroom materials. Materials included
focus on Biological Diversity, Clean Air, Global
Change, and Endangered Species.
Bureau of Mines
o Through films, videos, posters, and postcards, the
Bureau seeks to increase awareness of the
indispensability of minerals. Many of these materials
are targeted at school-age groups, and the Bureau has
been experimenting with new formats for presenting
information on mining and minerals.
v
U.S. Geological survey
o The Joint Education Initiative (JEDI) is being
developed in association with NASA, NOAA, the
Smithsonian Institution, and others, to strengthen the
teaching of science in elementary and secondary schools
by sharing scientific data through the storage medium
of CD-ROM. Teachers are being instructed in how to use
the system, which will have readers connected to PCs.
o USGS cooperates in the Center for Excellence in
Education's annual Research Science Institute for
bright high school students.
o USGS participates in American Geological Institute's
grant program which funds teachers to work at AGI
temporarily.
participates in the Partnership In Education
Program, conducting science and career fairs, classroom
presentations, and traveling exhibits.
The Teacher Assistance Program is comprised of
science/teacher workshops, hotline for science
teachers, teacher-oriented earth science publications,
displays, posters, films, and computerized teaching
materials, distributed free of cost.
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o SCS coordinates the USDA/Boy Scouts of America Council
Conservation Awards program, now in its 30th year.
Department of Energy
DoE has undertaken a major math and science education
initiative in support of the President's goal of leading the
world in math and science. A major component of this effort
,includes a focus on global climate change. DoE is also concerned
-with education about energy efficiency.
. o The Science Teacher Research Association Program (TRAC)
provides teachers with hands-on laboratory research related
to various aspects of global climate change.
o Summer institutes beginning in 1988 at the Lawrence
Livermore National Laboratory for middle and high school
science teachers have developed interdisciplinary curriculum
about global climate change for grades 6-12.
o A collaborative effort between Lawrence Livermore and the
University of California, Berkeley has led to the
development of a Macintosh "HyperCard" pilot project, based
| on the tree of knowledge concept, where the trunk is the
I topic "Global Climate Change" and the branches are science
! technology and society issues. The roots are the scientific
I and technical disciplines.
I Department of Defense
DoD's primary efforts in environmental education reside in
the operation of its school system - the sixth largest public
school system in the world, with 160,000 students. As part of an
on-going environmental education effort, roughly $300,000 per
year is spent to provide students with the opportunity for
wilderness trips and school camping events. A teacher institute
in environmental education is conducted each summer. A teacher's
manual has been developed in-house for use in grades K-12.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is
involved in two areas of environmental education: global climate
change and marine and estuarine protection.
o The Office of Climate and Atmospheric Research (OCAR) is
developing pilot projects to bring global climate education
to the local level; this will include newsletters to keep
teachers up-to-date on scientific and technological
developments.
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o TVA is developing a comprehensive energy education program
for K-1Z. "The Energy Sourcebooks" for grades K-5 have been
completed, and Sourcebooks for grades 6-12 will be completed
in 1993.
o TVA is beginning to develop a waste education program for
schools as well as the general public. A set of
supplementary classroom materials for high school use -
"Waste: The Hidden Resource" - is being distributed
nationally by Keep America Beautiful.
|
o TVA is addressing land stewardship questions through
producing integrated resource management materials for
middle school use - "TVA - A World of Resources."
o The Land Between the Lakes (LBL), an inland peninsula,
offers interpretive sites and special programs for K-12
students.
National Science Foundation v
The NSF's Committee on Earth Sciences, which includes NASA,
DoE, and USDA, is sponsoring a Global Change Education and
Training Program, which, as part of its overall program
activities, will provide approximately 100 summer research
internships for high school students in 1991. The Division of
Teacher Preparation is also spending approximately $200,000 on
proposals for curriculum development in grades K-12.
Council on Environmental Quality
CEQ is reviewing, beginning with this paper, and assessing
the success of Federal environmental education programs with an
eye towards improving effectiveness through coordination and
sharing ideas.
CEQ has proposed a new initiative, the "Presidential Awards
for Excellence in Environmental Education.1* This program would
award up to $5,000 to each of two recipients from each state and
one each from the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. Criteria
would include creativity and transferability of teaching methods,
effectiveness in increasing environmental awareness, and the
positive impact of the teacher on students.
Other Programs
This summary, with its focus on Federal agency activities,
only alludes to the vast array of activities that are on-going in
other sectors. Several states have developed model environmental
education programs. Wisconsin, for example, requires instruction
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•31 •—. , .
in environmental protection, its renewed commitment to improving
American education as articulated in the President's six goals
for education, and its ability to bring resources to bear in a
field in which small amounts can achieve large results.
As activities continue, the issues of coordination, resource
allocation, and educational content and methodology remain. All
are closely linked.
Coordination
: (
The environmental education community has, de facto,
established a loose confederation of organizations with similar
goals. Since several Federal agencies have jurisdiction over
different aspects of environmental protection and conservation, a
number of separate but thematically related programs for
environmental education have been developed.
i Efforts are under way to link and coordinate these
t activities without extinguishing the initiative and commitment
I that individual agencies have already demonstrated. It is not
| the intention of the Federal effort to limit the number of
\ players in this emerging field, but clearly some duplication is
jj occurring, so wherever possible it makes common sense to
I coordinate and thus reduce needless expenditures of resources.
I In addition, overlapping programs in the private and public
sectors, should be, wherever possible, linked for the same
reasons. The nature of this linkage will, by necessity, vary on
a case-to-case basis, but at a minimum should involve the
exchange of information. The Federal government should take an
active role in learning from and promoting examples of successful
state and non-profit programs.
The National Advisory Committee on Environmental Technology
Transfer, through its Committee on Education and Training, has
recommended formation of a new Interagency Council on
Environmental Education to replace the "passive" Federal
Interagency Committee on Education Subcommittee on Environmental
Education. This council would be chaired by EPA's new Office of
Environmental Education and Training (OEET), in the Office of the
Administrator, and would assert EPA as the lead agency for
environmental education. OEET would develop national policy and
implementation plans, and produce an annual report on
environmental education. This proposal has received the support
of the FICE Subcommittee and EPA.
The continuity and linkages between the work of FICE,
NACETT, and the Alliance for Environmental Education (AEE) are
key components to the success of the Federal effort. In a field
where cooperative ventures are the norm, AEE has linked many of
the relevant participants in environmental education together in
the expanding ERIC system, providing a nationwide network of
environmental and educational professionals. Overlapping systems
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as they should be. Increased communication and coordination will
enhance the ability to relay a complete message on the
environment and thereby support the larger goals of producing an
informed and enlightened citizenry.
The "what" of environmental education is perhaps not so
important as the "how". Teachers have repeatedly indicated that
they need no additional materials, preferring that resources be
directed at teacher training and action-oriented student
programs. Increased Federal involvement and coordination can
lead, in effect, to more workshops for teachers who in turn learn
about complex subjects from the experts; more effective and more
accessible learning materials for teachers to choose from; more
opportunities for hands-on learning experiences; more exchange
of successful curricula; more incentives for teachers and
students, such as CEQ's proposed Presidential awards for teachers
and EPA's youth awards programs; and more commitment through the
integration of environmental education goals and practices in
institutions.
Conclusion
V
Environmental education for elementary and secondary
students will remain largely in the hands of classroom teachers,
as it should. The Federal role, and one which it has undertaken
with creativity, enthusiasm, and, recently, commitment, is one of
empowerment — empowerment of teachers, students, and parents
through grants, guidance, forums and training — to achieve
environmental literacy and the development of an environmental
ethic. Federal agencies have undertaken a vast array of projects \
and activities, often on their own initiative. With a renewed I
sense of environmental awareness in American society, this effort f
can be directed to complement the many activities underway in ,
environmental education. i
-------
EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF THE DRESIDEM
COUNCIL ON ENvinor,'M!ii\rv,L QUALITY
The Honorable J. Danforth Quaylc
President
United States Senate
Washington, D.C. 20510
The Honorable Thomas S. Foley
Speaker of the House of Representatives
United States House of Representatives
Washington, D.C. 20515
Dear Mr. President and Mr. Speaker:
Please accept the enclosed proposed legislation for
consideration by Congress. The Presidential Awards for
Excellence in Environmental Education would establish a high
level program, administered by the Council on Environmental
Quality, to recognize and stimulate excellence in environmental
education in elementary and secondary schools.
Pollution prevention, rather than after-the-fact clean up,
is the long-term solution for our environmental problems.
Education plays a key role in prevention. Teachers can lay a
strong foundation in tomorrow's adults by teaching environmental
awareness and means to prevent and minimize pollution. Further,
outstanding teachers often work without the recognition they
deserve. This proposal addresses both concerns.
The President proposes to stimulate environmental education
by establishing Presidential awards to recognize excellent
teachers. The awards are one small, but important, component of
the solutions to protecting our resources and environment for
future generations.
The Office of Management and Budget has advised that there
is no objection to the presentation of this legislative proposal
|to Congress, and that its enactment would be in accord with the
program of the President.
My staff or I can provide additional information as
required.
Thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely,
Michael R. Deland
Chairman
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•» .
To establish a Presidential awards program, administered -fiy the
Council on Environmental Quality, to recognize and stimulate
excellence in environmental education in Grades Kindergarten
through 12.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of
fche United States of, America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1.
SHORT TITLE AND TABLE OF CONTENTS.
(a) TITLE. — This Act may be cited as the "Presidential
Awards for Excellence in Environmental Education Act".
(b) TABLE OF CONTENTS. —
Sec* 1. Shott^title and table of contents,
Sec. 2. Ifih&iiigs.
S«i6« '9.*$«$toiifcl6ns. . .••-•<•. . ' ' • ' .
Sec. 4, tfresl'defrtial Awards for Excellence
in ^hVirdhmental Education.
Sec. 5. Authorisation. •
• FINDINGS. ''";. ••••''•••• "7',.' '•'"",.," '•'••••"'. ;v'"-. , •'-'..'"
The Conc|fess fihds that —
(1) Environmental protedtion, to be effective, must include
pollution prevention as well as pollution control.
h . ' . .
(2) Pollution prevention depends in large part on changes in
individual behavior— changes which can best be brought about
through education.
(3) The education of youth, and through them their pafrents,
can luat^i yi eater understanding of the need for --—:-
en vironli|fttai Protection, and consequently can bring about
the modifications in behavior which will be necessary to
imprbve' , We future health of our natural resoUrceflfand
environment *
(4) Recognition and support must be given from the highest
level td those best qualified to provide students with
accuf ate, inf ofmation about environmental choices and
to the environment— -teachers. .
(5) The federal government, acting through the Council on
Environmental Quality, should recognize and stimulate
Recycled Paper
-------
1 and effective environmental education at thc-
elementary and secondary l.ov^l by nrcvidinr: dcsorvinq
teachers froin each State, the District of Columbia, and the
Commonwealth of Puerto Rico with Presidential Av:ards
Exec:Hence in Environmental Education. •' ;:
SECTION 3. DEFINITIONS.
For the purposes of this Act, the term--
ID "Chairman" means the Chairman of the President's Council
on Environmental Quality;
(2) "Council" means the Council on Environmental Quality and
the Office of Environmental Quality-
(3) "Presidential award" means the Presidential Awards for
Excellence in Environmental Education established under this
Act.
SECTION 4. PRESIDENTIAL AWARDS FOR EXCELLENCE IN
ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION.
(a) The Chairman of the Council on Environmental Quality, on
behalf of the President, is authorized to administer an
awards program which recognizes elementary and secondary
education teachers who demonstrate excellence in advancing
environmental education through innovative and effective
programs.
(b) The Chairman is authorized to develop an awards
selection process and to establish an annual timetable for
the awards process. The selection criteria should include,
but not be limited to:
(1) creativity of the teaching method or project;
(2) transferability of the teaching method or project
to other teachers;
(3) effectiveness of the teacher in increasing
students' understanding and appreciation of the
environment; and
(4) positive impact of the teacher on students,
parents, and other teachers.
(c) The Chairman is authorized to provide cash awards of up
to $5,000 directly to Presidential award recipients on an
annual basis.
Recycled Paper
-------
((\\ Presidential Awards for Excel.lonco in Environmental
Education or equal value arc co be given annually co tv.-o
teachers from each of the United States, to cne teacher from
the District of Columbia and to one teacher from the
Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.
(e) Only teachers at public or private schools with primary
assignment to classrooms at the primary or secondary level
(grades Kindergarten - 12) are eligible. Prior Presidential
award recipients are not eligible for subsequent awards
under this section.
(f) Each State is to nominate four finalists. The District
of Columbia and Puerto Rico are to nominate two finalists
each.
(g) The Chairman shall work with the Environmental
Protection Agency, the Department of Education, the
Department of Health and Human Services, the National
Science Foundation and other Federal agencies and existing
national, State and local environmental and education
organizations to the maximum extent possible to identify
potential Presidential award recipients.
SECTION 5. AUTHORIZATION
(a) There is hereby authorized to be appropriated to the
Council on Environmental Quality to carry out this act an
amount not to exceed $549,000 for each of fiscal years 1991,
1992, and 1993.
(b) Amounts made available pursuant to paragraph (a) of this
section^ shall be available for making cash awards under this
act, for administrative expenses including award
certificates and printing, for necessary travel costs and
per diem expenses incurred by teachers selected as
Presidential award recipients, and for special activities
related to carrying out this act.
(c)(l) The Council is authorized to accept financial
contributions, goods, or services from other Federal, State
or local agencies and from non-governmental entities
(including for-profit and non-profit organizations) in
furtherance of the objectives of the Presidential awards
program.
(2) The Chairman shall establish by regulation guidelines
setting forth the criteria the Council will use in
determining whether to accept such financial contributions,
goods, or services. The criteria shall take into
consideration whether the acceptance of the financial
contributions, goods, or services would reflect unfavorably
upon the Council's ability to carry out its responsibilities
Recycled Paper
-------
f
•>!>
'%:
*
»&•
.\ , . - i „ - c-iif and objective manner, or v,'ou.o
.•j'fi'oCff^E^'Pj-1- dasd.gf* \\\. '^i.*l!^H:,1,"in^-ji^b^3WibhxL(kni@eN>n61P''CD(t "..^oi!~['
inttiCJ*"Ctltr¥\ <-€r %, 9©y
-------
v^
SECTION-BY-SECTION ANALYSIS
Section 1 provides the title -- "Presidential. Awards
Excellence in Environmental Education Act" -- and a table' of
contents.
Section 2 presents findings emphasizing the importance of
teachers educating youth to prevent pollution,and to protect the
environment.
Section 3 provides Jfelevant definitions.
iT
Section 4 authorizes the Council on Environmental Quality to
administer the Presidential awards program and to provide cash,
awards of up to $5,000 directly to each of 102 teachers, two dfrom
each State and one each from the District of Columbia and the
Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.
Section 5 authorizes the Council to use appropriated funds for
the Presidential awards program, including the costs of travel
and per. diem for recipients, cash aw&rds, printing, and other
related expenditures. This section also authorizes the Council
to accept outside cash contributions, goods, or services in
furtherance of the program, and requires the Council to implement
regulations governing their acceptance.
<>1
,<*
r^
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APPENDIX B
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Office of Research and Development
Catalog of Minority Support Programs
-------
CATALOG of MINORITY SUPPORT PROGRAMS within ORD
CATEGORY
RECRUITING EFFORTS
TITLE
Annual Puerto Rico Recruiting Effort
Recruitment of Scientific/Technical
Personnel from Underrepresented Groups
Recruitment of the Physically Handicapped
Minority Recruitment Activities and
Job Fairs
Training the Recruiter
EPA Faculty Fellows Program
Recruitment Databases
-------
CATALOG of MINORITY SUPPORT PROGRAMS within ORD
CATEGORY
TITLE
TRAINING &
DEVELOPMENT
Mentoring Program
Federal Women's Program
Management Training
Secretarial Career Management Program
COMMUNITY AWARENESS Training Grants for the Native American
Tribes
Special Observances
PAGE
13
14
15
16
17
18
CONTRACTS i GRANTS
PLANNED MINORITY
PROGRAMS
PROGRAM MATRIX
Minority Contracts, Cooperative Agreements. 19
& Grants
Senior Environmental Employee Program
"2+2" Environmental Education Program
Small Business Innovation Research
Hazardous Substance Research Centers
Engineering Traineeships for HBCUs
Pilot Program to Incorporate Minority
Institutions into the Gulf Coast
Hazardous Substance Research Center
(GCHSRC)
20
21
21
22
23
23
ii
5/29/90
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CATALOG of MINORITY SUPPORT PROGRAMS within ORD
This is a general overview of the existing and planned minority support programs within ORD. Many
of the programs exist within each ORD office or laboratory, if, within a given program, a specific
point of contact is not listed for a particular office or laboratory, please contact the Office or
Laboratory's Program Operations Office to locate the individual who has local responsibility for the
program.
RECRUITING EFFORTS
TITLE: Annual Puerto Rico Recruiting Effort
DESCRIPTION: ORD actively supports the annual EPA recruiting trip
to Puerto Rico. ORD offices and laboratories
provide specific job opportunities, primarily
scientist and engineering positions, for which the
ORD representative can make employment offers to
qualified candidates during the recruiting trip.
ORD has recruited nineteen Puerto Rican scientists
and engineers during the past two years.
PARTICIPATING
ORGANIZATIONS: All ORD Offices and Laboratories
CONTACT: ORD: Sandra Wells, ORPM, 382-2585
Local: Dee Hutchings, ERL Ada, 743-2227
Maxine Kellum, ERL Athens, 250-3517
Sandra Bowman, HRMD Cincinnati, 684-7801
Nancy VanMeter, CERI Cincinnati, 684-7394
Diana Irwin, EMSL Cincinnati, 684-7485
Diana Guzman, RREL Cincinnati, 684-7953
Pam Taylor, ERL Corvallis, 420-4651
Sherry Linder, ERL Duluth, 780-5543
Robert Menzer, ERL Gulf Breeze, 228-9011
Richard Garnas, EMSL Las Vegas, 545-2568
Patricia Gant, ERL Narragansett, 838-6005
Shirley Bowens, HRMD RTF, 629-4381
5/29/90
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CATALOG of MINORITY SUPPORT PROGRAMS vithin ORD
TITLE: Recruitment of Scientific/Technical Personnel from
Under-represented Groups
DESCRIPTION: In December 1989, ORD implemented a program to
encourage the active recruitment of scientists and
engineers in underrepresented groups, which includes
women, minorities and the handicapped. This program
sets aside twenty-six positions per year for
recruiting qualified scientists and engineers from
the^e underrepresented groups. The Assistant
Administrator provides funding for salaries and
expenses during the first two years for any
individual recruited under this program. In the
third year, the recruiting office or laboratory must
fund the expenses associated with the positions.
PARTICIPATING
ORGANIZATIONS: All ORD Offices and Laboratories
CONTACT:
ORD: Art Payne, QRPM, 382-7462
Local: Dee Hutchings, ERL Ada, 743-2227
Maxine Kellum, ERL Athens, 250-3517
Sandra Bowman, HRMD Cincinnati, 684-7801
Linda Schwaegerle, ECAO Cincinnati, 684-7535
Diana Irwin, EMSL Cincinnati, 684-7485
Pan Taylor, ERL Corvallis, 420-4651
Sherry Linder, ERL Duluth, 780-5543
Robert E. Menzer, ERL Gulf Breeze, 228-9011
Richard Garnas, EMSL Las Vegas, 545-2568
Art Sandoval, HRMD Las Vegas, 545-2414
Lucy Garedo, ERL Narragansett, 838-6008
Terri J. Burrell, HRMD RTP, 629-4359
5/29/90
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CATALOG Of MINORITY SUPPORT PROGRAMS within ORD
TITLE:
Recruitment of the Physically Handicapped
DESCRIPTION:
HRMD Cincinnati has an active recruitment program
for the physically handicapped. HRMD notifies the
Ohio Vocational Rehabilitation Office of all vacancy
announcements. All the facilities in Cincinnati are
easily accessible by the physically disabled and all
major telephone exchanges have been adapted for the
hearing impaired. The physically disabled represent
approximately 8 percent of Cincinnati's workforce.
ERL Narragansett is implementing a similar program
in conjunction with the Rhode Island Vocational
Rehabilitation Office. The staff at Narragansett is
striving to make their entire facility easily
accessible by the physically disabled as funding
becomes available.
ERL Duluth is implementing a similar program in
conjunction with Minnesota Vocational Rehabilitation
Office. All the facilities at ERL Duluth are easily
accessible by the physically disabled.
ERL Gulf Breeze has a similar program with the
Penniscola Junior College. Many of the facilities
at ERL Gulf Breeze are easily accessible by the
physically disabled.
HRMD RTF is considering re-establishing this program
at the RTF Center. All the facilities in RTF are
easily accessible by the physically disabled and all
major telephone exchanges have been adapted for the
hearing impaired.
PARTICIPATING
OROAMIZATIOMi: ORD Offices and Laboratories
CONTACTI
Local: Sandra Bowman, HRMD Cincinnati, 684-7801
Sherry Linder, ERL Duluth, 780-5543
Mary Merredith, ERL Gulf Breeze, 228-9246
Art Sandoval, HRMD Las Vegas, 545-2414
Brenda Laing, ERL Narragansett, 838-6021
Randy Brady, HRMD RTF, 629-3071
5/29/90
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CATALOG Of MINORITY SUPPORT PROGRAMS within ORD
TITLE:
Minority Recruitment Activities and Job Pairs
DESCRIPTION: ORD representatives have participated in numerous
minority-sponsored recruitment activities and job
fairs. The primary purpose is to identify potential
candidates for employment by providing information
concerning ORD missions, programs and career
opportunities.
PARTICIPATING
ORGANIZATIONS: All ORD Offices and Laboratories
CONTACT:
ORD: Art Payne, ORPM, 382-7462
Local: Zandra Kern, OHRM (HQ Offices), 382-2973
Linda Exum, ERL Athens, 250-3145
Sandra Bowman, HRMD Cincinnati, 684-7801
Sherry Linder, ERL Duluth, 780-5543
Mary Merredith, ERL Gulf Breeze, 228-9246
Brenda Laing, ERL Narragansett, 838-6021
Terri J. Burrell, HRMD RTF, 629-4359
m
.1
TITLE:
DESCRIPTION:
Training the Recruiter
Both HRMD Cincinnati and HRMD RTF conduct programs
to train senior scientists, engineers, supervisors
and managers within ORD laboratories and offices to
use effective recruiting methods when participating
in job fairs. This training program includes the
identification of specific targeted markets (such as
women, minorities and the handicapped) to be
considered during the recruitment process.
FARTXCXHkffXM
ORGANIlATXOWt Cincinnati and RTF
CONTACTt
Local: Sandra Bowman, HRMD Cincinnati, 684-7801
Terri J. Burrell, HRMD RTF, 629-4359
5/29/90
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CATALOG of MINORITY SUPPORT PROGRAMS within ORD
TITLE:
DESCRIPTION:
EPA Faculty Fellows Program
Faculty Intern Program)
(Minority summer
This program was established in 1981 to provide
opportunities for faculty members from accredited
minority institutions to work in Agency laboratories
and offices during the summer. This provides a
unique opportunity for the faculty members to
actively participate in ORD science and engineering
research activities in order to share these
experiences and information concerning career
options with the students and faculty at their
respective colleges and universities.
PARTICIPATING
ORGANIZATIONS: All ORD Offices and Laboratories.
CONTACT:
Agency: Le'Ontyne Buggs, OHRM, 382-3266
ORD: Art Payne, ORPM, 382-7462
Local: Sandra Bowman, HRMD Cincinnati, 684-7801
Jessie Burdett, RREL Cincinnati, 684-7514
Grady Neely, ERL Corvallis, 420-4684
Robert E. Menzer, ERL Gulf Breeze, 228-9011
Shirley T. Bowens, HRMD RTF, 629-4381
TITLE:
Recruitment Databases
DESCRIPTION:
Most of the ORD Offices and Laboratories have
developed either manual or automated recruitment
.databases which are used as mailing lists in
recruiting women, minorities and the handicapped for
scientific, engineering and support positions.
PARTICIPATING
ORGANIZATION: ORD Offices and Laboratories
CONTACT:
.Locals Zandra Kern, OHRM (HQ Offices), 382-2973
Dee Hutchings, ERL Ada, 743-2227
Rosemarie C. Russo, ERL Athens, 250-3134
Sandra Bowman, HRMD Cincinnati, 684-7801
Pam Taylor, ERL Corvallis, 420-4651
Sherry Linder, ERL Duluth, 780-5543
Mary Merredith, ERL Gulf Breeze, 228-9246
Art Sandoval, HRMD Las Vegas, 545-2414
Brenda Laing, ERL Narragansett, 838-6021
Terri J. Burrell, HRMD RTF, 629-4359
5/29/90
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CATALOG of MINORITY SUPPORT PROGRAMS within ORD
EDUCATION
TITLE:
Historically Black Colleges and Universities
Linkages
(HBCU)
DESCRIPTION:
Senior scientists and engineers in ORD laboratories
have been named as adjunct professors in their areas
of expertise and provide laboratory work experience
for science and engineering students in Historically
Black Colleges and Universities. This program also
provides a source for minority recruitment.
PARTICIPATING
ORGANIZATIONS: RTF and ERL, Athens
CONTACT:
Local: Linda Exum, ERL Athens, 250-3145
Terri J. Burrell, HRMD RTF, 629-4359
August Curley, HERL RTF, 629-2729
TITLE:
HBCU Lecture series
DESCRIPTION:
A lecture series has been initiated to strengthen
ties between the Agency and HBCUs. These lectures
have been designed to provide a forum for discussion
on the role of minorities in science and engineering
as a key to national strength in research and
development.
PARTICIPATING
ORGANIZATION! RTF
CONTACTI
Local:
August Curley, HERL RTP, 629-2729
Dianne Laws, AOCR RTP, 629-4249
5/29/90
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CATALOG of MINORITY SUPPORT PROGRAMS within QRD
TITLE:
Minority Engineering Program
DESCRIPTION:
This is a cooperative agreement with the University
of Nevada at Las Vegas to provide engineering
students with training projects and assignments
associated with environmental issues and research
problems.
PARTICIPATING
ORGANIZATIONS: EMSL Las Vegas
CONTACT:
Local: Anders Denson, EMSL Las Vegas, 545-2577
TITLE:
Stay-in-School Program
DESCRIPTION: This program provides scientific, professional,
technical and clerical assistance to ORD offices and
laboratories by providing student hires working on a
part-time basis within these organizations. The
program is limited to students meeting financial aid
requirements. In several ORD facilities, a specific
percentage of the available opportunities are set
aside for minority and female applicants.
PARTICIPATING
ORGANIZATIONS: All ORO Offices and Laboratories
CONTACT:
ORD: Art Payne, ORPM, 382-7462
Local; Dee Hutchings, ERL Ada, 743-2227
Maxine Kellum, ERL Athens, 250-3517
Sandra Bowman, HRMD Cincinnati, 684-7801
Pan Taylor, ERL Corvallis, 420-4651
Sherry Linder, ERL Duluth, 780-5543
Mary Meredith, ERL Gulf Breeze, 228-9246
Art Sandoval, HRMD Las Vegas, 545-2414
Brenda Laing, ERL Narragansett, 838-6021
Shirley Bowens, HRMD RTP, 629-4381
5/29/90
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CATALOG of MINORITY SUPPORT PROGRAMS within QRD
TITLE:
Adopt-a-School Program
DESCRIPTION:
ORD facilities participate in the Agency-sponsored
"Adopt a School" Program by sponsoring activities
for local minority schools. The program is designed
to foster an interest in sciences and engineering at
junior and senior high school levels. Individuals
from the laboratories sponsor school activities;
provide tours of EPA facilities; judge school
science contests; sponsor environment-related public
awareness activities; collect coupons/receipts to
support the school's participation in education
bonus programs [e.g., Giant apple computer program];
and set aside a certain number of "Stay-in-School"
positions as employment opportunities for students
of the "adopted" schools. Cincinnati laboratories
have instituted a "shadow" program which will allow
10 children from the "adopted" school to follow a
volunteer scientist in the ORD laboratory for a day.
PARTICIPATING
ORGANIZATIONS: ORD Headquarters Offices
Cincinnati
id
a
CONTACT:
ORD: Art Payne, ORPM, 382-7462
Local: Sandra Bowman, HRMD Cincinnati, 684-7801
.d
.c
5/29/90
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CATALOG of MINORITY SUPPORT PROGRAMS within ORD
TITLE:
School Outreach Program
DESCRIPTION: All of the ORD facilities participate in outreach
programs at the local elementary schools, high
schools, colleges and universities, including the
minority schools, to cultivate an interest in the
environmental sciences and engineering. Individuals
from the laboratories sponsor school activities;
provide tours of EPA facilities; judge school
science contests; sit on school panels; sponsor
environment-related public awareness activities; and
participate in science fairs and career days. Many
of the EPA employee associations donate money for
local school science awards/prizes and scholarship
funds.
PARTICIPATING
ORGANIZATIONS* All ORD Offices and Laboratories
CONTACT:
ORD: Art Payne, ORPM, 382-7462
Local: Dee Hutchings, ERL Ada, 743-2227
Robert Ryans, ERL Athens, 250-3306
Sandra Bowman, HRMD Cincinnati, 684-7801
Pam Taylor, ERL Corvallis, 420-4651
Robert Drummond, ERL Duluth, 780-5733
Betty Jackson, ERL Gulf Breeze, 228-9011
Marianne Carpenter, EMSL Las Vegas, 545-2168
Brenda Laing, ERL Narragansett, 838-6021
Billie Hudson, OSORDO RTF, 629-4303
TITLES
ffoaea tad Minorities Honors Program
DESCRIPTION!
This program will provide scholarships through the
University of West Florida to scholarly women and
minorities as an incentive to enter graduate-level
training in the marine sciences.
PARTICIPATING
ORGANIZATION!I ERL Gulf Breeze
CONTACTI
Local: Raymond Wilhour, ERL Gulf Breeze, 228-9011
5/29/90
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CATALOG of MINORITY SUPPORT PROGRAMS within ORD
TITLE:
Minority Institution Assistanceship (MIA) Program
DESCRIPTION:
The MIA Program was initiated in 1981 to increase
research support for eligible minority institutions
(Historically Black Colleges or Universities, and
Hispanic Association of Colleges or Universities) by
providing fellowships for their students.
The MIA Program has three separate components:
a Research Assistance Program for faculty; an
Undergraduate/Graduate Fellowship Program; and a
Summer Intern Program for students who have
completed the Student Fellowship Program.
The objective of the Research Assistance Program is
to promote environmental research capability within
minority institutions and to provide an opportunity
for minority students to gain research experience in
the environmental sciences. Eight research grants
totaling $800K are funded in FY 1990.
The Student Fellowship and Summer Intern Program is
intended to encourage students to develop careers in
environmental research. Approximately $6K per
student for one academic year is provided to pay for
tuition, fees, books and a monthly stipend. All
fellowship recipients are required to serve a three
month summer internship at an EPA facility which
allows them to apply their newly acquired skills to
real-world environmental problems. Twenty-three
fellowships and ten summer internships totaling
$200K are funded in FY 1990.
PARTICIPATING
ORGANIZATIONS: ORD-sponsored program
CONTACT:
ORD: Virginia Broadway, OER, 382-7445
Alvin Edwards, OER, 382-7445
Local: Dee Hutchings, ERL Ada, 743-2227
Maxine Kellum, ERL Athens, 250-3517
Sandra Bowman, HRMD Cincinnati, 684-7801
Diana Irwin, EMSL Cincinnati, 684-7485
Grady Neely, ERL Corvallis, 420-4684
Sherry Linder, ERL Duluth, 780-5543
Mary Merredith, ERL Gulf Breeze, 228-9246
Evelyn Clay, EMSL Las Vegas, 545-2326/2536
Robert Mosley, EMSL Las Vegas, 545-2326/2536
Brenda Laing, ERL Narragansett, 838-6021
Billie Hudson, OSORDO RTF, 629-4303
10
5/29/90
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CATALOG Of MINORITY SUPPORT PROGRAMS within ORD
TITLE:
Minority Research Apprenticeship Program (MRAP)
DESCRIPTION:
Cincinnati has participated in the MRAP since 1980.
The MRAP is an eight week program where students
participate in ongoing research projects to gain
work experience and exposure to scientific and
engineering careers. Thirty-five minority students
from Cincinnati area high schools and colleges
participate in the program each year. EPA
scientists and engineers volunteer to be mentors and
work on a one-to-one basis with the students.
ERL Duluth has three programs under the auspices of
the MRAP: an eight-week summer session for high
school students; the NISHOU program in cooperation
with the University of Minnesota; and a six-week
hands-on training session with the students from
Staples Technical Institution at Cloquet, Minnesota.
In each of these programs EPA scientists and
engineers work on a one-to-one basis with the
students as mentors. Currently there are three
students enrolled in the high school program, two
students in the NISHOU program and three students in
the technician program.
RTF is establishing a MRAP in cooperation with Shaw
University. During the academic school year the
high school students will participate in weekend
sessions at Shaw University in addition to an eight-
week summer session during their freshman and
sophomore years. These students will then be
assigned to work with an EPA mentor at RTF for an
eight-week summer session during both their junior
and senior years in high school. RTF plans to
initially enroll 16 students in FY 1990 and expand
the program to 32 students in FY 1991, rotating 16
new students each year.
PARTXCIFAfZM
ORGANIZATION: Cincinnati, RTF and ERL Duluth
CONTACTt
Local: Johnny Springer, RREL Cincinnati, 684-7529
Andrea Tanner, OSORD Cincinnati, 684-7771
Diana Irwin, EMSL Cincinnati, 684-7485
Sherry Linder, ERL-Duluth, 780-5543
Millard Thacker, HRMD RTF, 629-4356
5/29/90
11
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CATALOG of MINORITY SUPPORT PROGRAMS within ORD
TITLE: Equipment Donation Program
DESCRIPTION: An OARM Pilot Program has been established to donate
excess physical plant property to HBCUs. It is
anticipated that this program, if successful, will
reduce the Agency's excess equipment inventories and
provide useful laboratory and office equipment for
use by minority institutions. The current recipient
of the equipment is Benedict College in Columbia,
South Carolina.
Cincinnati has a similar program to donate excess
equipment to the University of Cincinnati. ERL
Duluth is implementing a program to donate their
excess equipment to local area schools.
PARTICIPATING
ORGANIZATIONS: Cincinnati, RTF and ERL Duluth
CONTACT: Local: Bob Carr, OSORDO Cincinnati, 684-7966
Jeffrey Denny, ERL Duluth, 780-5518
Dianne Laws, AOCR RTF, 629-4249
David Westmoreland, FMSD RTF, 629-2162
n
5/29/90
12
-------
CATALOG of MINORITY SUPPORT PROGRAMS within ORD
TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT
TITLE:
Mentoring Program
DESCRIPTION: Guidelines were established two years ago for a
laboratory mentoring program for newly-recruited
Puerto Rican scientists and engineers (See "Annual
Puerto Rico Recruiting Effort") to help ensure the
successful transition of these newly recruited
members of ORD's workforce to adjust to their new
careers. HRMD Cincinnati has expanded on this idea
to develop an orientation and mentoring program for
all new employees, including special provisions for
new minority hires.
The Mentoring Program includes six segments:
(1) a "sponsor" is assigned to all new hires;
(2) a formal "human resources" presentation and
orientation is provided;
(3) a presentation has been developed to provide an
overall view of the laboratories and offices;
(4) an orientation checklist, which emphasizes the
individual's role in the office or laboratory,
has been developed;
(5) a three-month feedback interview identifies any
shortfalls in the orientation process; and
(6) a research mentor, where appropriate, is
assigned on a voluntary basis.
PARTICIPATING
ORGANIZATIONS: All ORO Offices and Laboratories (Guidelines)
Cincinnati (6-phase mentoring program)
CONTACT:
ORO: Sandra Wells, ORPM, 382-7462
Local: Sandra Bowman, HRMD Cincinnati, 684-7801
Jeff Denny, ERL Duluth, 780-5717
Martha Daniel, AEERL RTP^-541-2922
5/29/90
13
-------
CATALOG Of MINORITY SUPPORT PROGRAMS within ORP
TITLE:
Federal Women's Program
a
r-
L
c
DESCRIPTION: ORD participates in the Federal Women's Program at
both the local and national level. Greater
Leadership Opportunity (GLO), which has been part of
the Federal Women's program, is an active career
development program throughout ORD. Women in
Science and Engineering (WISE) is very active in the
recruiting, development and education programs
throughout ORD. In Cincinnati, WISE members have
compiled a vacancy announcement distribution list
which consists of organizations whose members
include women in science, engineering and technical
fields. WISE members have also volunteered to act
as mentors under the newly initiated mentoring
program in Cincinnati.
PARTICIPATING
ORGANIZATIONS: All ORD Offices and Laboratories
CONTACT:
an!
e
ORD: Art Payne, ORPM, 382-7462
Local: Dee Hutchings, ERL Ada, 743-2227
Linda Exum, ERL, Athens, 250-3145
Sandra Bowman, HRMD Cincinnati, 684-7801
Kathy Martin, ERL Corvallis, 420-4654/4599
Liz Durhan, ERL Duluth, 780-5515
Virginia Snarski, ERL Duluth, 780-5556
Betty Jackson, ERL Gulf Breeze, 228-9011
Faye Cromar, EMSL Las Vegas, 545-2566
Sanrda Baksi, ERL Narragansett, 838-6162
Suzanne Lussier, ERL Narragansett, 838-6083
Jewel Morris, OSORDO RTF, 629-4303
5/29/90
14
-------
CATALOG Of MINORITY SUPPORT PROGRAMS within ORD
TITLE:
Management Training
DESCRIPTION:
HRMD Cincinnati has conducted several management
training sessions on the findings of Presidential
Commission Workforce 2000 Study. This study
concludes that the number of women and minorities
entering the workforce during the next twenty years
will increase, while the number of professionals
with postgraduate degrees in science and engineering
will decrease. This training provides management
personnel with relevant information concerning the
future of the ORD community. The briefing is
presently scheduled to be given to the OMMSQA
Program Operations Directors.
ERL Athens has expanded the Zenger-Miller Management
Program to included employees at the GS-12 level who
have demonstrated supervisory or managerial
potential. They have also targeted four women and
minorities below the GS-12 level who have displayed
supervisory potential to participate in the program
to enhance their career potential.
PARTICIPATING
ORGANIZATIONS: Cincinnati, RTF and ERL Athens
CONTACT:
Local: Maxine Kellum, ERL Athens, 250-3517
Sandra Bowman, HRMD Cincinnati, 684-7801
Randy Brady, HRMD RTF, 629-3071
15
5/29/90
-------
CATALOG of MINORITY SUPPORT PROGRAMS within ORD
TITLE:
Secretarial Career Management Program:
DESCRIPTION:
ORD is sponsoring a pilot program for secretaries
and support staff to provide career enhancement
opportunities. The program includes title changes,
as appropriate, and an evaluation process that
places emphasis on developmental assignments,
assessment of existing support requirements, and a
training plan which focuses on the career goals of
the individual.
PARTICIPATING
ORGANIZATIONS: ORD-sponsored program
it]
1OI
CONTACT:
ORD: Sandra Wells, ORPM, 382-7462
Local: Carolyn Taylor, ERL Ada, 743-2228
Joan Price, ERL Athens, 250-3134
Sandra Bowman, HRMD Cincinnati, 684-7801
Pam Taylor, ERL Corvallis, 420-4651
Nancy Novy, ERL Duluth, 780-5708
Bonnie Clayton, ERL Gulf Breeze, 228-9011
Robin Shoemaker, EMSL Las Vegas, 545-2525
Ina Taylor, ERL Narragansett, 838-6011
Randy Brady, HRMD RTF, 629-3071
5/29/90
16
-------
CATALOG off MINORITY 8UPPORT PROGRAMS within ORD
COMMUNITY AWARENESS
TITLE:
Training Grants for the Native American Tribes
DESCRIPTION:
These grants are made in support of curriculum
development for environmental concerns relating to
Indian Reservations and the dissemination of the
curriculum through workshops and seminars.
Additional grants are provided to assist Indian
tribes in their understanding of how tribal
governments can participate in the intergovernmental
task of protecting the environment. Grants have
been made to:
National Congress of American Indians
Council of Energy Resource Tribes
Great Lake Intertribal Council
Minnesota Chippewa Tribe
Michigan Intertribal Council
Oneida Tribe
S. Regis Tribe
Americans for Indian Opportunity
PARTICIPATING
ORGANIZATIONS: EPA Program
CONTACT:
ORD:
Patricia Powers, OER, 382-2573
5/29/90
17
-------
CATALOG Of MINORITY SUPPORT PROGRAMS within ORD
TITLE:
Special Observances
DESCRIPTION: ORD Headquarters and each of the laboratories and
field offices observe special events (e.g., Black
History Month, Martin Luther King's Birthday, etc.)
with local programs.
PARTICIPATING
ORGANIZATIONS: All ORD Offices and Laboratories
CONTACT:
ORD: Art Payne, ORPM, 382-7462
Local: Chursey Fountain, ERL Ada, 743-2210
Ava Ivery, ERL Athens, 250-3467'
Art Turner, EEO Cincinnati, 684-7941
Grady Neely, ERL Corvallis, 420-4684
Judy Rudman, ERL Duluth, 780-5585
Emile Lores, ERL Gulf Breeze, 228-9011
Evelyn Clay, EMSL Las Vegas, 545-2326/2536
Robert Mosley, EMSL Las Vegas, 545-2326/2536
Lucy Garedo, ERL Narragansett, 838-6008
Diane Laws, AOCR RTF, 629-4249
5/29/90
18
-------
CATALOG of MINORITY SUPPORT PROGRAMS within ORD
CONTRACTS AMD GRANTS
TITLE: Minority Contracts, Cooperative Agreements and
Grants
DESCRIPTION: Throughout ORD, every effort has been made to ensure
minority-owned small businesses receive an
opportunity to participate in the contracting
process. There are a variety of contracts and
agreements in place which provide ORD laboratories
and offices with a variety of services, including
laboratory and clerical support.
Minority procurement workshops are conducted to
assist minority and women-owned environmental firms
in competing for EPA-funded procurements at the
State and local level.
Since FY 1985 the Center of Environmental Research
Information (CERI) has maintained a Minority 8-A
Set-Aside contractor to provide technical support
services to include the development of seminars and
user oriented handbooks and manuals. A three year
cost plus fixed fee contract for $1.5 million per
year was awarded effective 1/1/90 to provide
technical support services to any ORD activity with
technology transfer activities relating to Hazardous
Waste Control.
PARTICIPATING
ORGANIZATIONS: All ORD Offices and Laboratories
CONTACT:
ORD: Colleen Lentini, ORPM, 382-7462
Patricia Powers, OER, 382-2573
Local: Jerry D. Davis, ERL Ada, 743-2209
Annie Smith, ERL Athens, 250-3129
Clarence Clemmons, CERI Cincinnati,684-7358
Betty Livingstone, ERL Corvallis, 420-4654
Arlene Shelhon, ERL Duluth, 780-5540
Frank Wilkes, ERL Gulf Breeze, 228-9011
Anders Denson, EMSL Las Vegas, 545-2577
Patricia Gant, ERL Narragansett, 838-6005
Jerry Dodson, CMD RTP, 629-2249
5/29/90
19
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CATALOG Of MINORITY SUPPORT PROGRAMS within ORD
TITLE:
Senior Environmental Employee (SEE) Program
DESCRIPTION:
The SEE Program, authorized by the Environmental
Programs Assistance Act of 1984, allows EPA to enter
into assistance agreements with select organizations
in order to obtain the services of Americans, age 55
years or older, to provide technical assistance to
EPA. These organizations include:
American Association of Retired Persons (AARP)
National Caucus/Center on Black Aged, Inc.
National Council of Senior Citizens'
National Pacific/Asian Resource Center on Aging
National Urban League
National Council on the Aging, Inc.
National Association for the Hispanic Elderly
Green Thumb, Inc.
In FY 1990, EPA participation in the SEE program is
expected to encompass 70 agreements and 1100 SEE
employees totaling $33M. The Office of Exploratory
Research manages the SEE Program; however, each EPA
program office is responsible for funding its own
grants. Although the majority of agreements are
with AARP, the remaining organizations constitute 20
percent of the SEE agreements, many of which are
minority organizations. Although women, minorities
and the disabled are employed through the SEE
program; the extent to which these groups are
represented is uncertain.
PARTICIPATING
OROAHI3ATIOM8: EPA Program
CONTACT!
ORD: Patricia Powers, OER, 382-2573
Local: Jimmie L. Kingery, ERL Ada, 743-2226
Maxine Kellum, ERL Athene, 250-3517
Diana Irwin, EMSL Cincinnati, 684-7485
Jessie Burdett, RREL Cincinnati, 684-7514
Grady Neely, ERL Corvallis, 420-4684
Kimberly Johnson, ERL Ouluth, 780-5544
Mary Meredith, ERL Gulf Breeze, 228-9011
Marianne Carpenter, EMSL Las Vegas,545-2168
Brenda La ing, ERL Narragansett, 838-6021
Shirley Bowens, KRMD RTP, 629-4381
5/29/90
20
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CATALOG Of MINORITY SUPPORT PROGRAMS within QRD
TITLE:
"2+2" Environmental Education Program
DESCRIPTION:
Congress provided additional funding in FY 1990 for
Academic Training. The "2+2" Environmental Education
Program, which was initiated in FY 1989, will result
in a national model for cooperative technical and
vocational competency-based education programs
between community colleges and high schools. Its
goal is to increase the number of hazardous material
technicians nationally to meet a critical need. The
program encourages high school counselors to promote
the environmental field as a viable career choice
for women and minorities.
PARTICIPATING
ORGANIZATIONS: EPA Program
CONTACT:
ORD:
Patricia Powers, OER, 382-2573
TITLE:
Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR)
DESCRIPTION:
Public Law 97-219 requires EPA to devote 1.25
percent of its extramural budget to SBIR. OER
manages EPA's SBIR program and provides contract
funding for small businesses with ideas relevant to
EPA's mission. The program focuses on projects in
control technology or process instrumentation
development. Proposals are solicited in the fall of
each year for Phase I research, which consists of
feasibility studies that are funded up to $50K. The
best Phase I studies are selected for product
development in Phase II and are funded up to $150K.
Results from the SBIR Program are expected to lead
to commercial development of a product or process
used in pollution control. The FY 1990 SBIR budget
is approximately $2.5M R&D and $.7M Superfund.
Women and minority owned businesses are encouraged
to participate in this program.
PARTICIPATING
ORGANIZATIONS: EPA Program
CONTACT:
ORO:
Donald Carey, OER, 382-7445
5/29/90
21
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CATALOG Of MINORITY SUPPORT PROGRAMS within ORD
TITLE: Hazardous Substance Research Centers (HSRC)
DESCRIPTION: Authorized by the 1986 amendments to the Superfund
Act, the HSRC program supports five university-
based research centers across the country. The
HSRCs are required to commit approximately 10 to 20
percent of their funding to the development of an
active technology transfer program. Howard
University, the University of Michigan and Michigan
State are equal partners in the HSRC consortium
which focuses on organic bioremediation research.
Howard University receives a proportionate share of
the Center's $2.0M start-up funding and the $1.0M
annual funding for up to eight years.
PARTICIPATING
ORGANIZATIONS: EPA Program
CONTACT: ORD: Karen Morehouse, OER, 382-5750
5/29/90
22
-------
CATALOG Of MINORITY SUPPORT PROGRAMS within ORD
FLAMMED MINORITY PROGRAMS
TITLE:
Engineering Traineeships for HBCUs
DESCRIPTION:
An FY 1992 budget proposal will support several
traineeships in engineering at approved HBCUs.
Approximately $1.7M would fund graduate research in
hazardous waste reduction, and $3.3M would fund
undergraduate and graduate education in engineering
disciplines supporting Superfund issues. The
proposal will include criteria for distribution of
the monies to participating minority institutions.
PARTICIPATING
ORGANIZATIONS: ORD-sponsored program
CONTACT:
ORD:
Roger Cortesi, OER, 382-5750
TITLE:
DESCRIPTION:
Pilot Program to Incorporate Minority Institutions [
into the Gulf Coast Hazardous Substance Research
Center (GCHSRC), Lanar University, Beaumont, Texas \
I
This program would involve minority institutions in
joint research projects with the eight major
- _ universities which comprise the GCHSRC. The goal is
to share faculty, students and laboratories leading
to an enhanced capability in minority institutions.
It is.envisioned that the program can be expanded to
include community colleges and magnet schools to
encourage the early involvement of women, minorities
and the handicapped in the sciences and mathematics.
— During phase one the University of Central Florida
will develop a partnership with the HBCUs in the
State of Florida. Upon sucessful development of the
Florida framework, this approach would be expanded
to the other Gulf Coast states.
PARTICIPATING
ORGANIZATIONS: Office of Environmental Engineering and Technology
Demonstration
CONTACT:
ORD: Darwin Wright, OEETD, 382-4073
23
5/29/90
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MINORITY SUPPORT PROGRAMS within ORD
RUITING EFFORTS:
Annual Puerto Rioo Recruiting Effort
Recruitment of Scientific/Technical
Personnel from Underrepresented Croups
Recruitment of the Physically Handicapped
jyjinoritv Recruitment Activities & Job Fairs
Training the Recruiter
EPA Facultv Fallows Proaram
Recruitment Databases
CATION:
HBCU Linkage
HBCU Lecture Sarias
Minority Enginaaring Program
Stay-in-School Program
Adopt-a-School Program
School Outraach Program
Woman & Minoritlas Honors Program
Minority Institution Assistanoaship Program
Minority Rasaarch Appranticaship Program
Equipmant Donation Program
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
Y
X
X
X
X
X
Y
x
Y
X
X
X
X
X
Y
Y
Y
Y
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
Y
Y
Y
X
X
X
X
Y
Y
Y
Y
X
X
X
X
X
X
.N
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
X
X
X
X
X
Y
Y
y
x
X
X
X
../....
y
Y
Y
Y
Y
X
X
X
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
X
x
x
X
X
X
X
* includes SORDO, CERI, ECAO, EMSL and RREL
** includes SORDO, AEERL, AREAL, ECAO and HERL
-------
MINORITY SUPPORT PROGRAMS within ORD
&* xO-
INING & DEVELOPMENT:
Mentoring Proaram
Federal Women's Program
Management Training
Secretarial Career Management Program
1MUNITY AWARENESS:
Training Grants for Native American Tribes
Soeoial Observances
TRACTS & GRANTS:
Minority Contracts, Agreements ft Grants
Senior Environmental Employee Program
"2*2" Environmental Education Program
Small Business Innovation Research
Hazardous Substance Research Centers
MNED MINORITY PROGRAMS:
Engineering Traineeships for HBCUs
Pilot Program to Incorporate Minority
Institutions into the Gulf Coast HSRC
Y
Y
Y
y
X
X
X
Y
Y
Y
Y
y
y
y
Y
^
Y
*Y
y
y
Y
y
y
Y
y
y
y
Y
Y
y
y
y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
.^\
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
y
y
Y
Y
Y
y
y
Y
Y
Y
>. \
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
Y
* includes SORDO, CERI, ECAO. EMSL and RREL
** includes SORDO, AEERL. AREAL. ECAO and HERL
-------
APPENDIX C
Environmental Action
"Beyond White Environmentalism'
-------
RESOURCES
High cancer rates.
miscarriages,
polluting chemical
companies and
toxic dumpsites
drew people to
the Louisiana
Toxics March.
Beyond White Environmentalism
Minorities & The Environment
THAT ENVIRONMENTAL CONCERN IS A WHITE
THING is a common myth in America today—one which
falls apart quickly upon exam. Reality is more complex.
Black, Native American. Chicane, Hispanic—social
justice advocates in all these communities are fighting
so their people may live and work free of debilitating
pollution. Many of these struggles have raged for years.
Honoring and preserving the environment Is intrinsic
to Native American and other land-based cultures.
Yet the national environmental groups are undenia-
bly white in leadership, staff and image. And activism
against environmental threats—grassroots, regional.
national—is too often divided, by culture and habits of
oppression, along ethnic lines. Each segment is largely
ignorant of the others' struggles and the common
ground they might share.
Here again, generalizations distort. Conscious efforts
to explore and build links between the civil rights and
environmental communities have been attempted since
the early 1970s. Many top priorities of national envi-
ronmental groups, white though they may be, have a
direct bearing on minority communities—like air pollu-
tion, where radioactive waste is disposed and giving
communities the "right to know" about toxic threats.
The "environmental movement" is not a monolith. Love
of Earth does not belong to one people.
This Re.-Sources section is devoted to exploring some
of the places that minority and environmental priorities
cross paths. We set forth aware of these issues' tre-
mendous complexity and the fact that we are the white
editorial staff of an environmental magazine. Many
approaches could have been taken. Rather than con-
centrate on national efforts to explore and bridge gaps
between communities, we chose to focus on efforts that
are growing from the ground up.
What follows is divided into three parts. The first
explores some of the ways that environmental pollution
is devastating minority communities. The next section
profiles the environmental efforts of five minority
activists. And, in the final "viewpoint" section, several
authors point to conflicts, controversies, short-
comings—and even promising directions.
Minorities At Risk
BYHAWLEYTRUAX
• t has been over 20 years since the Kerner Com-
• mission delivered its potent message: "Our nation
• is moving toward two societies, one Black, one
JU white—separate and unequal."
There have been changes since. Black political power
has clearly grown; workplaces are far more integrated;
the Black middle class has prospered economically. But.
as figures generated for the Kerner report's 20th anni-
ENVIRONMENTAL ACTION • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 1990 • PAGE 19
-------
versary reveal, the overall situa-
tion has not changed, and may in
fact have worsened. In 1988, Black
unemployment was more than double
at of whites—the same was true in 1968.
In 1988 Blacks' median income hovered at
around 58 percent that of whites—again, the
same level as 1968. Some sociologists assert
that membership in a "permanent underclass" is
the fate of a growing number of African-Americans,
Hispanlcs and Native Americans. To daunting poverty
are added high illiteracy rates, infant mortality, hous-
ing scarcity and drug-related violence.
.; .Poor and minority communities struggling to survive
"must"also shoulder another burden—environmental
pollution. In many cases, environmental risks are In-
extricably linked to poverty and racism—caused by
them, worsened by them, solutions impeded by them.
, In the workplace, minorities continue to be concen-
trated In low-paying, high-risk blue collar occupa-
tions—jobs that tend to have health-threatening envi-
ronments and a ready supply of "replacement labor." ;
On the home front. Inadequate low-Income housing
and housing discrimination play a key role iiyxmcen-.
trating Black and Hispanic populations in inner city '
"the'bldef,^deteriorating housihji increases rtsK^through
^exposure to lead and asbestos—not to mention higher
'energy bills*. In releasing a May 1989 report, the Na-
tional Consumer Law Center concluded that the energy
crisis never ended for those in poverty.
Lead Poisoning—The Silent Epidemic
Lead poisoning provides a textbook example of an
environmental problem that disproportionately affects
the Black community, and of the ways in which pollu-
tion problems are tied to other threats to minorities.
Lead contamination is most prevalent in the inner
city, with its most wUlepread source being chipped and
flaking housepaint, followed by lead buildup in soil (in
turn resulting from old houspaint and gasoline ex-
haust—see Sep/Oct 1988). Studies have found that risk
of lead poisoning increases for low-income children
because deficiency of iron, calcium and other nutrients
can raise the rate of lead absorption and retention.
In July 1988. a landmark study on lead poisoning in
children from the federal Agency forToxic Substances
and Disease Registry; reported thatP44 percent of urban
Black children are atYisk from lead poisoning—four
times the rate of white children.
Industries that still
U.S. population, by race
WMe.
non- Span*!)
Hitpanc orfin 81**
Olw
1955
78.3%
2.7%
76.8%
7.9% 12.5% 3.0%
1995 75.6% 8.7% 13.0% 3.3%
2000
9.4% 13.3% 3.5%
2010
71.5% 10.9% 14.1% 4.1%
2020
68.9% 12.3% 14.9% 4.6%
SprtncngfimjyMoOryricr ;
SOURCE: U.S. CENSUS BUREAU .
process and reprocess
this lethal material (such
as battery manufactur-
ing, plating and secon-
dary smelting) are highly
populated with minority
workers. According to
occupational health ex-
pert Daryll Alexander, a
disproportionate number
of minority workers have
been found to have blood
lead levels above work-
place safety standards in
California and Texas-the
Farmworkers
have the
highest rate
of toxic
poisoning of
any work-
place group.
only two states that designate race on their lab forms
for lead screening. Not only are these workers at risk,
but they can take these poisons home to their families.
4JH a May 1989 commentary in the American Journal
^oj PublicHealth, childhood lead specialist DrifHerbert
Needleman theorizes that lead's known physical ''"'"'
damages may contribute directly to the deadly cycles of
crime and alienation in the inner city. He writes: "It is
at the^ame time a reasonable conjecture that the dis-
ordered thinking, impaired muscle control, reduced
verbal skills, and the demonstrated increase in school
failure that are a known product of lead exposure may
increase the probability that some individuals will adopt
antisocial responses to the challenges of society."
Farm Poisoning*—Counting the Uncounted
.According to the U.S. Department of Labor, our
nation's three to four million farmworkers have the
i highest rate of exposure to toxic poisoning of any oc-
cupational group in the United States. The source of
this poisoning is, of course, pesticides.
National figures on the frequency of such poison-
ing—or even educated guesses—have not been compiled.
Some information, however, has been gathered on the
state level. Using California data, back in 1984, epi-
demiologist Molly Coye estimated that as many as
313.000 farmworkers in the U.S. suffer effects of pes-
ticide-related illness each year.
Eighty to 90 percent of the migrant workforce Is
Chicano—of Mexican descent; African-Americans com-
prise the next largest group, with a smaller number of
Haitians, Filipinos. Vietnamese and others.
According to Michelle Mentzer of the Evergreen Legal
Services in Washington State (which has the fourth
largest migrant farmworker population In the country),
Chicano migrant workers are typically illiterate in Eng-
lish. Those who work as pesticide applicators generally
cannot read safety instructions on their own, and farm
owners and foremen don't fill in.
In a 1986 survey of migrant farmworkers by Ever-
green Legal Services, two-thirds of those who regularly
ENVIRONMENTAL ACTION • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 1990 • PAGE 20
-------
r
applied pesticides to crops said they had never received
any education or instruction in safety precautions. Nor
is the risk limited to sprayers. Forty-three percent of
the 460 farmworkers surveyed by Evergreen reported
that pesticides had been sprayed directly upon them, or
had drifted upon them, while they were working. For
most, this had happened multiple times. Half of those
sprayed reported feeling ill effects. Of those, less than 10
percent sought medical attention. Workers are also at
risk if they re-enter fields too soon after pesticides are
sprayed. While national "re-entry standards" exist, they
are too weak and enforcement is almost non-existent.
Mentzer says workers don't bring up their safety
concerns for fear of being discriminated against—or
fired outright. "Most migrant farmworkers don't com-
plain." she concludes. "The rashes, the headaches, diz-
ziness, the nausea—it happens so often. They are used
to it/They think of it as part of their job."
Siting Toxic Facilities—The Race Factor
In 1982, mainstream civil rights groups first focused
national attention on an environmental issue: State
efforts to site a PCB disposal facility in Warren County,
North Carolina. Prominent Black leaders from around
the country joined the largely Black local community to
protest the facility—culminating In a nonviolent civil
disobedience campaign and over 500 arrests. In July
1982. the NAACP—National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People—requested a preliminary
Injunction to prohibit olacement of PCBs in the landfill
on the basis of racial discrimination.
The landfill was built, but a movement had begun.
The District of Columbia's non-voting delegate to
Congress, Walter Fauntroy (who had been arrested in
Warren County), requested a report from the General
Accounting Office on where commercial hazardous
waste landfills were located in eight Southern states.
The report, issued in July 1983, marked the first
official recognition of a phenomenon long suspected, it
found that Blacks rhade up the majority of the popula-
tion around three of the four commercial landfills
in the region?Inadditloh?at least 26 percent of each
community had Income below the poverty level.;
The GAO report paralleled the conclusions of a dif-
ferent sort of report. Cerrell Associates was commis-
sioned by the California Waste Management Board in
1984 to advise the state on how to overcome political
obstacles to siting mass-burn garbage incinerators. The
report, published as one chapter of a lengthy technical
series/concludes that the state is less likely to meet
resistance in a community of low-Income, blue collar
workers with a high school education or less.
"All socio-economic groupings tend to resent the
nearby siting of major facilities," advises the report.
"but the middle and upper socio-economic strata pos-
sess better resources to affectuate their opposition."
While the category of race was conspicuously absent
from CerreU's demographic analysis, the report has
been widely criticized for targetting vulnerable sectors of
the population, especially minority communities, for
further environmental harm.
The first national analysis of these Issues came In
1987 when the Commission for Racial Justice, an arm
of the United Church of Christ, released its report. ^
"Toxic Waste and Race in the United States." The report's
statistical analysis concluded that race was the most sig-
nificant of several variables in determining the location of
commercial hazardous waste
sites in residential areas—even
more significant than socio-
economic status. The Commission for
Racial Justice attributed these disturbing
findings to an "insidious" form of "insti-
tutional racism." Commission staffer Charles
Lee sees the report as a starting point. He calls
for further research into the risks to minorities,
and the underlying causes for these patterns. In
one step in this direction, the Centers for Disease
Control is organizing a scientific forum for fall 1990
where academics and regulators will examine how
environmental contamination at hazardous waste
sites is affecting minorities.
For 10 years, sociologist Robert Bullard (now with
the University of California-Riverside) has been
researching pollution sites In minority communities
through household surveys, interviews and other re-
search means. Bullard. who has just finished a book.
Dumping on Dixie, agrees that—even when you control
for socioeconomic factors—a disproportionate number of
hazardous sites are located In Black communities.
In this as in other areas, says Bullard, "You can't
speak about the condition of the Black community
without acknowledging racism as a factor."
Protection Quandry
In Indian Country
BY GAIL E. CHEHAK
and SUZAN SHOWN HARJO
^l^^ Morning Star Foundation
M entral to all Indian religions and cultures is
• protection of Mother Earth. Indian people are
^L j Increasingly disadvantaged. however. In the
^^fc^r modern struggle to protect our countries from
the excesses of western civilization and fulfill our tradi-
tional duties, which do not stop at reservation borders.
Today Indian people are the poorest people in America.
the richest country in the world, and we are dependent
upon a federally based economic system.
Tribal leaders must try to develop environmental
In 1978, Native Americans protested in Carlsbad, NM.
plans to truck nuclear wastes through their lands.
ENVIRONMENTAL ACTION • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 1990 • PAGE 21
-------
programs when they lack healthy
tribal economies.
Forced to rely on federaJ funds to
develop programs and pressured by
outside forces to consider such economic
ventures as hazardous waste dumps. Indian
nations are fighting a battle of priorities with
insufficient money, technical help or success- - •
ful models, and little federal or state cooperation.
'issues of air and water quality affect each of us.
For Indian nations, these questions assume even
greater significance, because tribal cultures, traditions
and religions are site-specific and require that water or
land remain in a natural, pristine state.
In exchange for millions of acres, the United States
promised to protect Indian resources and environment.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is respon-
sible for administering federal programs'|o protect the
U.S. environment. Because the first federal laws were
silent on the role of tribal governments. EPA Ignored Its
overall federal trust role and chose to ignore'tribes.
'Despite a promising Indian policy statement issued in
"1984, EPA officials continued to Interpret statutes in
the narrowest and most exclusionary sense, refusing to
provide funding or assistance to tribes. Ig.,1986 and .
1987. the Safe Drinking Water, Clean Water and
Superfund Acts were amended to require EPA recogni-
tion of the authority of Indian tribal governments over
environmental programs on Indianjands.
?"Even "with the new'laws, EPA improperly criticized o
for moving too slowly to publish regulations and to fully
'Include tribes in various programs. Indian leaders
complain that EPA's regional and program offices seem
" to see Indian programs as optional or discretionary.
EPA, with its history of working closely with states,
now faces state opposition to sharing financial
resources and empowering tribes.
Thus It is tribal governments who confront the dif-
ficult task of developing regulatory and enforcement
programs to prevent environmental degradation within
Indian country and stop further pollution from outside.
For some tribal leaders, environmental protection
means the refusal to develop their valuable resources.
For too many, poverty and the lack of control over
resources has meant development resulting in aban-
doned mines, radioactive mill tailings, polluted water
and ero^ on from timber cutting and overgrazing.
In recent years, tribes have been approached by en-
ergy and hazardous waste companies promising riches
and employment in exchange for allowing hazardous
waste sites to be located on their land. The Cortina
Indian Reservation bordering California operated an
asbestos dump until recently. Without environmental
personnel to accurately evaluate the potential cultural
and environmental impacts of such ventures, it is pos-
sible that more projects such as this may occur.
Tribal rights are still challenged by states and or-
ganized anti-Indian organizations in their continuing
effort to separate Indian people from our lands. In
1989. the Wisconsin delegation to Congress introduced
a bill that would abrogate federal treaties with the
Chippewa Tribes. The delegation now threatens to stop
any federal funding for tribes in their state because the
tribes refuse to sell their fishing and hunting rights..
Rather than challenging and trying tollmitthe.
practical application 6ftribal sovereignty.^^g'ov-
emmehts need support from federal, state: and private *
entitles torimtheir ciwnprograms.tlndlah peoples also
"fieed help frbm'ltHe^h^rbnmerital acfloh community to
funding and technical assistance. Support is also
needed to convince EPA to reallocate existing funds
Immediately to meet the greatest emergency situations
and to request realistic appropriations for tribal needs
that will soon become urgent. Rather than taking either
of these direct-to-tribes steps, EPA persists in funding
ivory-tower projects'of third parties to think about the
problems and barriers, which tribes already have p
identified. This is not the help Indian country needs. * '
[ GaUChehak(Klamath) Is associate director, and Suzan
« CI»^.Y«''tJ>i"J*k:V/^fc-^-«ifii.'j?>;"2iijt-^'^i>itilJi/iKiiE«i-j—ii*/4jr/£i-'-i—_
'Morning StarFoundation^ set up toprotect-thecultural and
traditional rights of American Indian nations'and people.
PPHT7TT T?Q* ENVIRONMENTAL ACTION
1 rVVyr 1JL/JL/O* IN MINORITY rOMMIINTTTl
BY CLAUDE ENGLE
Richard Moore
PUERTO RICAN
Director. SouthWest
Organizing Project
o, we're an endangered species. We're being
killed In the workplace and killed in the community,"
cries Richard Moore, a Puerto Rlcan.
"Until the environmental movement is prepared to
discuss the question of race and class, there will never
be minorities in large numbers involved^" declares
Moore, executive director of the multi-issue, multi-racial
SouthWest Organizing Project (SWOP) In Albuquerque.
The 41-year-old has been environmentally active for
23 years. He grew up in a ghetto in Harrtsburg, Pa.
wondering "why are we being forced to live in these
conditions?" Later in Albuquerque: Why did the city
ignore for 18 years the complaints of poor residents liv-
ing near the Ponderosa Products sawmill of constant
"snow" in the air, contaminated water and noise that
cracked their adobes? Why did GTE simply move its
plant from Albuquerque to Mexico when 70 Chlcano
workers—contaminated on the Job by highly carcino-
genic solvents—sued the company in 1984? A number
of the workers died before the suit was settled.
"When you grow up in the ghetto, you just know
ENVIRONMENTAL ACTION • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 1990 • PAGE 22
-------
there are a lot of things that don't have to be the way
they are." Moore doesn't believe it's coincidental that
the victims in these cases were poor people of color.
That is why he co-founded SWOP in 1980. which or-
ganized the sawmill residents into a chorus Ponderosa
Products had to spend S2 million dancing to. It is
Moore's hope and vision and belief that the workplace
can be sale and beauty restored to the environment one
community, one GTE at a time. In 1986. SWOP drafted
a "Bill of Rights" enumerating eight rights that citizens
have in relation to industry (for example, the right to
decide whether an industry can be in their community
in the first place).
^Minorities; don't,care? He's heard it before, answers
Moore, but it's not true: "We don't see apathy in the /
communities.
"We are offering to
open up dialogue
between two existing
movements,"
Moore soys.
1
jVhat we encounter
is lack of organi-
zation." As its
•name states.
SWOP's forte is
organizing.
^Communities have
an Incredible .
;"amount of resour-
ces You don't go
: inland drain them,
^jCit;go mland
"strengthen them.
Moore spells out SWOP's purpose as "putting poor
people in control of the decisions that affect their des-
tinies, future and culture." In 1984. the Chicano
community of Mountainview outside Albuquerque dis-
covered that nitroglycerin contaminated a number of
private wells. The low-income residents were forced to
buy water from the city—as water hook-up charges
jumped from S556 to 81,350. SWOP organized Moun-
tainview—including a voter registration drive—and suc-v
ceeded in rolling back the hook-up cost. Now SWOP is
working to hold those who polluted the water respon-
sible. The prime suspect? Kirtland Air Force Base.
Moore says environmental groups have often barged
into an area without doing their homework. To protect
petroglyph rock paintings, one environmental group
worked to designate some New Mexico land as a na-
tional monument. The area was Atrisco Indian land.
"This happens enough to be a problem," says Moore.
"If environmental groups want to involve minorities,
there's going to have to be a give and take on both
'sides." says Moore. Traditional groups and people may
have to get involved in new issues. Rapport must be
established and purely environmental groups must
acknowledge racism and classism.
In September. SWOP held "Inter-Denominational Hear-
ings," during which GTE workers and others testified to
leaders from the National and World Councils of Church-
es about horror stories on the job. Now Moore has a new
project: The SouthWest Training Center. It will be a cen-
ter in Albuquerque "to train Third World people in a
multi-issue approach to environmental justice prob-
lems." If national environmental groups really want to
find qualified minority staff members, says Moore, they
should financially support the project.
"We don't want to be a part of the environmental
movement," Moore concludes. "We are offering to open
up dialogue between the two existing movements, then
we can move to greater obstacles."
Jessie DeerlnWater
S
CHEROKEE
Founder. Native Americans/or
a Clean Environment
he didn't have a summer internship at an
environmental group in Washington. She did not take
Organic Chemistry or even Evolution and Extinction at
Oklahoma's state university: She didn't go to college.
But. Jessie DeerlnWater did found a grassroots group.
Native Americans for a Clean Environment (NACE).
"I consider myself an activist trying to protect my
family, my family's family and myself from death and
cancer," the 46-year-old Cherokee says.
DeerlnWater s town of Vian, Okla. (population 1,500)
is home to Sequoyah Fuels, Vian's largest employer and
deadliest threat. Sequoyah Fuels, until recently a sub-
sidiary of Kerr McGee, processes uranium ore for
bombs and nuclear reactors.
In 1984 DeerlnWater discovered that Kerr McGee was
discretery planning an injection well at Sequoyah Fuels
that would inject radioactive waste deep into the earth
between two fault lines. She immediately started
spreading the word. Most Vlanians couldn't believe
such a threat possible. Her fellow Cherokees believed
her, and NACE was formed to meet the challenge.
DeerlnWater points out that among
native Americans "you don't have to . ^ t OB
overcome the delusion that the U.S.
government is watching out for your
best interests." NACE is now
multi-tribal and multi-racial.
The battle to protect Vian's
health and environment has been
lopsided: The Sequoyah Fuels
plant employs one-sixth of Vian,
and the Kerr name is big in Ok-
lahoma. Former U.S. Senator
Robert Kerr founded the com-
pany. Robert Kerr Jr. chairs
the state's Water Resource
Department and his son,
Robert Kerr 3rd (a sejf-
proclaimed environmentalist),
is Lt. Governor.
DeerlnWater cites one incident when Kerr McGee
spilled tons of toxic waste; the accident report was
mysteriously misfiled at Oklahoma's Department of
Health. NACE's mall would get lost more often than
not. The local newspapers wouldn't print a word
against the neighborhood's radioactive provider, and
when DeerlnWater started spreading the word about
Kerr McGee. she was fired from her hairdressing job
(only spurring her to become an activist fulltime).
In the dawn of DeerlnWater's activist career she
recalls. "Everyday I would find out something I never
wanted to know." Then again, she says, "Onceyou see
how these people operate, how can you just walk away?
How can you stop caring?" DeerlnWater recalls how a
Kerr McGee official once told her that the area's eco-
nomically depressed state was considered in siting the
ENVIRONMENTAL ACTION • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 1990 • PAGE 23
-------
Sequoyah facility 20 years ago.
DecrlnWaterbelieves NACE's
scrutiny of Kerr McGee safety viola-
tions, illegal practices and misman-
agement has had some success. She notes
that the company decided to sell the Se-
quoyah Fuels plant to General Atomics in
spring 1989. Presently. NACE is embroiled in a
campaign to halt the "raffinate" program. Under
Kerr McGee and now under General Atomics, Se-
quoyah Fuels disposes of tons of radioactive and toxic
waste by converting it to a fertilizer, or raffinate. A
nine-legged frog was found on land where the "fertilizer"
was regularly sprayed.
Still active in NACE, DeerlnWater is now in college,
preparing to go on to study law so she can take her
activism to a new level. And she remains optimistic
about the future. "Look at any side\valk or broken
street and through the cracks you will see little
seedlings of grass coming up. Mother Earth can take
care of herself, if we only let her."
Cora Tucker
AFRICAN-AMERICAN
Founder. Clttzensjor a Better
America
hen you say environmental, you're
tapping into a lot of Issues. Everything is connected."
Cora Tucker is a modem-day Pied Piper whose entourage
of children respond to her call: "Citizens for a Better
America. Forward march."
In 1975, the Winns Creek Youth Group outgrew
Tucker's basement in the southern Virginia town of
Halifax. From 20 kids gathering informally in her
home, their numbers had grown to 200. Tucker and
the youth group tried to build a recreational center, but
county funds were approved, then disapproved when
. some Halifax denizens
discovered the center was
to be for Black and white
children.
That year, the group
changed its name to
Citizens for a Better
America (CBA) and.
under Tucker's Inspired
auspices, the children
started a series of sur-
veys on local hiring,
bank lending and busi-
ness policies. Asking
innocent questions of
family friends and
neighbors yielded an
unpleasant surprise for the racially mixed group—this
thing called racism was alive and well in their town.
After CBA filed complaints with the feds, Halifax
County was ordered to clean up its hiring act or lose
federal revenue-sharing funds.
"You have to do something to influence the children
in whatever you do," Tucker says. Though Tucker did
not go beyond high school, she believes education to be
'I go to these
traditional
environmental
meetings, and
I'm the only
Black person
there," says
Tucker.
a salvation. "We'ask the children, AVh,. do you want to
do? What do you want to do?'" The next step, says
Tucker, is to discuss what must be done to realize that
dream. You want a recreational center, build one. You
wonder if that's true? Investigate.
Her earliest followers are now adults, and CBA has
over 7,000 members in four East Coast cities. "A good
organization works on all the issues," says Tucker, who
heads the Halifax-based chapter. CBA has worked on
voter registration, organizing a union, reforming
employment habits and a slew of environmental issues.
In the county of 30.000 people, Cora recalls, 8.000
showed up for a public hearing CBA organized to pre-
vent Halifax from becoming a nuclear repository. "We
had to ask people to leave." When the mother of seven
wanted to illustrate the need for recycling, she asked
the children to save all their garbage for one week. This
past December at CBA's prompting. Halifax County
began a study for a county-wide recycling program.
She is well aquainted with the woes of pesticides
and intimate with devotion. Tucker's father was a
sharecropper who died when she was three, leaving her
mother to raise nine children. "There wasn't a choice"
whether to become active, she says. At age six she
joined the NAACP. CBA campaigned for a pesticide-user
licensing bill that Virginia's Assembly just ratified.
"I consider myself an environmentalist and a few
other things, too." She sits on the board of the National
Toxics Campaign and the National Health Care Cam-
paign, visits nursing homes and works personally with
"children at risk." CBA is now organizing and filming
hearings in communities threatened by toxics.
In Halifax. Tucker says, whites and Blacks have
worked well together when the issue was education—a
tutoring program, for example—or an environmental
threat. But the going gets rough, she says, when the
issue is race, discrimination, civil rights. JTRacism is'a
big factor In a lot of environmental issues." Tucker
says. "Most of the time I go to these traditional envi-
ronmental meetings, and I'm the only Black person
thertj" These traditional groups "ask me what to do. I'
fefl "eih, then they go and do the opposite thing."
From 20 kids to 7,000 active Citizens for a Better
America: there's something here that can't be denied.
"It doesn't have anything to do with me personally. It's
just the time has come when people want to take con-
trol of their lives," Tucker says.
Over the challenges, under the successes and
through the threats Tucker's love perserveres. "As dif-
ficult as things get, I am always optimistic. I believe
God will open that door no matter what we've done."
r rancisca Cavazos
CfflCANO
Director, Maricopa County
Organizing Project
' n October 3, 1977, a nightmare came true
for the agribusiness executives of Arizona's citrus
"sweat-shops": Their predominantly undocumented
workforce went on strike for the first time in U.S.
history. One of the citrus owners was Barry Goldwater's
brother. The heroes of the successful two-year strike
ENVIRONMENTAL ACTION • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 1990 • PAGE 24
-------
were the Mexican nationals who knew this meant in-
slant deportation: the master mind, the Maricopa
County Organizing Project (MCOP).
At the time. Francisca Cavazos was a student
volunteer fundraising for the strike. Both of her
parents, farmworkers who belonged to the United Farm
Workers union, voluntarily supported the strike in any
way they could. A lot of support was needed, after all it
was Third World proleteriat v. Arizona's noblesse.
"We do have a Third World in the United States."
says Cavazos. "All you have to do is go in the ghettoes.
go out into the farmlands and youll see it." Before the
second-generation Chicana was pushed into college by a
high-school counselor, she had worked for two years as
a farmworker. Tolling in the grape, lettuce, onion and
cotton fields, she saw the atrocious conditions that
brought on the strike: No sanitary facilities, drinking
water laden with carcinogenic pesticides, workers who
hadn't been given a raise in 15 years.
In 1987, Cavazos became director of MCOP. which
focuses on civil rights, pesticide regulation, safe work-
ing conditions, immigration policies and more. "You
can't make structural changes in society with a single
issue group," argues 32-year-old Cavazos. An ingenious
gain from the strike was the creation of Cooperativa Sin
Fronteras. whereby employers contribute 20 cents per
.hour per worker to
support agriculture
projects back in the
migrant workers'
homeland.
Since organizing
the Arizona Farm
Workers Union for the
1977 strike, MCOP
has revamped the
state's sanitation laws
and created the Centre Adelante Campesino (a
farmworker's service center). The group is training -v
doctors to deal with pesticide poisoning. And a lobby
campaign is pushing for state laws obligating farmers
to document what, how much, where and when they
spray pesticides.
MCOP's artful approach is illustrated by the group's
effort to overthrow the grower-dominated state Board of
Pesticide Cpptrol. Instead of trying to elect a worker
representative into a "captured" agency, MCOP
launched a two-prong attack. First. MCOP filed a
lawsuit claiming the board violated the "equal protec-
tion" requirement of the U.S. Constitution by not
allowing farmworker membership. Second, they or-
ganized a statewide coalition to get an initiative on the
ballot calling for the overhaul of Arizona's water quality
and pesticide laws. Fear of the Initiative by agribusi-
ness and chemical companies brought the governor and
state legislature to the bargaining table.
"(People) may not have political power, clout or any-
thing, but they have hope. You must capitalize on that.
"You have to continually keep the community In-
volved in something. When people's minds are active, it
empowers them," says Cavazos.
Does Cavazos think she's an environmentalist?
"Certainly, yes. (We) work to protect the environment
from perpetual poisoning.
"(Chicanes) come from a long history of harmony
with nature. We believe in progress, but not at the
expense of our most vital resources."
Tobacco and
booze com-
panies have
targeted minor-
ities as a
"growth"
market.
Alberta Tinsley-Williams
w
AFRICAN-AMERICAN
Founder. Coalition Against Billboard
Advertising of Alcohol and Tobacco
hen Alberta Tinsley-Williams organized
a march against a large semi-nude "Wild Irish Rose-
billboard next to a church and house for runaway
children, she brought national publicity to the issue of
targeting of minority neighborhoods for such ads.
It was her second billboard target. Shortly after her
1987 election as a commissioner for Wayne County.
Tinsley-Williams organized a letter-writing campaign
against a billboard noticed by her four-year-old daugh-
er that told its inner city 9SS1SSS^^^S
audience to "Reach for the ~~
Top" and use Tops rolling BY CYNTHIA TAYLOR
papers: Tinsley-Williams calls
the ad a thinly veiled promotion for rolling marijuana
joints (there "are no cowboys left in Detroit." she notes).
The offending billboard came down, but the councilwo-
man was moving on the larger issue.
"The issue is not Black and white," she says. "The
issue is the haves vs. the have-nots, because poor
people, I don't care what color you are. suffer in this
country. All we want is a level playing field for poor
children. As far as I'm concerned, billboards are 24-
hour pushers of legal drugs." A city planning commis-
sion survey instigated by Tinsley-Williams revealed that.
in the five poorest zip codes. 55 to 58 percent of bill-
boards advertised alcohol or tobacco. In the five zip
codes with the highest incomes, only 34 to 43 percent
of billboards touted these products.
"I'm just sick about all the alcohol and tobacco bill-
boards in our comrifunity. It makes no sense when
people are dying," Tinsley-Williams says. She notes
statistics showing that low-income Black and Hispanic
populations are most affected by alcohol and tobacco-
related Illness and death.
To organize the urban community on the issue,
Tinsley-Williams founded the Coalition Against Billboard
Advertising of Alcohol and Tobacco (CABAAT). Initially
concerned about the message, Tinsley-Williams now
says the medium—the billboard itself—is an un-
warranted intrusion on the urban community.
"The most significant thing about the work of De-
troit citizens has been educating people who have been
conditioned to accept things as they were. That con-
sciousness gives them real power," she says. "People in
Detroit are more attuned to their environment because
of the billboard debate."
ENVIRONMENTAL ACTION • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 1990 • PAGE 25
-------
PERSPECTIVES:
WORDS FOR ENVIRONMENTALISTS,
WHITES & MINORITY COMMUNITIES
Grammar for Ecologists
BY RICHARD GROW
I oo much of the wru i ag and speaking found
I within ecologically orienteil media and
I gatherings reflects an outlook which is quite
JL unecological and white supremacist or, to put
it a bit less provocatively. Euro-centric.
What is it in the language and expression of the
movement that offends?
Sloppy use of pronouns, especially "we."
Statements that start with "if we are to survive, we
must..." are usually describing changes that must be
made by modern industrialized, predominantly white.
Environmentalists may want to "preserve" the very land
that a Native American or other land-based people
needs for economic survival.
culture. Most of these statements would sound absurd
if made, for instance, to a South American Indian who
for 20 years has been defending his homelands, which
we (?) refer to as "rainforests." Is the ecology movement
just a bunch of industrialized white people talking to
each other? And if It's not. then who is this "we" that
keeps showing up in the movement's writings?
White superlatives. Environmental writing is too
liberally spiced with superlatives like "the most im-
portant thinker of the entire century." Written off in
such a statement are all the "thinkers" who don't speak
(or haven't been translated into) the author's language,
and all the members of cultures who haven't been, or
have been unwilling to be. converted (reduced?) to the
written word.
It is also notable that, almost without exception,
environmental writing describes Native Americans only
in the past tense. "Among the nature-based people
there was no separation..." Thus are Native Americans
reduced to footnotes, cited in support of white
theoreticians who ignore the fact that these "primal
peoples" are still with us, still vital and have not con-
verted to the new industrial megastate religion.
White people discovered the earth. The age-old pre-
sumption of white supremacy shows up in more forms
than can be enumerated here, but in general terms is
present whenever somebody proclaims yet another
"new" discovery by the ecology movement. Expressions
such as "new paradigm." "new breed of ecologists,"
"new perspectives" would be simply embarrassing for
their inaccuracy, arrogance and naivete If they weren't
so deadly. All of the tendencies described before come
together here. All of them liquidate the centuries-old,
but continuing, ecological struggles by land-based
peoples all over the world.
Excerptedfrom Raise the Stakes: the Planet Drum Review.
Volume 15. Fall 1989.
Protect and Preserve,
Or Protect and Survive?
BY LYNDA TAYLOR
Southwest Research and Information
I Center
fan environmentalist is asked, "What is most
important to you beyond your family and
friends?" the answer typically is, "Protecting and
preserving our environment." If the same question
is asked of a Native American, Chicano or other person
from a land-based community, the answer is usually,
"Water and land, which are the basis of the communi-
ty, culture and survival."
Those answers might appear to be saying the same
thing since they both demonstrate a deep concern and
respect for the natural world. There is, howevgr, a
philosophical difference that needs exploring JnShe
" eyes of land-based people, .the environment isfrreco-
• ^system In which people exist as one part of a harmon-
ious whole; deriving food and materials, as needed, for
their continued social, cultural, and economic existence.
fcln the'«yes1bf environmentalists, the same land may
represent an area that should be protected for its own
sake, for its beauty, for wildlife habitat or recreation.
(Neither view Is inherently "right" or "wrong." each ex-
ists for valid reasons, each is necessary.
In my view, some conflict between environmentalists
and land-based people is almost Inevitable, though not
unreconcilable. That is because both groups are looking
at essentially the same lands, i.e. "public lands" main-
tained by the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land
Management, and both groups have had successes in
influencing how those lands are used.
Over the last decades, the courts have restored a
number of tribes' "sovereignty" rights relating to water.
hunting, fishing, religion, taxation and, in particular,
land. When an environmental group pushes for a wil-
derness area or park, the land in question may well be
the very land claimed by an Indian tribe as its ancestral
ENVmONMEnTTAL ACTION • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 1990 • PAGE 26
-------
home, or land the tribe or community uses for basic
needs (grazing, fishing, gathering fuelwood. etc.) or
depends upon economically (for logging, mining, etc.).
One example involving the Inuit tribe of Canada is
worth noting here. Animal rights and environmental
groups recently waged a sutx -sful campaign to ban the
importation into Great Britain of baby seal pelts from
Canada. The ban. aimed primarily at Russians, was
designed to prevent the brutal killing of young seals.
•e
ral
devastating the economies of the Inuit communities
that depended on the seal trade.
Says an Inuit leader: "Unemployment, drug and
alcohol abuse, and teen suicides all shot way up in the
wake of the ban. We can't grow corn up here. Seals are
our life."
Observes a leader of the animal rights groups that
coordinated the ban: "The social and economic status
of Canadian natives is appalling. The answer is edu-
cation. Give them the choice to leave the bush and be
assimilated Into the economy."
Says the Inuit, "We have a word for assimilation: It's
genocide."
Excerptedjrom the July-September 1988 issue of The
Workbook., an environment-social change quarterly published
by Southwest Research and Information Center.
Getting Beyond "C-ERA"
BY JAYDEE HANSON
United Methodist Church
* "^ % ^L I hat's this "C-ERA' Club? I don't think
% / % / we have them In my city." It was the
M/ ml third day of a national church leader-
V m ship training event focusing on the "*
church's response to communities facing toxic threats.
The speaker, a Black intellectual and activist, was con-
cerned about the problems of toxic waste In poor
communities, but had never seen or heard of the Sierra
Club. Indeed, neither the Sierra Club nor any of the
other major environmental organizations were active in
the politics of his community. After hearing of the work
of the major environmental organizations, the minority
community organizers present at the church conference
were Impressed with that work's scope, but wondered
why they had not been sought out more by these large
groups. Why did it seem that the environmental groups
had so little appreciation of the environmental activist
potential of the minority community?
The major environmental groups have recently begun
efforts at broadening their membership and staff base.
but these efforts are too modest. If the national envi-
ronmental groups were Fortune 500 companies, the
churches would be requesting meetings with their
CEOs asking them to explain why their recruitment of
minorities and even women falls so short.
The task will not be easy. Voluntary associations like
the "Gang of Ten" environmental groups rely on In-
formal networks for recruiting both members and staff.
Moreover, these groups were historically, not just white.
but groups of upper class professionals. In the language
of the church, these folks aren't people you would send
In to evangelize in a poor inner city neighborhood, even
William Clay Mo. -1st 91 81 86
Canllss Collins IU.-7th 82 81 82
JohnConyers Mich.-1st 97 88 93
George Crocket Mich.-13th 69 75 72
Ronald Oellums Calif.-8th 95 94 95
Julian Dixon Calif. -28th 66 81 74
Mervyn Dymilly Calif.-31st 72 63 68
Mike Espy Miss.-2nd na 50 50
Floyd Rake N.Y.-6th na 88 88
Harold Ford Tenn.-9th 50 72 61
William Gray Pa.-2nd 80 69 75
Augustus Hawkins CalH.-29th 53 75 64
Charles Hayes lll.-lsl 71 88 80
John Lewis Ga.-5th na 75 75
Donald Payne N.J.-10th na na na
KwelslMfume Md.-7th na 100 100
Major Owens N.Y.-12th 77 81 79
Charles Rangel N.Y.-16U) 74 94 84
Gus Savage Hl.-2nd 79 88 84
Louis Stokes Ohlo-21st 74 81 78
Edolphus Towns N.Y.-11tn 69 63 66
Alan Wheat Mo.-5th 79 81 80
Mack CMOS Avenge 75 79 78
Congress Avenge 50 54 52
na * not in office
if they wanted to go there.
Thousands of small local environmental groups have
sprung up to work on local environmental problems.
Feeling that the major national groups either don't care
about their problems, or are too busy compromising
with Washington politicians, these groups often rely on
networks developed among themselves to share Infor-
mation and develop strategies. Fanners, housewives,
angry academics and minority activists are found on
these organizations' boards. In short, the environ-
mental movement as a whole has grown faster and
much broader than the major environmental groups. _
< Despite the rapid growth of alternative voices de- .
fending the human and natural environment, the major
environmental groups should be expected to use their
resources to bring more of the community-based activ-
ist groups to the political table. Gone are the days when
a few lobbyists from a few well-funded organizations
can cut deals to save the environment. That approach
may work to save a wilderness area, but it Isnt work-
ing on clean air. toxics, garbage and a host of other
problems that confront people In their dairy lives. Fail-
ure to mobilize greater numbers of persons from all
walks of life, all races and all classes will mead the en-
vironmental consensus we get out of Washington will
continue to be too little, too late.
Jaydee Hanson directs the Department of Environmental
Justice and Survival, General Board of Church and Society.
the United Methodist Church In Washington. D.C.
}
ENVTRONMEmVVL ACTION • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 1990 • PAGE 27
-------
Embracing Diversity
BY MARGO ADAIR
AND SHARON HOWELL
Tools Jor Change
Those of us who identity as environmentalists
know that diversity is vital to nature's well-
being. Yet we find ourselves reflecting only a
narrow segment of society—the white, middle
class. We need to ask ourselves why.
This Is particularly perplexing when it is the least
powerful among us most directly affected by environ-
mental crisis. Native Americans' land is desecrated for
uranium and coal mining: farm workers are poisoned
as they care for our food: neighborhoods in our inner
POWER PATTERNS
from "Embracing Diversity"
An Individual From The...
Dominant Group
Defines parameters, judges what
Is appropriate, patronizes.
Assumes responsibility Jor keep-
Ing system on course. Acts un-
ilaterally.
Presumptuous, does not listen.
interrupts, raises voice, bullies.
becomes violent.
Initiates, manages, plans, proj-
ects.
Sees problems and situations in
personal terms.
Often needs to verbalize feelings.
Thinks own view of reality Is
only one. Disagreements result
from lack of Information, mis-
understandings, personalities.
Turns to others' culture to enrich
humanity while invalidating It
by calling It exotic.
Oppressed Group
f'eeJs inappropriate, awkward.
doesn't trust own perception.
looks to expert for definition.
Blames self for not having
capacity to change situation.
Finds it difficult to speak up.
timid, tries to please. Holds back
anger, resentment, rage.
Lacks initiative, responds, deals.
copes, suwlues.
Sees problems in social context.
results of system, "them."
Sees no point in talking about
feelings.
Always aware of at least two
views of reality, their own and
that of the dominant group.
Uses humor, music, poetry, etc.
to influence situation and cele-
brate collective experience. Sees
these forms as being stolen.
The monoculture Is upheld by patterns that cause us to dupli-
cate the very roles we are trying to transform. These patterns per-
meate our every interaction from the intimate to the occasional. It
Is these patterns that keep us separate from each other, unable to
appreciate what each of us has to contribute. Alliance building is
close to impossible.
The behavior we aspire to, what is accepted as normal, Is that of
the dominators. But our society's hierarchical and competitive na-
ture gives everyone plenty of opportunities to experience both
sides.
Power exists as a relationship. Altering either side of this
dynamic forces change on the other. Changing our own tenden-
cies toward domination or submission cultivates a context of trust
and cooperation that includes everyone's contribution.
cities are used for toxic dumps and giant incinerators.
The common solution is "outreach."This usually
means getting people different from ourselves to work
with us. We are oblivious to the fact that we have de-
fined the problems and the resulting agenda without
any awareness that the agenda itself would be altered if
other perspectives were included from the beginning.
Then, to create a comfortable atmosphere in which
everyone feels included, we minimize all differences. We
say "we're all people." But this backfires. People justly
feel their experiences are then invisible. There is no
reason to believe these organizing efforts will change
the painful and dehumanizing aspects of their own life
and the lives of those with whom they identify. Instead
of our diversity making us strong, we have only created
one more arena in which we are alienated.
Sustaining work together across our differences will
be uncomfortable because we are continually learning
unfamiliar ways of being. There is no quick fix to this
situation. The accompanying box shows some of the
"power patterns" that we try to reveal and alter in
workshops on race and sexism.
Creating relationships of trust, in which everyone's
contributions are honored, means breaking some of the
most powerful taboos in our culture. It means con-
sciously acknowledging the real power differences that
exist among us. Those of us with privilege have the
responsibility of naming the price others have had to
* pay for the privilege we enjoy. For example, when we
state as a simple fact that we are living on stolen land.
Native American struggles are no longer invisible. The
death-courting monoculture breaks down and the life-
sustaining customs from all our diverse groups weave
the fabric of a resilient culture capable of protecting the
sanctity of life.
Excerptedfmm an essay in the upcoming Earth Island In-
stitute book. A Call to Action: Handbook for Peace. Justice and
Ecology, to be published by Sierra Club Books in spring 1990.
Lily-White
Achilles Heel
BY PAT BRYANT
Guy Coast Tenant Leadership
.——^ Development Project
• he Achilles heel of the environmental
• movement in the United States is its white-
I ness. Especially in the Deep South, it is
JL locked up in traditions of liberal do-gooding
and racial inequities that make It very difficult to build
a mass-based movement that has the power to change
the conditions of our poisoning. The key to building a
multi-racial drive against toxic pollution is to—first-
have people of color talking and organizing amongst
ourselves. Very important work in this direction is
underway in southern Louisiana and along the gulf
coast of Mississippi.
A leader in this movement is Janice Dickerson.
Janice is African-American. She grew up in Reville-
town, a community founded by ex-slaves after the civil
war across the Mississippi River from Baton Rouge.
Janice doesn't live in Revilletown anymore. The entire
ENVIRONMENTAL ACTION • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 1990 • PAGE 28
-------
community was poisoned by vinyl chloride emissions
loosed from Georgia Gulfs manufacture of plastics.
Georgia Gulf bought their homes and resettled them.
At a candlelight vigil last year in which Black and
white environmentalists mourned the death of Reville-
town, Janice said racism and corporate greed were at
the heart of the poisoning of Revilletown.
"I really think white politicians thought years ago
that the ill effects of Georgia Gulf would be contained in
Revilletown," Janice said then. Janice's concerns are
supported by the 1987 United Church of Christ study
that cites race as the most important variable in the
location of poisonous sites.
Les Ann Kirkland—a progressive white environmen-
talist in the area—agrees that "racism is rampant" and
discusses it if somebody "brings it up." But she worries
that if color is made a central issue, environmentalists ,
will not be able to take on a broader organizing agenda.
And she does not agree that race is the most important
variable in the siting of toxic facilities.
It is very easy to postpone dealing with questions of
racism until later. That seems to be the strategy of
leaders of major environmental organizations. These
groups cannot reach out to African-Americans and
people of color as long as they are nearly all white.
The understanding of Janice and other Afri-
can-Americans that the environmental movement is a
critical place to fight against racism is a bright light for
the future. Janice is involved in a two-state organizing
effort through the Gulf Coast Tenant Leadership De-
velopment Project, a predominantly African-American
organization. The primary focus of the project is to
encourage Blacks in schools, churches and communi-
ties to organize around environmental concerns and to
provide those Blacks with the organizational support to
nurture their development as environmentalists.
Weekly meetings are held in Baton Rouge in which
Black activists and Black environmentalists openly dis-
cuss inter-relationships between community poisoning,
racism, environmentalism, housing and other issues.
Staff from New Orleans, Baton Rouge and Gulfport
counsel members and visit leaders in their towns.
One of the tenant leaders' first efforts is to confront
major industrial powers over the poisoning of Monte
Santo Bayou. The bayou meanders from the all-Black
Scotlandville section of Baton Rouge, through many
Blackbirds Jly from
boarded-up Revilletown,
contaminated by the
Georgia Gulf plant at rear.
communities, past Exxon's refinery
and chemical plants, to empty like a
sewer into the already poisoned Missis-
sippi River. When the river is high in the
spring, a backwash reverses the poisons up-
stream past a public housing complex called
Monte Santo Village.
Crawfishing is a favorite springtime activity
here. Black children from the housing projects
wade and swim in the bayou too. But Sharon
Lewis wants these activities curtailed until she
is convinced the bayou is safe. Sharon is the
mother of three children and vice-president of
the Monte Santo Tenants Organization. Since
K
-------
still has much to learn about
building diversity in its ranks. But
ignorance is not an excuse, especially
for environmental "experts." And I didn't
come to work for a national environmen-
tal group just to educate white folks. 1
feel my primary responsibility is to learn as
much as I can about environmental problems—
and solutions—so that I can integrate this
knowledge into minority communities' campaigns
for justice.
Whether the concern is toxics, pesticide poisonings.
groundwater contamination or nuclear waste.
minorities and the poor are affected disproportionately
by environmental pollution. We cannot—and should
not—look to some white knight to come and rescue us.
Minority communities have problems; we must ad-
dress them. We must make environmental pollution a
priority on our social justice agenda, along with hous-
ing, jobs, the military buildup, drugs and illiteracy.
For example, the South is a toxic dumping ground.
The South is also home to the highest proportion of
Black elected officials—on the state, local and national
level—and the bastion of Black higher education. I look
to all our leaders, whether in the political, academic.
media or industrial realm, to inspire us and make en-
vironmental concerns a part of our life.
Yes. "environmentalists" must fulfill their responsibil-
ity to combat environmental problems wherever they
strike—including across racial, ethnic and economic bar-
riers. However, minority communities must continue to
hold our elected officials accountable.
In grassroots struggles for environmental justice
across the U.S.. we are building a new generation of lead-
ers, just as we did through the civil rights movement. A.
few are profiled in this section: scores of others are not.
From these new leaders come strength and vitality.
And—even though they may not call themselves
environmentalists—they also provide the greatest hope
tor the future of the environmental movement.
RESOURCES: MINORITIES AND THE ENVIRONMENT
Local Groups ''-.•*
The/allowing are just ajewaf the many
local and regional groups that Include envi-
ronmental issues on their generally broad
agendas.
Alabamians for a Clean Environment 491
Country Club Road. York. Ala. 36925. (205)
392-7443. Kaye Kiker.
Focuses on Emelle hazardous waste dump.
Center for Community Action. PO Box 723,
Lumberton. N.C. 28359. (9191 739-7851.
Richard Regan.
Targets CSX hazardous wastejactlity In
Warren County.
Citizens for a Better America. PO Box 356.
Halifax. Va. 24558. (8O4) 476-7757. Cora
Tucker.
See profile, page 24.
Commission on Religion in Appalachia
(CORA). TO Box 10867. Knoxvllle. Term.
37939-0867. (615) 584-6133. Tena WUlemsma.
Ecumenical coalition of 40 + groups In 13
states. Works to empower communities.
Gulf Coast Tenants Leadership Development
Project PO Box 56101, New Orleans. La. 70156.
(5041 949-4919. Pat Bryant. Baton Rouge office,
(504) 387-2305. Sharon Lewis.
See article, page 28.
Highlander Center. Rt 3. Box 370. New
Market. Term. 37820. (615) 933-3443. Paul
Deleon.
Offers research Internships and workshopsjor
grassroots activists.
Maricopa County Organizing Project 5040 S.
Central Ave. C-l. Phoenix. Ariz. 85040. (602)
268-6O99. Franclsca Cavazos.
See profile, page 24.
Native Americans for a Clean Environment
(NACE). PO Box 1671, Tahlequah. Okla. 74465.
(918) 458-4322. Vickie McCullough.
See profile, page 23.
Puerco Valley Navajo Clean Water Associa-
tion. PO Box 155, Fort Wlngate. N.M. 87316.
(602) 688-9928. Rita Begay.
Focuses on the massive uranium spill In
1979 at United Nuclear.
Southwest Organizing Project (SWOP). 1114
7th Street N.W., Albuquerque, N.M. 87102.
(505) 247-8832. Richard Moore.
See profile, page 22.
Tools for Change. TO Box 14141. San
Francisco. Calif. 94114. (415) 861-6838. Margo
Adalr.
An Institute offering racism workshops, and
education, mediation and consultation services.
National Groups
Citizens Clearinghouse for Hazardous Waste.
PO Box 926. Arlington. Va. 22216. (703) 276- "
7070. Will Collette.
A national organization devoted to helping
grassroots groupsJight toxics and waste.
Eco-Justice Working Group of the National
Council of Churches. 474 Riverside Drive. New
York, N.Y. 10115. (212) 870-2483. Dean KeUy.
Coalition of grassroots justice and church
groupsfocusing on environmental issues.
Migrant Legal Action Center. 2001 S Street
N.W. Suite 310. Washington. D.C. 20009. (202)
462-7744. Shelley Davis.
Works on/armu>orfcer health and safety
Issues, pesticide regulation and compensation.
Human Environment Center. 1001 Con-
necticut Ave. N.W. Suite 827. Washington, D.C.
20036. (202) 331-8387. Andrew Moore.
Sponsors minority internship and conserva-
tion corps programs.
National Toxics Campaign. 37 Temple Place.
Boston. Mass. 02111. (617) 482-1477.
Helps communities and citizens Jight toxics.
Scenic America 216 7th Street S.E.. Wash.
D.C. 20003. (202) 546-1100. Joan Moody.
Protects scenic landscapes. Includes/ecus on
billboards In minority communities.
Marketing Booze to Blacks. Available from
the Center for Science In the Public Interest
(CSPI). 1501 16th Stree< V W.. Washington. D.C.
(202' 332-9110. 84.95. . '.-7.
Report on hoto alcohoi companies are target-
ting the Black community. Another report looks
at "Marketing Disease to Hlspanlcs.'
Dumping In Dixie: Race. Class and Envi-
ronmental Quality. By Robert D. Bullard. To be
published in spring 1990 by Westvlew Press,
5500 Central Ave., Boulder. Colo. 80301. (303)
444-3541. 837.95.
Sociological study of the emergence of envi-
ronmental activism In Black communities.
Richmond at Risk: Community Demo-
graphics and Toxic Hazards from Industrial
Polluters. Citizens for a Better Environment.
942 Market Street. Suite 505. San Francisco.
Calif. 94102. (415) 788-O690. 1989.
Detailed study of the toxic hazards In one
heavily Industrialized city.
Toxics ft Minority Communities. Center for
Third World Organizing. 3861 Martin Luther
King Jr. Way. Oakland. Calif. 94609. (4151
654-9601. 1986.
A Q&A summary of dumping In minority
communities, uranium mining, pesticides, lead.
Includes resources and contacts.
Toxic Waste and Race in the United States.
Produced by the Commission for Racial Justice.
United Church of Christ. 105 Madison Ave. New
York. N.Y. 10016. (212)683-5656. Charles Lee.
First nation-wide report documenting the
disproportionate presence of hazardous waste
sites in ethnic communities.
Pesticide Exposure and Health: A Study of
Washington Farmworkers. Issued by Evergreen
Legal Services. Farm Worker Division. 120
Sunnyslde Ave.. PO Box 430, Granger. Wash.
98932. Michelle Mentzer. (5O9I 854-1488. 1988.
Thejlrst study c/Jarmuwrfcers' exposure to
pesticides In Washington State.
Siting of Hazardous Waste i-»n«mn« and
Their Correlation with Racial and Economic
Status of Surrounding Communities. U.S.
General Accounting Office.
Key 1983 report on demographics at the four
commercial landfills In southeastern states.
"The Workbook." Southwest Research Informa-
tion Center. PO Box 4524. Albuquerque. N.M.
87106. (505) 262-1862. 812/year.
Ouorterly Journal with Indexed sources of
In/ormaflort about environmental, social and
consumer problems. Regularly covers Native
.American and minority issues.
The Egg: A Journal of Eco-Justice." Write
CRESP. Anabel Taylor Hall. Cornell Univ.. Ithaca.
N.Y. 14853. (607) 255-4225.
Quarterly Journal of the Eco-Justice Working
Group and Cornell's Center fat Religion. Ethics
and Social Pbf'ru.
-BULK ORDERS OF
"BEYOND WHITE ENVIROHMENTAL1SM'
1-9
10-49
50 -
52.50 each
$1.75 each
SI.00 each
ENVIRONMENTAL ACTION • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 1990 • PAGE 3«
-------
APPENDIX D
Status of Women and Minorities in Supervisory Positions in EPA
-------
Status of Women and Minorities in Supervisory Positions in EPA
(as of 11188)
GM-13 #
%
GM-14 #
%
GM-15 #
%
SES #
%
Across #
Levels %
By ^ «
Race %
By #
Sex %
Minorities
Women Men
46 55
6.0 7.2
30 60
2.8 5.7
14 , 32
2.0 4.5
1 10
4.1
91 157
3.2 5.6
247
8.9
Total Male
2160
77.6
Non-minorities
Women Men
162 499
21.3 65.5
211 763
19.8 71.7
128 537
17.9 75.6
32 202
13.1 82.8
533 2003
19.2 72.0
2536
91.1 1
Total Female
623
22.4
TOTAL
762
100.0
1064
100.0
713
100.0
244
100.0
2784
100.0
2783
ldO.O
2793
100.0
Women and minorities currently fill 28% of GM and SES positions
-------
APPENDIX E
Contact List
-------
CONTACT LIST
Department of Agriculture
US Forest Service - S&PF
PO Box 96090
Washington, DC 20090
Pam Godsey
Tel: (202)382-9043
Army Corps of Engineers
Natural Resource Management
Attn: DAEN - CWOR \
20 Massachussetts Ave., SW
Washington, DC 20314
Darrell Lewis
Tel: (202)272-0247
Army Corps of Engineers
Ecomeet Program (Pittsburgh)
Pete Colangelo
Tel: (412)644-4190
Bureau of Indian Affairs
Education Office
Tel: (202)208-6175
California Department of Water Resources
1416 Ninth St.
PO Box 94236
Sacramento, CA 94236
Tel: (916)445-8228
Commission on Civil Rights
1121 Vermont Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20425
Tel: (202)376-8582
Department of Defense
Environmeniallducation Office
The Pentagon
Washington, DC 20301
Tel: (202)545-6700
Department of Energy
1000 Independence Ave., SW
Washington, DC 20585
Individual Contacts:
Jim Gardner
Weatherization Division
Tel: (202)586-2480
Sarah Kirchen
Tel: (202)586-1893
Sandy Monje
Conservation Division
Tel: (202)586-8295
Richard Stephens
Tel:: (202)586-8949
Environmental Protection Agency
401 M St., SW
Washington, DC 20460
Individual Contacts:
Douglas Cooper
Special Assistant to the Administrator
Tel: (202)382-4727
Lew Crampton
Associate Administrator for
Communications and Public Affairs
Tel: (202)382-4454
Lolette Guthrie
Director (Acting),
Education and Training Committee
National Advisory Council for
Environmental Policy and Technology
(NACEPT)
Tel: (202)475-8169
Regina Langton
Project Coordinator
Office of External Affairs
Tel: (202)382-4454
Department of Interior
Take Pride In America
18th and C Streets, NW Rm. 5123
Washington, DC 20240
Nancy Love
Tel: (202)208-3726
National Institute of Health
9000 Rockville, Pk.
Bethesda,MD 20894
Tel: (301)496-4000
-------
Public Health Service
5600 Fishers Lane
Rockville, MD 20857
Tel: (301)443-2403
COMMUNITY ORGANIZATIONS
Center for Community Action
PO Box 723
Lumberton, NC 28359
Stony Locklear
Tel: (919)739-7851
Center for Environment, Commerce, and Energy
733 6th St., SE#1
Washington, DC 20003
Norris McDonald
Tel: (202)543-3939
Center for Third World Organizing
Francis Calpotura
Tel: (415)601-0158
Christadora, Inc.
666 Broadway - Suite 515
New York, NY 10012
Dr. Robert Finkelstein
Executive Director
Tel: (212)529-6868
Citizens Clearinghouse for Hazardous Waste
PO Box 926
Arlington, VA 22216
Will Colette
Tel: (703)276-7070
Commission on Religion in Appalachia
PO Box 10867
Knoxville, TN 37939-0867
Tena Willemsma ~ ~
Tel: (703)835-8219
Gulf Coast Tenants Leadership Association
PO Box 56101
New Orleans, LA 70156
Pat Bryant
Tel: (504)949-4919
Migrant Legal Action Center
2001 S Street, NW - Suite 310
Washington, DC 20009
Shelley Davis
Tel: (202)462-7744
Native Americans for a Clean Environment
POBox 1571
Tahlequah.OK 74465
Vicki McCulJough
Tel: (918)458-4322
Southwest Organizing Project
11147thSt.,NW
Albuquerque, NM 87102
Tel: (505)247-8832
United Methodist Church of Christ
Environmental Justice
100 Maryland Ave., NE
Washington, DC 20002
Jaydee Hanson,
Director
Tel: (202)488-5601
or
Maria Paz Artaza
Assistant Director
Tel: (202)488-5649
ENVIRONMENTAL ADVOCACY GROUPS
Alliance for Environmental Education
10751 Ambassador Drive, Suite 201
Jrfanassas, Virginia 22110
Jan Hunt
Tel: (703)335-1025
Environmental Action
1525 New Hampshire, NW
Washington, DC 20036
Thomas Atkins
Assistant to the Director
Tel: (202)745-4870 J
Environmental Consortium for Minority Outreach
Jerry Stover
Tel: (202)331-8387
Morningstar Foundation
403 10th St., SE
Washington, DC 20003
Gail Cheyak
Assistant Director
Tel: (202)547-5531
National Association of African-American
Environmentalists
Suleman Al-Mahdi
Tel: (404)521-3731
-------
National Toxics Campaign
37 Temple Place
Boston, MA 02111
Gary Cohen
Tel: 617-232-0327
National Wildlife Federation
Cool It! Program
Yewande Dada
Cultural Diversity Coordinator
Tel: (202)797-6631
Ocean Alliance j
Ft. Mason, Building E'
San Francisco, CA 94123
Margaret Elliot
Tel: (415)441-5970
WorldWatch Institute
1776 Massachussetts Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20036
Tel: (202)557-9859
MUSEUMS/EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS
Association of Science Technology Centers
Bonnie Dorn
Tel: (202)371-1171
California Museum of Science and Industry
Ann Muscat
Tel: (213)744-7532
National Science Foundation
ISOOGSt., NW
Washington, DC
Ed Brian
Environmental Systems
Tel: (202)357-7955
Roosevelt Calbert
Minority Research
Tel: (202)357-7350
Lola Rodgers
Tel: (202)357-7456
New York Academy of Science
Talbert Spence
Director of Educational Programs
Tel: (212)838-0230
The Oakland Museum
1000 Oak St.
Oakland, CA 94607
Smithsonian Institution
Office of Environmental Awareness
Judith Gradwohl
Director
Tel: (202)357-4797
Vanderbilt University
Student Environmental Health
Program (STEP)
Hubert Dixon
Tel: (615)322-6278
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CHAPTER 2
The Report on Environmental Education for Urban
Poor and Minority Populations
by:
Charles Gaboriau, Donna Roesing, David Small
Worcester Polytechnic Institute
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:
Historically, environmental education has been directed toward studying nature,
primarily in rural areas. However, because of the increasing number of complex
environmental issues and the growing concern for protecting the environment, the field of
environmental education has broadened its scope. The American public has come to
recognize the importance of education in order to enhance environmental awareness.
Nevertheless, when compared to general environmental education efforts, there appears to
be little effort specifically targeted to urban poor and minorities, now a large percentage of
our country's population.
Urban poor and minority groups are frequently uninformed about the environmental
risks in their areajas well as of their role in the environmental movement. Because many
inner city residents may be faced with the immediate concerns of poverty and
unemployment, they may be diverted from the necessity to protect their environment. The
National Advisory Council on Environmental Policy and Technology (NACEPT)
Committee on Education and Training has recognized the need to appropriately address
these groups. The Committee requested this project group to assess what is being done
nationally in environmental education and training efforts which are targeted to
disadvantaged and minority urban populations. The results of this project will assist the
NACEPT Environmental Education and Training Committee to develop recommendations
for the Administrator of the EPA as to how the EPA can positively influence and establish
networks for existing efforts in this area. ""
In order to provide the Committee with an assessment of urban environmental
education efforts, this project defined two objectives: to examine a sample of
environmental education programs targeted to urban poor and minorities; and to make
recommendations as to what role the Committee should play in assisting these efforts.
These objectives were accomplished through a combination of written surveys and phone
interviews. Both methods were used to gather information concerning urban
environmental education programs initiated by various organizations and departments
throughout the United States.
The results of this project are in the form of currently existing programs that are
considered effective and that can possibly serve as model programs in other regions of the
country. In addition, the following conclusions have been developed concerning urban
environmental education:
• There is an apparent need for more environmental education targeted to urban poor and
minority populations.
• There appears to be a limited amount of federal and state activity directed toward urban
environmental education.
• Thewaitrof this report indicate that grassroots organizations need adequate funding in
order to be truly effective.
• Much of the work done by grassroots organizations seems to go without notice by
governmental groups, environmental organizations, as well as the general public.
• There appears to be a need for more communication between grassroots organizations
and the EPA.
• The findings of this study support the need for more minority students to become
educated in science and engineering Melds.
Also, through research and responses collected from phone interviews, the
following recommendations were made to the NACEPT Environmental Education and
Training Committee:
• The EPA could encourage each of its regional offices to conduct research studies on
urban environmental education.
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The EPA regional offices could improve their information distribution methods to better
assist organizations involved in urban environmental education.
The EPA could serve as a role model to others by employing minorities.
The EPA could support and become more directly involved with urban environmental
education programs.
The EPA could create a networking system through which organizations sponsoring
urban environmental education programs can communicate.
The EPA could support or participate in more environmental initiatives with two-year
colleges ih which there are high concentration of minorities.
The EPA could advocate and produce materials that are easily understood by all
minorities and urban poor on all levels and in all necessary languages.
The EPA could enhance its public relations in order to appropriately address urban
audiences.
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INTRODUCTION
In the United States, there is developing concern about the lack of adequate
environmental education directed toward urban poor and minority communities. Increased
awareness of environmental degradation in urban areas has caused both grassroots
organizations and environmentalists to increase efforts in this direction. The objective of
this project is to assess national environmental education and training efforts targeted to
disadvantaged and minority urban populations. After such an assessment has been made,
the report will suggest ways that the United States Environmental Protection Agency can
assist in urban environmental education and training on a national level.
Environmental education is the learning process that deals with people's
relationship with their surroundings and includes such issues as pollution, conservation,
and regional planning in the total human environment (Minton, 1980). During the past few
decades, the field of environmental education has grown. The American public has come
to recognize that our survival as a planet depends on the environmental responsibility of
citizens. Environmental issues are also becoming more complex. Crises are occurring at
an alarming rate, pressures on the ecosystem are increasing, and competition for natural
and financial resources is becoming more intense. Although there have been many notable
environmental success stories that have addressed these issues in both the public and
private sectors, such programs geared for urban and minority populations have been the
exception rather than die rule (Cooper & Smith, 1989).
Research has shown several reasons for the apparent low priority given to
environmental education in the urban areas of the United States. Limited funds, limited
community support, and a lack of sufficiently trained educators in the field of
environmental education are just a few. Yet, it seems the major reason is that historically
the design and approach of most environmental education programs has been inappropriate
for urban minority groups.
Traditionally, concern for our environment has been reserved to the middle and
upper classes. These groups not only constitute a low percentage of the urban population,
but have different environmental concerns than low-income minorities. Congestion,
traffic, noise, air pollution, lead paint, solid waste, and asbestos are some of the difficulties
that residents in urban areas confront on a daily basis. While the majority of this
population tends to consist of low income families, these families may not become involved
in protecting or improving their environment die to the exigencies poverty and
unemployment (Cooper & Smith, 1989).
It would be ideal to have environmental education that reaches every cultural,
ethnic, and socioeconomic level. To achieve this ideal, environmental education programs
must be easily understandable and must stimulate interest in their treatment of
environmental issues. Urban communities must be made to realize the connection between
local environmental concerns and global environmental issues. Environmental education
and training programs must inform residents about the specific environmental risks in their
particular community, as well as suggest actions that can be taken by community residents
to change their immediate surroundings (Verrett, 1990).
The National Advisory Council on Environmental Policy and Technology
(NACEPT) Committee on Education and Training realizes that there is a need for more
information about the programs that are directed at addressing cultural differences and
urban environmental needs. As its primary focus, this report will examine successful
strategies in urban environmental education and training and make recommendations to the
Committee as to what role the EPA should play in facilitating these efforts.
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In conducting this study, we chose five urban communities in the United States as
target groups. These target cities-- a community in the Northeast (Boston), one in the
upper Midwest (Chicago), another in the Southwest (Austin), and still another in the West
(Sacramento)-- insured a cultural cross-section of the country, each with a unique
environmental concern. We examined the environmental programs and strategies for urban
poor and minority groups in these communities through a combination of written surveys
and phone interviews. We also contacted relevant organizations and departments
throughout the country to collect additional information about possible existing programs
directed at urban poor and minority populations at a grassroots level.
In order to accomplish the project's main goal of examining urban environmental
education and training efforts and recommending ways for the Administrator of the EPA to
assist these existing programs, we took the following course of action. By evaluating a
sample of urban environmental education programs that are sponsored by various
organizations, we were able to determine which programs were effective by how well they
addressed the specific needs of a particular community. In addition, we determined which
programs were transferrable and could be initiated in different areas of the country. Our
results consist of a list of these successful programs that the EPA may use as "models" in
its effort to form a national network of environmental education and training programs for
minority and disadvantaged urban populations.
METHODOLOGY
The purpose of this project is to examine the environmental education efforts in the
United States that are directed at urban poor and minority groups. Also, this report will
provide recommendations for their consideration to the Education and Training Committee
of the National Advisory Council on Environmental Policy and Technology (NACEPT)
concerning the potential role of the EPA in urban environmental education and training on a
national level. Our project group mailed written surveys and conducted phone interviews
to accomplish these objectives. This specific methodology was chosen because it allowed
our group to gather information about urban environmental education programs that could
not be obtained through research due to the very limited amount of literature on this
relatively new topic. Also, surveys could provide an effective assessment of what is being
done nationally in environmental education and training throughout the country. In
general, written surveys and phone interviews provided the most appropriate means of
collecting information from the vast area of the country that we intpnded to study.
Wfedfiifially focused our study on five urban communities located in different
regions of the United States— the Northeast, the South, the upper Midwest, the Southwest,
and the West These target cities were Boston, Atlanta, Chicago, Austin, and Sacramento--
because each of these cities were found to have a diverse minority population and serious
environmental concerns (See Appendix B). However, to represent a more accurate cross-
section of ethnic and geographic diversity (Verrett,1990), we later expanded our research
into a national study which would include several other urban areas across the country.
In preparation for our work in Washington, D.C., we sent written surveys to
various school departments and organizations in the urban areas of our original focus.
Before this step, we developed our survey sample by using environmental education
directories provided by the Environmental Protection Agency. After accomplishing this
task, we called those on the "mailing list" to discover if these contacts were still involved
with environmental education and also to insure that these people would be willing to
respond to our survey.
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We prepared two forms of evaluative surveys, one for organizations to determine if
environmental education is a part of their efforts, and the other for school departments to
determine if environmental education is included as part of their curriculum. Both types
were created to obtain direct and open-ended responses. The purpose of the survey for
organizations was to collect general information concerning environmental education and
training programs. For example, the questions in the surveys were designed to elicit
responses concerning the issues that these programs addressed and the specific groups, if
any, that these programs targeted. The surveys for school departments used questions that
examined the way in which schools were teaching environmental education, the materials
that were included in their curriculum, and their efforts , if any, that addressed urban poor
and minority populations. To insure that these questions were clear and easily understood,
we pretested our surveys in schools and organizations in our communities. Because the
basic format of our surveys was designed to obtain general information, we conducted
follow-up phone interviews to those organizations and school departments that were
providing some form of urban environmental education. The phone interviews provided
detailed descriptions of the programs and enabled us to determine if they were appropriate
for urban audiences.
We also contacted relevant organizations throughout the United States to collect
additional information about programs directed at disadvantaged and minority urban
populations. Since this was done in Washington, D.C., we did not have time to send
surveys out to these organizations. For this reason, we used unstructured phone
interviews for this part of the study. Instead of following a specific set of questions, we
chose to interact with these organizations in a more personal manner. This step was
important because most of these groups are at a grassroots level and are sometimes hesitant
about talking to the EPA, especially if they feel that they are being investigated by the
federal government. From these phone interviews, we not only discovered a sample of
environmental education efforts that are being directed at urban populations across the
country, but also obtained suggestions of ways the EPA could assist these efforts. Also,
whenever possible, we requested written material from these organizations and departments
that could further explain their environmental education programs.
Both the jvritten surveys and the phone interviews were effective tools in collecting
data abouf the existing environmental education and training programs that are directed at
minority and urban communities. The written surveys provided information about
environmental education primarily at a federal government or state level. In contrast, the
information gathered from phone interviews involved programs at a grassroots level. In
order to assess what is being done nationally in urban environmental education, we
evaluated this sample of programs that our written surveys and phone interviews
discovered.
We evaluated environmental education and training programs on the basis of their
effectiveness in providing education for urban poor and minority groups. The written
surveys were designed to make these evaluations easily. A specific question on the survey
determined whether the programs sponsored by organizations or the material used in
schools are directed at urban populations [Refer to Appendix C (organization survey) and
Appendix D (school survey)]. The efforts that address different cultural and
socioeconomic backgrounds suited the needs of our project and are, therefore, considered
appropriate for urban population groups.
However, if programs are not specifically targeted to disadvantaged and minority
urban populations, they could still be considered appropriate for the sample we were
studying. A question on our survey determined what issues these organizations address in
their programs. Programs that address such issues as pollution, lead paint, or solid waste
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could be effective in educating people who live in urban areas because these are the
environmental problems that inner city dwellers may confront everyday. Other survey
questions looked into the affordability of educational materials and the languages in which
these materials are offered. Since a majority of the urban population are low income
families, programs that provide free or inexpensive environmental education materials are
more appropriate for urban residents. Also, materials written in different languages will
better inform minority groups in communities in which that language is spoken. We
concluded that a program that addresses environmental concerns of urban areas and/or
provides affordable material and/or offers material in different languages is considered to be
appropriate in educating urban poor and minority groups. Such programs are then
evaluated for their effectiveness.
We evaluated the programs we discovered through our written surveys, as well as
through our phone interviews in the following way. If a program was determined
appropriate for urban populations by the above standards, it was further evaluated by using
a set of criteria of what an effective environmental education program should be. An
effective urban environmental education program should satisfy one or more of the
following criteria: informing residents about specific environmental risks in their particular
community, establishing a connection between local and global environmental issues, and
suggesting actions that can be taken by community resident to affect or change their
immediate surroundings (criteria from Verrett, 1990). In addition to how well it addresses
the specific needs of a particular community, an effective environmental education program
should also be transferrable. A program that is truly effective should be able to be initiated
in several different areas of the United States.
The results of this project are in the form of a list of currently existing programs that
we felt were effective programs, ones that could possitily serve as model programs in other
regions of the country. Accompanying this list is a brief description of each program and
the names, addresses, and phone numbers of the people we contacted. It is from this list
that we based our recommendations to the NACEPT Education and Training Committee.
X.
From the results of our surveys and phone interviews we provided the EPA with
some recommendations as to what role it should play in working with these organizations.
We hope that the outcome of our report will supply the Environmental Protection Agency
with helpful information to positively influence or establish networks for existing efforts in
environmental education for urban poor and minority populations.
URBAN ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION: The Federal
Government and State level programs
Over the past two decades, the field of environmental education has grown
considerably. Environmental advocates, who have come to realize the potential, irreparable
effects of the rapid industrial and technological advances of our society, determined that
one of the most effective ways of protecting our environment was to educate citizens on
environmental issues. The recognition that environmental concerns such as smog, ozone
depletion, and resource conservation affect every citizen has expanded the environmental
movement into a global effort. Thus, environmental education and training programs have
broadened their scope to help increase environmental awareness and establish a strong
"environmental ethic" in citizens throughout the world (paragraph paraphrased from
Verrett, 1990).
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"The federal government has engaged in a plethora of environmental education
efforts including pilot projects, academic grants/internships, technical assistance to
curriculum-based programs, and youth projects. However, when compared to other
environmental education programs, there seemed to be little effort directed specifically
toward urban environmental education and training efforts" (Verrett, 1990). This was also
found to be true of programs initiated at the state level also. The written surveys, which
were sent primarily to federal and state organizations, discovered a limited number of urban
environmental education programs. In fact, after conducting follow-up phone interviews
with these organizations, our team found only eight organizations out of the 127
organizations that responded to the surveys are currently involved in programs that may be
appropriate for urban poor and minority groups. Three of the eight organizations sponsor
urban environmental education programs at the state level. (These programs appear with an
asterisk before their names in the list that follows this section.)
i
While our sample included environmental education programs in several cities
across the United States and was not a complete representation of all the existing urban
environmental education efforts, it is still apparent that, at a federal or state level, general
environmental education programs outnumber those environmental education efforts that
are directed at urban poor and minority populations. Below is a sampling of some various
types of federal and state environmental education and training programs discovered in our
study that specifically target minority and urban groups. These programs, considered
appropriate for urban poor and minority populations, satisfy one or more of the following
criteria: informing residents about specific environmental risks in the particular community;
establishing a connection between local and global environmental issues; and suggesting
actions that can be taken by community residents to affect or change their immediate
surroundings (criteria from Verrett, 1990). In addition, these environmental education
programs may include strategies that could be transferable to minority and urban
audiences. The list of these "model" programs is accompanied by a brief description that
was obtained from brochures and other literature received in the mail. (Contacts for these
programs may be found in Appendix D.)
Federal:
US Environmental Protection Agency/ City of Lowell. Massachusetts:
Youth in the Environment Initiative
The City of Lowell, Massachusetts and the US EPA co-sponsored summer
employment/training opportunities for Lowell high school students. The city, through its
existing assistance program for disadvantaged youth, hired at the minimum wage 10-12
qualifying Lowell high school students (age 16-21 years, from low income families, etc.)
to work at the City of Lowell's wastewater and water treatment plants during an eight week
period in the summer of 1990. The students worked on a rotating basis under a city co-
worker's supervision at various work stations at the two plants, with some off-site
sampHiig~*KJik.' The New England Interstate Water Pollution Control Commission
(NEIWPCC) provided transportation for the students, to sampling sites and on weekly
day-trips to various sites in New England designed to expose the students to career
opportunities in the environmental field including drinking water, hazardous materials
management, solid waste management, air pollution and wastewater treatment ("Summer
Employment Opportunities- Lowell Wastewater Treatment Facility." US EPA Region 1,
1990).
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US Environmental Protection Agency/ Cook College:
Discovery Pro from
Discovery is an Academic Enrichment and Apprenticeship Program designed to
offer minority and disadvantaged students with academic promise an introduction to college
study and careers in science and technology. Discovery is a comprehensive and residential
five-week summer program for rising high school junior and seniors. Sponsored in pan
by the US EPA, the program includes classroom instruction, as well as apprenticeship
opportunities at Rutgers University/Cook College, the College of Engineering, the United
States Environmental Protection Agency, and the New Jersey Department of Environmental
Protection. The Discovery Program consists of cultural perspectives seminars, field trips,
career exploration, and hands-on experience that addresses many of the complex problems
today in the environmentaJ and life sciences, biotechnology, and agriculture ("The
Discovery Program." Rutgers University/Cook College).
State-Level Programs:
* California Air Resources Board
The California Air Resources Board (CARS) is an example of an organization that
is involved in environmental education in California. CARS runs a community based
project called CHICANITOF (Little Children) Science Project. CARB tries to inform
children about environmental issues and give them suggestions as to how they can help.
They also take kids from MESA (Minority Education Society of America), an organization
which recruits minority science and engineering students, and places them with
professionals to help encourage students to pursue fields in the environment. Some of their
efforts include doing shows for kids in schools and producing materials in Spanish.
CARB definitely makes a positive impact on urban communities.
* State of California. Department of Health Services
The California Department of Health Services has a large program on environmental
and occupational health hazards involving toxics. The department has published 'The
Toxics Directory", a 120-page directory designed to help concerned individuals and
communities find the information and resources they need on toxics. The department also
produces videos and textbooks that address environmental concerns at home, such as lead
poisoning, and at the workplace, such as the use of pesticides. These particular
environmental issues are common to most urban areas. In addition, the California
Department of Health Services develops some written material on toxics in Spanish in order
to address non-English speaking communities.
California Energy Extension Service: Energy Award Program for Student
Enerfy Projects
This program encourages students, K-12, to become involved in environmental
issues by awarding those students who create special energy projects. Not only do the
students develop an understanding of their environment, but they also learn how they can
actually make a difference by increasing the awareness of others. Although the program is
initiated throughout the state of California, there is a greater participation by minority
students. Some examples include African American cheerleaders from San Diego who
invented energy and recycling cheers and minority students from Fresno who built
dinosaurs operated by reusable energy that were later displayed at a local zoo (phone
interview, Ms. Bonnie Cornwall, California Energy Extension Service, September, 1990).
* California State Water Resources Control Board
California State Water Resources Board is an organization that is interested in
getting minorities involved in environmental fields. They developed the Hispanic Advisory
Commission in order to encourage more hiring of Hispanic scientists. They also helped
organize a community college course to bring Hispanic populations into environmental
fields. California State Water Resources Board is also very active at the Hispanic Expo, an
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event that takes place at California State University at Sacramento involving 35 Hispanic
students.
State of Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental
Control/Division of Parks and Wildlife
The eleven state parks in Delaware which contain thousands of acres of woodlands,
wetlands, meadows, and seashores, provide a variety of recreational as well as
environmental education activities. The Delaware Department of Natural Resources and
Environmental Control serves many communities around the state including the city of
Wilmington.
Nature'sltClassroom: Nature's Classroom is a series of outdoor environmental
learning experiences provided at the Brandywine Creek State Park Nature Center for pre-
school through sixth grade age groups aimed at increasing a child's understanding of and
appreciation for the natural world and man's relationship to it ("Nature's Classroom at
Brandywine Creek State Park." Delaware Department of Natural Resources and
Environmental Control, 1987).
Beach Studies: Beach Studies are a group of environmental learning experiences
taught in a "classroom without walls" - Cape Henlopen State Park. These programs are
provided year-round for adults as well as children. Beach Studies encourage an
environmental ethic and stress small groifp interaction ("Beach Studies at Cape Henlopen
State Park." Delaware Department of Natural Resources and environmental Control,
1990).
Massachusetts Department of Environmental Management: Household
Hazardous Waste
The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Management provides educational
programs and technical assistance to communities and individuals interested in the proper
disposal of household hazardous waste. The programs describe what happens to the
environment if household hazardous waste is disposed of improperly, and also the correct
and proper way to dispose of the waste.
Although these programs are not specifically targeted to urban poor or minority
populations, they are indeed included in the programs focus, for everyone has some type of
household hazardous waste ("Household Hazardous Waste." Massachusetts Department
of Environmental Management).
Mass Re Leaf: Boston. Massachusetts
This program encourages the planting of shade trees as a means of combating
global warming. The Commonwealth and its citizens can take a small but important step
toward fending off global warming and at the same time help to improve the quality of life
in the neighborhoods.
The brochures describe how trees absorb carbon dioxide, help conserve energy and
cut energy costs by providing shade, and take some of the heat out of urban "heat islands."
Trees also provide color and wildlife habitat in urban as well as suburban areas. This
program is open to all populations of the Commonwealth. Though funded by ENVest, the
program is carried out by the local tree warden ("Mass ReLeaf." ENVest, 1989).
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URBAN ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION: Curriculum-Based Programs,
Environmental Advocacy Organizations, and Community Organizations
Urban environmental education is being implemented in a wide variety of
organizations at a local and grassroots level. There is an increasing number of
environmental advocacy groups that target urban minority issues, as well as community
groups that inform urban residents of their role in protecting their environment. This
knowledge was supported by the information gathered from phone interviews.
For the purposes of this study, the information collected from the phone interviews
proved to be of more use than the information obtained from the written surveys. These
phone interviews, which were conducted with various groups and organizations around the
country, supplied the team with an array of environmental education programs appropriate
for urban audiences. In comparison, out of the eight "useful" written surveys, we
discovered only two environmental advocacy organizations, one group that implements
curriculum-based programs, and two community organizations that are currently involved
in urban environmental education. (The programs sponsored by these organizations are
denoted by an asterisk in the list immediately following this section.)
Below is a sampling of some types of urban environmental education programs
sponsored by various non-government and community organizations. These programs,
considered appropriate for urban poor and minority populations, satisfy one or more of the
following criteria: informing residents about specific environmental risks in the particular
community; establishing a connection between local and global environmental issues; and
suggesting actions that can be taken by community residents to affect or change their
immediate surroundings (criteria from Verrett, 1990), These programs may also include
effective strategies that could be transferrable to minority and urban audiences. Each
program includes a description that was provided by brochures and other written
information that was received through the mail. (Contacts for these programs may be
found in Appendix D.) ^
Environmental Advocacy Organizations:
Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR): Minorit\
Health Initiative
This program tries to identify minority populations living near or working on
hazardous waste sites and to address those populations special health concerns and unique
requirements for health communication.
The Minority Health Initiative seeks to define public healtft issues concerning:
• demographics of minority populations in proximity to hazardous waste sites
• minority nealth perspectives, including nutritional status, lifestyle and socioeconomic
influences, and psychosocial impacts
• methods of effective communication and dissemination of environmental health
information to minority communities
In December, 1990, the ATSDR will sponsor the National Minority Health
Conference to discuss implications, concerns and data gaps of the Minority Health Initiative
("Minority Health Initiative." The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry,
1988).
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* Greenpeace
Greenpeace, over the years, has been one of the most vocal environmental activist
groups. Greenpeace has also done a lot to include urban poor and minority populations in
their efforts. One of the many things they do is produce fact sheets on such things as toxic
waste. They also have some material, specifically on hazardous waste, that is translated in
Spanish. Videos, which portray Afro-Americans, Native Americans, etc., are one of many
tools Greenpeace uses to spread their message. Perhaps the most unique thing they do is
go into Afro-American communities to speak to the residents and inform them about
environmental hazards in that community and refer them to other activists that they can
contact for more information.
Nationol Toxics
The National Toxics Campaign, headed in Boston, Massachusetts, is a grassroots
organization that works to implement citizen-based preventive solutions to the nation's
toxic and environmental problems. NTC publishes "Toxic Times", a newsletter with
information and support from the National Toxics Campaign Fund. NTC Fund is an
educational and research organization that shares NTC's policy objectives. The National
Toxics Campaign Fund provides material on ozone layer protection including "Fighting
Toxics", a manual for protecting citizens against toxic hazards ("Toxic Times." National
Toxics Campaign, 1990).
National Wildlife Federation: Cool I tT Programs
"The National Wildlife Federation's Cool It! Programs encourage college students
to launch local projects that attack the pollution causing global warming. Some campus
projects may double or triple the size of existing recycling programs. Other campuses may
promote public transportation, energy efficiency, bike paths and walk ways, or try to
persuade local food establishments to switch from plastics packaging to biodegradable
paper cups and plates. Cool It! emphasizes supporting projects initiated by culturally
diverse groups. Organizers are assisting college students from diverse communities who
are not traditionally active in environmental issues to play an active role in solving
environmental problems" (Verrett, 1990).
New York Academy of Science: Career Orientation and Internships in
Environmental Education for Minority Youth
This summer leadership internship program is an attempt to increase the
representation of minorities in the field of environmental education. It provides real life
experiences which may lead minority high school students to seek careers in environmental
education or environmental studies. It also tries to develop opportunities for North
American Association for Environmental Education (NAEE) members and affiliate
organizations to benefit from participating in a structured minority outreach program.
In 1988, six minority interns were chosen from New York City to work with three
environmental education orientated organizations. Each intern participated in various
projects of the organization and were exposed to many diverse activities and opportunities
to learn new skills and knowledge enhancing their understanding of possible career choices
in the environmental sciences (lozzi & Shepard, 1988).
PBS; Operation Earth
A year-long project consisting of 35 hours of new environmental specials and
series, Operation Earth was designed to connect local viewers with environmental issues in
their own backyard. Series will involve issues such as global wanning, deforestation, and
energy use, while emphasizing the need to preserve our ecology. Working with advisory
committees drawn from local environmental organizations, PBS stations will plan activities
such as radio forums and youth contests for the best essay, song, video, or photo about the
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environment. Through bodies like the National Education Association, Operation Earth
booklets, buttons, and posters will be distributed to thousands of schools across the United
States ("Operation Earth." PBS, 1990).
* Sierra Club. Georgia Chapter
The Sierra Club is an organization which has been concerned about the environment
for many years. One of the programs they are involved in is a inner-city outing. This is a
relatively new program (2 years) which takes inner-city kids into the woods. The main
goal of such a program is to teach children about camping and to show the importance of
the environment to the existence of the earth. Although this outing is a new program, it
shows very good promise and has very good participation.
Curriculum-Based Programs:
American Water Works Association
The American Water Works Association publishes a 82-page catalog of everything
to know about water. "The Water Education Package" includes teacher's guides for grades
K-3, 4-6, and 7-9. "The Story of Drinking Water" is a 16-page illustrated book that
describes the history and modern workings of drinking water and is available in English,
Spanish, or French. "Water Fun for You" is an action-packed workbook on water for
students in grades K-3 ("The Texas Water Education Network Directory." The Texas
Water Development Board, 1990).
BOCES Outdoor/Environmental Education Program
In cooperation with SCOPE (Suffolk County Organization for the Promotion of
Education), BOCES has developed a variety of. outdoor/environmental education
programs. These programs are designed to help school districts meet their particular needs
at a number of different sites, primarily in New York. Financial arrangements are also
available; BOCES Outdoor/Environmental Education Programs are affordable for any
district.
'X-
Day-Use Program: This BOCES/SCOPE program uses a multi-disciplinary
approach to strengthen and broaden existing school curricula. The objectives of the Day-
Use Program are:
• to develop in teachers and students a greater awareness, understanding, and respect for
the natural environment
• to integrate environmental concepts into the instruction of English, math, social studies,
science, and the arts
• to gain an understanding of basic ecological concepts and the interdependence of all
living things .
• to create an understanding of the need to conserve and preserve natural and historic
resources
• to coordinate and utilize available land and water resources for the instruction of
students and the training of teachers
("Day-Use Program." BOCES Outdoor/Environmental Education Program)
Residential Programs: While living together in an outdoor setting, teachers and students in
the residential outdoor/environmental education program pursue the series of activities that
relate the natural environment to the school curriculum. The objectives of residential
programs are:
• to provide a stimulating educational environment emphasizing interdisciplinary and
multi-sensory learning
• to integrate environmental concepts into the instruction of English, math, social studies,
science, and the arts
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• to provide experiences that develop the attitudes, values, and behavior necessary for the
wise use of natural resources
• to develop self-confidence by enhancing the student's opportunities for individual
achievement
• to offer activities that develop conceptual, communicative, and computational skills
• to prepare students to solve problems through independent as well as cooperative
learning situations
• to provide a comprehensive living experience that permits time for in-depths learning
("Residential Programs." BOCES Outdoor/Environmental Education Program)
WALDEN Program: The WALDEN Program, the alternative environmental education
program for secondary students, provides opportunities for young people to "learn by
doing." This expedience combines community service projects and other outdoor education
programs with academic learning. Students participating in this program have a history of
difficulties which have negatively affected school performance. The benefits of the
program include:
• improved student moral and involvement in learning
• a reduced dropout rate through early intervention
• improved self-esteem
• a path provided for high school graduation— essential to higher education, a job, and a
career ("The WALDEN Program." BOCES Outdoor/Environmental Education
Programs)
-v
California State University: Environmental Education as Dropout
Prevention Teacher In-Service Program
The goal of this program is to infuse environmental education into the curriculum in
order to motivate "at-risk" students in school.
Twenty-six 4- 12th grade teachers volunteer to participate in the in-service program.
Some of the teachers come from elementary schools with alternative programs, and some
from alternative high schools. The objectives of the program are to:
• target environmental lessons to needs of specific at-risk students while planning for
entire class
• infuse environmental activities which reflect content of texts
• teach appropriate definition of environmental education for grade level/subject
• use the out-of-doors at least once a week as part of school-based implementation of
environmental education
• consider extending or modifying an environmental concept to link it with at-risk student
problems related to personal characteristics and school, family, and other factors
• if possible, include home activity to involve parents
e in-service program used well-known environmental curriculum guides such as
Project Wild and Project Learning Tree (Engelson & Disinger, 1990).
California State University. Havward: Environmental Education
Laboratory
The Environmental Education Laboratory is an environmental education resource
center that has been funded for twelve years by Environmental License Plate grants from
the California State Department of Education. The EE lab is open to everyone and provides
a comprehensive collection of published and unpublished curriculum material for
environmental education. Some curriculum material is bilingual and addresses such urban
issues as urban ecology, solid waste, and multicultural studies. In-service and student
teachers are trained in environmental education through environmental workshops. Many
other leaders are trained through this university program to work in parks, museums, non-
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profit organizations, and government agencies ("Environmental Education Laboratory."
California State University, Hayward).
* Clark Atlanta University: Atlanta. Georgia
Clark Atlanta University offers a research program that trains minority graduate
students in the field of environmental science. This program utilizes both the classroom
and research laboratory to address environmental concerns including acid rain, urban
ozone, and air pollution.
CYO-Caritas: San Francisco. California
This five day summer camp for inner-city 4-8th grade students includes pre- and
post-camp classroom work. The program emphasizes the interdependence of people and
nature by exploring redwood forests, grasslands, and fresh water ecology ("Ecology
Center Newsletter," Ecology Center, 1990).
Delta College: Localized Topic Video/Curriculum
This premature project will link local PBS affiliations with universities and
community colleges in an effort to promote an awareness of local environmental issues.
The project will provide curriculum material and videos for teachers to present to their
classes. The material is geared toward urban high school students and involves concerns
of the particular area. For example, Delta College faculty and a PBS station in Saginaw,
Michigan may develop an environmental education package specifically targeting this city's
high school audience. The college faculty will work together with high school teachers so
that Saginaw students may be informed of the need for wetland preservation. A similar
project in Houston may include material in Spanish in order to appropriately address the
Spanish students in Houston of their role in protecting their environment (phone interview,
Dr. Brad Smith, September, 1990).
Division of Fish & Wildlife: Phoenix. Arizona
The Division of Fish and Wildlife has offered wildlife programs in the form of
teacher training workshops and hands-orkactivities for children since 1969. The Division's
environmental education has had an excellent response with Native American teachers, a
large part of the population served by the Division of Fish and Wildlife, because the
training methods used are specifically geared for those groups (phone interview, Mr. Kevin
Baldwin, Division of Fish and Wildlife, September, 1990).
Hawthorne Year Round School/Oakland Unified School District:
Environmental Day Camp
This summer day camp gives teachers a place to introduce the environment to 120
inner city students in kindergarten through third grade. The five-<|ay day camp takes place
on the break of the students' year round school schedule ("Environmental Education Grant
Program."-California State Department of Education, 1989).
Heart of the Earth Survival School: Minneapolis, Minnesota
This school is an alternative school for Native Americans. It was founded because
of high drop-out rates of Native Americans, and racial problems in public schools. The
school stresses environmental education and awareness through the Indian culture's respect
for the land and their view of the land as Mother Earth. They incorporate various
environmental practices through the curriculum of the school (phone interview, Bill Means,
1990).
Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Minority Universities
(HBCUIMI): Research. Education, and Technolofv Transfer (RETT\ Plan
HBCUs/MIs which have the strongest academic training and research trackrecords
in the science, mathematics, and engineering preparation of African Americans, Hispanic
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Americans, and Native Americans for the environmental restoration and waste
management, have demonstrated their knowledge of minority manpower needs. The RETT
Plan acknowledges the roles to bz played by both the majority and minority institutions,
National Department of Energy laboratories, federal agencies and labs, and the waste
management industry in developing minority manpower to address these critical needs.
The HBCU/MI Consortium targets its program to the development of minority human
resources in the following and other areas:
• environmental impact— quality analysis and testing of air, water, soil; health monitoring
• environmental restoration— site characterization for restoration; modeling environmental
contamination to determine remediation needs; remediating contaminated soils and
groundwater, decontaminating and decommissioning inactive facilities
• waste management— remote monitoring; robotics; waste minimization; development of
new process; w|iste treatment; heavy metal recovery; recycling ("The RETT Plan in
ER/MI." The HBCU/MI Hazardous Materials and Waste Management Consortium,
1990)
Hunter College of the City University of New York
The college has been very active in the environmental education movement. Its
projects' activities have generated dramatic results from both teachers and students: more
interest in science, enhanced abilities to solve problems, a deeper concern for their peers
and teachers, and a better awareness of environmental problems.
An Urban Environmental Program for Middle and Junior High School Teachers:
Under a grant from the National Science Foundation, this interdisciplinary teacher training
program was developed to promote the teaching of environmental science in middle and
junior high schools. In the summer of 1989, fifty New York City .teachers- the majority of
which were members of minority groups- met daily for three weeks for workshops and
lectures conducted by leading academic scientists and specialists from industry and
government. The program also included a weekend stay at the Pocono Environmental
Education Center to compare the urban environment to that of a rural setting (Niman,
1990).
The Diamond Project: A mathematics, science, and technology program for
"youth-at-risk" and their teachers, the Diamond Project involved 140 minority students
between the ages of 9-14^and 28 teachers in an innovative educational experience
consisting of : a residential program at the Pocono Environmental Education Center;
science workshops at the Educational Technology Center of Hunter College; and field trips
to urban sites. The PEEC experience introduced inner city students and their teachers to the
natural elements and lifestyles of a rural environment. The workshops focused on hands-
on problem-solving activities in math and science (Niman, 1990).
Local Government Commission. Inc.
ThETorganization distributes K-3, 4-6, 7-8 curriculum entitled "Toxics In My
Home? You Bet!". Available in both English and Spanish, this school curriculum
identifies toxics in the home environment, methods for reducing exposure to household
toxics, unsafe circumstances involving toxic products, and safer alternatives to using such
products ("Household Hazardous Waste Publications." Golden Empire Health Planning
Center).
Manomet. Massachusetts Bird Observatory
Museum Institute for Teaching Service (MITS): The observatory has a
collaborative effort with eleven museums to provide a summer institute, follow-up training,
and a magazine subscription for 100 teachers state wide. The teachers are trained in
environmental education at their own school about biological diversity and habitat
destruction. The observatory also holds outreach, on-site, and public programs. The
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programs use slide shows, curricula guides, and posters. Some of these efforts are
specifically targeted to minority or urban poor populations.
Care for Coastal Birds: The objective of this program is to help teachers and
students understand the fragility of wetlands using birds as environmental monitors. Other
groups, as well as minority and urban poor populations, participate in this program.
(information received from Janis Albright-Burton, 1990)
Massachusetts Water Resources Aftthority (MWRA}: School Programs
The Massachusetts Water Resources Authority has developed school education
materials to :
• increase understanding of water as a limited resource
• improve awareness of personal water use
• instill positive water conservation attitudes
• improve water use habits
"Water Wizards" introduces basic environmental principles and concepts of water
supply to third and fourth grade students. "Water Watchers" is designed for seventh and
eighth grade science and social studies classes and includes lessons that call for active
student involvement in classroom and home assignments. "Water Wisdom" consists of 24
stand-alone activities on water supply and water conservation in a variety of disciplines for
high school students. Classroom activities on wastewater treatment and household
hazardous waste are now being developed. These will help students understand the effect
of wastewater on Boston Harbor and the plans to rebuild the treatment plant at Deer Island.
All materials and services of the MWRA School Programs are available on request at no
charge ("MWRA School Programs." Massachusetts Water Resources Authority, 1990).
Murray State University: Center for Environmental Education
Since 1976, the Center for Environmental Education has provided quality programs
and materials to area schools and Murray State University faculty and students. The Center
has grown and expanded with the financial support of the Tennessee Valley Authority, the
college of education of Murray State University, and the West Kentucky Environmental
Education Consortium. It offers the following services: Resources Room- a lending
library of curriculum materials; Environmental Education Van- a mobile unit that travels to
area schools and provides environmental education programs in cooperation with
classroom teachers; graduate course and workshops; and in service programs such as
Project Wild, Project Learning Tree, Power Switch, and Energy Sourcebook ("Center for
Environmental Education." Murray State University).
Navajo Community College: Navajo Nation. Arizona ^
Though not an environmental education program as a whole, the college does
educate about the environment to its Native American students. The Navajo educational
philosophy, based on Navajo culture and tradition, places human life in harmony with the
natural world and the universe. This philosophy is integrated into the college curriculum at
Navajo Community College, especially in subjects such as agriculture, biology, education,
geology, social science, and Navajo studies ("General Catalog 1990-1991." Navajo
Community College, 1990).
Ocean Alliance
Ocean Alliance was formed by a merger of the San Francisco Chapter of Oceanic
Society and the Whale Center. Ocean Alliance's education programs provide tomorrow's
decision-makers with a marine conservation ethic.
Project OCEAN; Using the ocean as a central theme, Project OCEAN helps
elementary and middle schools bring an "oceanful of science" into the classroom by
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providing teacher training; education material; Ocean Weeks, a week-long program in
which the whole school becomes a integrated laboratory for studying the ocean; and
follow-up programs. For students with special needs Project OCEAN provides:
• a content-based language acquisition program which promotes simultaneous learning of
English language and sophisticated science concepts
• enhanced second language acquisition through hands-on activities, multi-media visual
supports, bilingual materials, cooperative learning, and sheltered English strategies
• greater classroom participation and self-esteem
• multicultural sharing of ocean heritage, careers and lifestyles-a culturally sensitive
curriculum ("Project OCEAN." Ocean Alliance)
Sea Camp; Sea Camp introduces children to the marine environment. Campers
explore rocky tide|ools and other aquatic habitats, conduct science experiments, and enjoy
and learn from a host of other hands-on activities (Sea Camp." Ocean Alliance).
Ohio Department of Natural Resources/Division of Litter Prevention and
Recyclinf: Super Saver Investigators
Super Saver Investigators is an interdisciplinary environmental studies activity
guide book about solid waste, recycling, and natural resources for grades kindergarten
through eighth. The "Super Saver Investigators," a group of kids, minorities represented,
appear throughout the guidebook. The hands-on activities allow students to investigate
environmental problems as well as learn how to actually save their environment ("Super
Saver Investigators." Ohio Department of Natural Resources, 1988).
Oklahoma State University (OSU)ICenter for Environmental Education:
Hifh School Summer Academy for Environmental Science
The OSU's Summer Academy is an extensive four-week program of study with
follow-up activities for thirty, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth grade high school students
interested in and qualified to study environmental science. Underrepresented minority
groups and females across the state are sought as participants. The staff of the Academy
are primarily minority and female environmental Ph.D. and master's graduates of the OSU
Environmental Science Degree Program. The Summer Academy is designed in two
phases. The first phase takes place on the OSU campus and includes classroom,
laboratory, and field instruction. The second phase, follow-activities, involve the students
in conducting home and school analysis of use patterns for energy, water, toxics, solid
waste/recycling, transportation. The overall goal of the Academy is to make a select group
of high school students:
• aware of major environmental issues and problems
• knowledgeable about the ecological concepts that connect the issues and problems
• able to identify the exciting opportunities they have to deal with these problems in the
futureC'High School Summer Academy for Environmental Science." Oklahoma State
•Higher Education, 1990)
Project Wild
Deadly Links: "Deadly Links" is just one of the programs from the Project Wild
collection. It deals with the idea of having a world-healthy body. This idea is then applied
to alcohol and drug abuse. Though not specifically targeted to any one group, this program
would be relevant in all walks of life.
Habitat Lapsit: Habitat components are food, water, shelter, and space in a suitable
arrangement. What happens when a component is missing? How are students like the
components? This curriculum-based activity shows how each student contributes vitally to
his/her own class, family, and world. This activity teaches the individual student about
how he/she affects his/her own immediate environment, as well as the global environment
(Engelson & Disinger, 1990).
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Refuse Industry Productions. Inc.
Refuse Industry Productions, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Grass Valley
Disposal, Inc., produces a complete waste management curriculum, "Garbage in America,"
for grades K-12. The curriculum includes information on all waste management issues
including landfills, recycling, household hazardous waste, natural resources and the
environment, and waste-to-energy. "Garbage in America" comprises nine individual
envelope packs, one for each grade. The curriculum uses multicultural characters as
"recycling friends" in the K-4 packs. New characters, a Native American family, are
introduced in grade five. Math, science, an, and English are incorporated into all the
lessons so that they can easily be integrated into a teaching schedule. In addition to
curriculum materials, Refuse Industry Productions, Inc. also distributes educational aides
such as videos and coloring books, and supplementary items such as litterbags and mini-
trash cans ('"Garbage in America' A K-12 Solid Waste Management Curriculum." Refuse
Industry Productions, 1988).
Schlitz Audubon Center of the National Audubon Society: "Living Lifhtlv"
The "Living Lightly" book series help students develop an awareness and
appreciation of the natural and built environment. They will recognize our interdependence
with the natural world. Students will gain knowledge of ecological concepts and will
recognize how humans can have an impact on the environment. They will also develop
problem-solving skills and take action for environmental responsibility.
"Living Lightly in the City" targets K-6 graders while "Living Lightly on the
Planet" is specified for 7-12 graders. The programs all use audio-visual materials, hands-
on experience, and discussions. An example of one of the activities included in the K-3
curriculum is the program that challenges the students to learn about and explore their
neighborhood environment. Another program included in all of the cuniculums is the
program which shows how the natural world can be made relevant to urban students
(Gross, Wilke, & Passineau, 1989).
Science Oriented Learning: Science Alive!
Science Oriented Learning, a non-profit affiliate of the Earth Island Institute, has
developed an innovative science and social studies program designed for grades 3-6.
Science Alive! has:
hands-on activities that require few materials and little preparation time
standardized student worksheets in English and Spanish
cooperative learning strategies built into the activities
problem-solving, democratic decision-making and critical analysis emphasized in
experiments and projects \
been adapted for use by teachers and youth leaders indoors as well as outdoors
been designed in an easy to understand step-by-step format ("Science Alive!" Science
Oriented Learning)
Southern University at Baton Rouge/Center for Energy and the
Environment
Minority Undergraduate Training for Energy Related Careers (MUTEC): The
center offers research and internship programs for minority undergraduates in science and
engineering. The Center for Energy and the Environment hopes to baptize more minorities
into the field of environmental science.
Environmental Restoration in Waste Management: This program is done in
conjunction with the Department of Energy to get Historically Black Colleges and
University (HBCU) students to undertake professional careers in environmental education
(phone interview, Dr. Robert L. Ford, 1990).
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The University of Michigan/School of Natural Resources: Rouge River
Project
"With approximately 1.5 million residents in its mostly urban watershed, the Rouge
has been identified as one of the worst of 42 pollution hot spots in the Great Lakes Basin."
The Interactive Rouge River Water Quality Monitoring Project is an innovative program
that raises students' awareness of their surroundings while they take steps to clean-up the
river. It has produced a computer communications network in which hundreds of students
from not only the Rouge basin, but riversheds across the United States and in a growing
list of other countries, can discuss their concerns, strategies, and courses of action to
improve water quality. The program's technology helps override socioeconomic and racial
boundaries to forge strong links among the students. In Saginaw, the Rouge runs through
the center of the cit^creating a gap between the minority and the white middle class
communities. The Rouge River Project helps bridge this gap between suburban and inner-
city students in the connection between themselves and the environment ("Recovering the
Rouge... or the River as Classroom." Beebe.A.).
Community Organizations:
* American Lun? Association: Sacramento. CA
The American Lung Association develops environmental education material for the
general public and for 120 urban public schools. Videos and brochures, which are
sometimes written in Spanish, are used to address the environmental concern of air quality.
Camp Esteem: Fresno. CA
Camp Esteem is an environmental education program for "at-risk" middle school
kids. Combating the problem of high drop-out rates, this outdoor camp for young people
from Fresno develops positive self-images, encourages interest in academics, creates
awareness of the environment and man's role as steward of the environment, provides
positive role models, and discourages the abuse of alcohol and other drugs. Funded by
local sources, the two-week Camp Esteem is an ongoing program that has about 200
seventh and eighth grade students participating each year. Selection is determined by
Fresno Unified School District personnel who attempt to choose those students who are at
risk of becoming involved in substance abuse and who are potential dropouts. The
program draws students from throughout the city; all social, economic, and ethnic groups
are represented ("Camp Esteem- Environmental Education Program for 'At-Risk' Middle
School Kids." Fresno Unified School District).
Christodora Foundation: Manice Education Center
The Christodora Foundation operates in New York City as a grant-giving
institution. The Foundation's grants focus on environmental education. The common
ground of tfl-€hristodora grants is that they enable city children to better understand and
value the environment that surrounds them. Funded programs often bear an essential
relationship to the Manice Education Center, an environmental center situated in the
Berkshire Mountains of Northwestern Massachusetts ("Christodora, Inc." Christodora
Foundation). The primary goals of the Center are to:
• introduce students to the world of nature, stimulating their enthusiasm for learning in
the outdoors
• nurture sensitivity to and understanding of the human place within natural ecosystems
• develop students' capacity for leadership, self-reliance, and group cooperation
• instill in students an appreciation for the natural world, the value of conservation and to
help promote minority participation and leadership in the conservation movement and in
the sciencesin general ("Manice Education Center." Christodora-Manice Education
Center)
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East Bav Regional Park District: Tilden Regional Park Junior Rangers
The Junior Ranger Program is run by naturalists from the Environmental Education
Center in Tilden Regional Park. Jr. Rangers gain the skills and confidence to develop a
lifelong environmental ethic. Because enrollment is limited to thirty children, interested
boys and girls, nine to twelve years old, are given short, informal interviews. Selections
are made by lottery with priorities given toward maintaining a balance of ages, sexes, and
races ("Tilden Regional Park Junior Rangers." East Bay Regional Park District, 1988).
Ecology Center. Berkeley. California: Ecology Center Newsletter
The newsletter is a guide to Bay Area Environmental Education Resources. This
monthly publication also prints written statements and an by young children on
environmental issues. The Ecology Center Newsletter also prints editorials on specific
environmental action topics.
The guide is a chart listing the Bay Area Environmental Education programs geared
toward assisting parents and teachers. The available resources are divided into seven
categories; camps, curricula, day trips, general information, materials, mobile resources,
and teacher information/workshops. There is a brief synopsis about each program
describing prices, age groups, times, phone numbers, and programs ("Ecology Center
Newsletter." Ecology Center, 1990).
General Land Office: Austin. Texas
In an effort to promote a generally sound environment, the General Land Office
organizes programs that address environmental issues such as recycling and household
toxics. Adopt-a-Beach is one of their effective projects in which organizations "adopt" a
mile sector of the gulf coast beach to clean up. When- publicizing their programs, such as
Adopt-a-Beach, the General Land Office translates the material into Spanish to better
accommodate the large Spanish population in Texas (phone interviews, Mr. John Hamilton
& Mr. Don Cook, General Land Office, September, 1990).
"V
Greater Newark Conservancy
The Greater Newark Conservancy is a non-profit organization that addresses
environmental, urban horticultural, and revitalization issues. GNC publishes a newsletter,
"City Bloom, " which brings a greater awareness to Newark residents of the need to
become better informed about our changing environment. As a part of the Greater Newark
Conservancy's effort to reach the city's Hispanic population, it uses the media— an
interview on a television show that serves the Hispanic community. Topics covered
included recycling, air and water pollution, the greenhouse effect, global wanning, the
need for active involvement of citizens and how these issues affect the Hispanic and urban
communities ("City Bloom." The Greater Newark Conservancy .ft 990).
Los Anfeles Conservation Corps: Clean and Green
This program employs approximately 300, generally minority, junior or senior high
school students to work four days a week doing environmental educational related projects.
Three regional coordinators find projects through community groups for the workers.
The one day they do not work, they receive environmental education through
environmental hands-on activities and skills (phone interview, Anne Savage, 1990).
Mount Clair State College: Jersey Citv Program
The Jersey City Program is a year-long camp that has been in existence for
approximately ten years. Many of the teachers and children in the camps are minorities
from cities around New Jersey. The Jersey City Program provides an interaction between
cultural groups while teaching an appreciation for the environment. Children are involved
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in hands-on activities including field work and studies on water ecology (phone interview,
Dr. John Kirk, August, 1990).
Newark Of nee of Reeve line
In its efforts to promote recycling and "precycling" (making environmentally sound
decisions at the store), the Newark Office of Recycling offers recycling guides and
provides, free of charge, containers for Newark residents in which to store their
recyclables. In addition, they distribute recycling calendars written in Portuguese and
Spanish to inform members of non-English speaking communities about the need for waste
reduction (Newark Office of Recycling, 1990).
Oakland Museutp
Science Refch Program: The Oakland Museum uses this program to teach middle
school "at risk" children who have English as a second language about environmental
education. Literature and slide shows are used by the teacher to familiarize the class with
the museum and its programs before they visit. When they get to the museum they will
participate in two "classroom" type environmental education activities, and tour the
museum. They will also be addressed by people of color, who work at the museum, about
environmental education.
African American Professionals in the Sciences Program: African Americans in
science fields guest lecture to the children about their specific science profession. This
program is an attempt to teach "at risk" children about the environmental sciences, and
hopefully to attract more of the minority population to the environmental staff.
Species and Communities At Risk Program: The object of this museum program is
to link children to the concepts of the community environment. The children discover the
diversities within their families, communities, and the world. These activities are followed
up by being addressed by community activists.
Family Science: This programs focus is to achieve equity in science education
targeted to black families.
Interface Institute: Interface Institute is an afterschool program that targets people
of color in middle school. It is involved with enrichment activities in math and science.
The institute also tries to provide environmental education resources to those who need it.
(phone interview, Sandy Bredt, Oakland Museum, 1990)
"Passport Earth" Project: Palo Alto. California
This program was started at the Earth Day 1990 Festival. It is concerned with
everyday environmental problems, but its main focus is to raise awareness of the value of
the naturaFBiy Area in the Palo Alto area.
This program is aimed at children in grades K-6 from the largely minority populated
Palo Alto and East Menlo. The purpose of the program is to reward a child for the
completion of an environmental activity with a stamp in their "passport." Some of the
activities were concerned with environmental issues such as wetland conservation,
pollution, and recycling. The goal of the children is to complete as many environmental
activities as possible in order to collect stamps in their "passport." After a certain amount
of stamps, they are rewarded with prizes (phone interview, Emily Renzel, 1990).
Pocono Environmental Education Center (PEEC): Summer Enrichment
Program for New York Citv Youth at Risk
PEEC, in cooperation with the National Park Service, is a self-supporting, non-
profit organization that is committed to the education of individuals, minorities, people with
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special needs, and social communities. The PEEC Summer Enrichment Program is a
residential environmental studies component of the New York City Division of High
Schools Summer Chapter One program for incoming high school students. This school-
based summer program serves to facilitate the development of at-risk youth in the use of
field experiences which provide experiential learning. The program is designed to improve
the chance of school success for incoming ninth and tenth grade students who often lack
first hand knowledge of the world beyond their immediate environment other than school-
based experiences. The PEEC Summer Enrichment Program includes activities that:
• enhance self-esteem
• create positive attitudes toward learning
• foster psychological growth
• increase the feeling of responsibility for our environment ("Summer Enrichment
Program for New York City- Youth at Risk at the PEEC." Pocono Environmental
Education Center, 1990)
Project USE (Urban Suburban Environments}
Project USE is a private, non-profit educational corporation. During this past year,
Project USE has operated two programs for youth-at-risk for the New Jersey Division of
Youth and Family ("Friends of Project USE." Project USE, 1989).
Trek Program: The Trek Program is a 60-day wilderness program designed for at-
risk youth, from Newark, New Jersey, who are in need of support services. The program
includes wilderness experiences, counseling and community service projects. A similar
program has been run by Project USE for the past six years (letter received from Phillip
Costello, Executive Director, Project USE, 1990).
Division of Youth and Family Services: For the past seven years, Project USE has
conducted 7-day outdoor courses with youth-at-risk, who are under the care of the Division
of Youth and Family Services, from about twelve different New Jersey communities (letter
received from Phillip Costello, Executive Director, Project USE, 1990).
•V
"Skipping Stones": Cottage Grove. Oregon
This periodical expresses sensitivity toward and creative interaction with nature. It
expresses that "environmental activities are best when they include sensory interaction,
critical thinking, and creative expression. Activities that lead to further questioning,
synthesizing, and exploration allow us to feel comfortable with the complexity of our living
systems."
The magazine prints writing and artwork by children and young adults that will
increase cultural awareness and encourage reader participation. It especially encourages
submissions by children from under-represented populations. Thef writings may be in any
language ariong as there is also an English translation. "Skipping Stones" has featured:
• environmental games and puzzles in Spanish and English
• a special bilingual issue in Spanish
• writings and artwork from children in Russia, India.Nicaragua, Ethiopia, Japan,
China, and Taiwan ("Skipping Stones.", 1990)
Slide Ranch: Muir Beach. California
Slide Ranch is a non-profit demonstration teaching farm. It operates as a Park
Partner with the Golden Gate National Recreation Area and has been offering educational
programs since 1970. Slide Ranch:
• teaches principles of ecology using the farm, wildlands, and ocean environment
through interactive learning experiences
• expands the opportunities of multi-ethnic, inner city, and physically or mentally
disadvantaged Bay Area residents for contact with farms and wildlands
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• introduces the wonders of the natural world in a non-threatening manner
• provides responsible stewardship for the land and the natural communities
• develops teaching and professional skills of residential environmental interns ("Slide
Ranch." Slide Ranch, 1990)
* University of Illinois
The University of Illinois has developed a program which includes urban students
called ROAR (Recycle Our Available Resources). Through the use of music, they try to
teach kids about recycling.
Action Speak: This program, which is more targeted for urban youth 7 years old
and up, tries to show the impact these students can have on the environment. One of the
activities that is stressed the most is having students read material on current environmental
issues. •
Plastics: This program is strictly for nigh school students. Some of the activities of
"Plastics" are the same as those of "Action Speak", but perhaps, the most interesting
activity is making playground equipment from recycled plastic.
ROAR is a program which has been very successful in reaching out to urban
students to inform them about environmental issues. There have also been follow-up
studies of the students that have been involved in ROAR each year that have shown that
these students have a higher tendency to recycle and to become more involved in their
respective communities.
University of Rhode Island: Environmental Education Center
The center works toward increasing awareness and knowledge of one's
surroundings and how we can work toward a better environment. Their concerns are
mainly water quality, wildlife conservation, and sustainable land use and development.
They work in their local area, but not exclusively.
The center is involved with a camp for 8-12 year olds. The foci of the camp are
farmsteading and ecology. There is also a summer teen expedition for 13-16 year olds.
Both of these programs offer scholarships for disadvantaged populations to cover the cost
of the fee.
The center is also involved with schools through environmental education
programs. They are concerned with forest and freshwater ecology, farmsteading and
gardening, Native American studies, and Rhode Island and rural New England cultural
history. Also involved with the school are their teacher training workshops. They offer
graduate and internship programs in environmental education.
centeTalso loans out videos and books on environmental topics to aid
environmental education (information received from Martha Cheo, 1990).
Younf Growers Produce
Young Growers Produce is a young and growing company which was founded and
is operated principally by the youth and young adults of North Richmond, California.
Through the sponsorship of Neighborhood House of North Richmond, Dr. Shelby
Givens, of Oakland, designed and implemented the program. Young Growers Produce is
now administered through a non-profit organization cofounded by Dr. Givens and Patricia
Hicks, President of Hicks and Associates, Management Consultants, also of Oakland.
Young Growers Produce has become a fully functioning business enterprise that provides
urban youth and young adults with training in urban agricultural production and the
23
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development of entrepreneurial skills ("Young Growers Produce." Young Growers
Produce).
ANALYSIS OF RESULTS
As the results of this report indicate, there are an increasing number of
environmental education efforts that appropriately address urban poor and minority
populations. The majority of the programs discovered in this study are initiated at a
grassroots level and are geared toward educating the youth in America, suggesting a trend
in environmental education. Environmental education is sometimes integrated into school
curricula, in teacher training workshops, and in youth camps. Although this sample is not
conclusive of a trend across the entire United States, it is apparent that our country has
recognized the importance of increasing the environmental awareness of the youth today in
order to preserve our world for the future.
The urban environmental education programs examined in this project appear to
follow a general pattern. The common ground of many youth-oriented programs is that
they enable inner city children to better understand and value the environment that
surrounds them. Hunter College of the City University of New York, for example,
sponsors projects for young minority students and their teachers that introduce them to the
natural elements and lifestyles of a rural environment-- an environment many of them may
never have seen before. Many programs such as these provide activities to compare the
urban environment to that of a rural setting in hopes that what inner city children take away
from their experiences will later be incorporated into their own urban environment.
The objectives of these programs are accomplished in various ways. Outdoor
camps, workshops, field trips, and school programs are a few of the successful methods
for educating youth discovered in this study. An increasing number of school programs
are being developed to strengthen and broaden existing curricula by integrating
environmental concepts into the instruction of English, math, social studies, science, and
the arts, creating an understanding of the environment in both teachers and students.
Outdoor youth camps, also found to be a popular means of providing urban environmental
education, generally offer hands-on activities and field trips that involve active participation
in solving environmental problems. Camps appear to be very effective in stimulating
enthusiasm for learning in the outdoors, and as a result, are being implemented throughout
the country. For example, Sea Camp introduces children to the marine environment in
California, while Nature's Classroom provides outdoor environmental learning experiences
at the Brandywine Creek State Park Nature Center in Delaware.
X
In addition, programs targeted to urban poor and minorities often include activities
that increase self-esteem and promote leadership in the environmental movement and in the
sciences in general. This goal is important because underrepresented groups frequently
receive little encouragement to pursue education, and may have negative attitudes toward
learning. The Christodora Manice Education Center, an excellent example, introduces
students from the city to the world of nature, while developing their capacity for leadership,
self-reliance, and group cooperation.
There also appears to be a rising number of colleges and universities that are
providing opportunities for urban poor and minority populations to study environmental
science. Oklahoma State University's High School Academy is designed to make a select
group of high school students aware of major environmental issues and problems such as
energy conservation, toxics, solid waste, and recycling. Through the use of classroom,
laboratory, and field instruction, underrepresented minority groups and women become
knowledgeable about the ecological concepts that connect the issues and the problems,
24
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while learning of their role in dealing with these problems in the future. The High School
Academy , as well as programs similar to it, not only actively seek minorities as
participants, but also are designed to specifically target the environmental concerns of these
underrepresented groups. Urban environmental education efforts like these can clearly be
considered effective efforts at instilling an environmental ethic in urban communities. In
fact, all the programs listed in the previous results section are considered to be effective in
providing urban environmental education. Each program satisfies all the criteria geared to
determining its effectiveness: informing residents about specific environmental issues;
establishing a connection between local and global environmental issues; and suggesting
actions that can be taken by community residents to affect or change their immediate
surroundings (criteria from Verrett, 1990).
After examining the programs, it became obvious that although many different
methods are used, the final product is the same; these programs seem to have a positive
impact on urban poor and minority communities. For instance, school curricula designed
to inform urban students of the need to recycle in order to conserve natural resources uses a
different approach from that of a water quality monitoring project where students'become
aware of their surroundings while they take steps to clear up a water source. However,
both are examples of programs that may effectively address urban poor and minority
populations.
While all the programs discovered in this study arc felt to be effective, a few appear
to stand out among the others. It was felt that these programs offer some of the most
innovative strategies for urban environmental education.
The Pocono Environmental Education Center provides a number of programs that
introduce inner city students to a rural environment The Summer Enrichment Program for
New York City Youth At-Risk, as just one example, is a summer program for New York
City high school students who often lack first hand knowledge of the world beyond their
immediate surroundings other than school-based experiences. Designed to improve the
chance of academic success, the activities of the Summer Enrichment Program increase
self-esteem, create positive attitudes toward learning, and inform of the necessity to protect
the environment. The program uses field experiences which provide hands-on outdoor
activities as a means of investigating environmental problems in order to increase
environmental awareness. ~
Delta College's Localized Topic Video/Curriculum, although still being developed,
should prove to be very effective in addressing urban poor and minorities all over the
country. Local college faculty and PBS affiliations will develop curriculum material and
videos for urban high school teachers to use in their classroom to inform their students of
the environmental problems in their particular area. This educational "package" has a basic
design whtefrom be adapted to appropriately address different urban areas so as to include
the environmental concerns of those areas. For example, a package to be developed for a
high school teacher in Houston, Texas may address the problem of marine debris and
include material in Spanish to better accommodate the Hispanic students in that school.
Because curriculum material is frequently not specifically targeted (ie. a video of
environmental problems of Newark, New Jersey shown to a class in Sacramento,
California), Localized Topic Video/Curriculum offers a new approach that will enable
students to understand the environmental concerns in their own area. As a result, students
may be encouraged to become actively involved in protecting or improving their
environment. Since this project is transferable to any urban area in the country, it seems
that this idea could expand other existing efforts in urban environmental education.
The University of Michigan's Rouge River Project is an innovative water
monitoring project that has already been successful in expanding the urban environmental
25
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education movement. It has produced a computer communications network in which
hundreds of students from not only the Rouge basin, but riversheds across the United
States and even in other countries, can discuss their concerns, strategies, and courses of
action to improve water quality. In Saginaw, Michigan, the Rouge runs through the center
of the city, separating the minority and white middle class communities. The Rouge River
Project, and similar projects in other areas in the country, encourage students to immerse
themselves in their efforts to evaluate and understand their environment. In addition, these
programs help override socioeconomic and racial boundaries to forge a link between
suburban and inner city students in the connection between themselves and the
environment. -:
Although some of the programs found in this study appear extremely successful in
their urban environmental education efforts, including the examples above, others
examined did not specifically target minority and urban audiences at all. However, it was
felt that these programs include strategies that could appropriately address these groups.
Some programs are developed in urban areas where there is a large concentration of
minorities; others address environmental issues such as solid waste, pollution, and lead
paint which are most evident in urban areas; and some even provide material in languages
other than English that accommodate minorities who are non-English speaking. As a
result, these programs are reaching urban poor and minorities without specifically targeting
their efforts.
An example is the Energy Award Program for Student Energy Projects which is
sponsored by the California Energy Extension Service. Although it is conducted
throughout California and is not specifically targeted to any particular group, there is
generally greater participation by minority students. Another example is the school
curriculum produced by Refuse Industry, Inc. The material, which includes information
on waste management issues, uses multicultural characters as "recycling friends" and
incorporates a Native American family into its lessons. While this curriculum is developed
for an entire school, its approach will appropriately address all audiences, urban minorities
included.
In summary, there appears to be many positive accomplishments in the area of
urban environmental education, particularly at a grassroots level. Although this study
produced only a small sample of all the existing efforts in our country, it is apparent that
our society has recognized the need for everyone, especially those in urban communities
where environmental concerns are most evident, to become environmentally literate in order
to effectively protect our environment. If the programs discovered in this study are any
indication of the total urban environmental education effort, it appears that we are definitely
on the right track in helping to establish a strong environmental ethic in our country.
26
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CONCLUSIONS
As a result of this study, the following conclusions have been developed
concerning urban environmental education:
CONCLUSION: There is an apparent need for more environmental
education targeted to urban poor and minority
populations.
A large percentage of our society now resides in urban areas--a majority of which is
low income and minority. It is no secret that urban environmental problems are extensive
and include such Issues of congestion, pollution, lead paint, asbestos, and solid waste.
However, because many inner city residents are frequently faced with the more immediate
concerns of poverty and unemployment, they may be unaware of the necessity to protect
their environment. Urban residents are also frequently unaware both of the environmental
risks in their area, and the relationship between local environmental concerns and global
environmental issues. It is therefore imperative that we not only appropriately address the
environmental concerns of urban America, but that we also empower this community
through environmental education. Only through education can urban poor and minority
populations learn how to enhance their role in protecting and improving their environmental
health. ^
CONCLUSION: There appears to be a limited amount of federal
and state activity directed toward urban environmental
education.
The results of this study support the findings of a previous EPA report in
confirming that there are a limited number of urban environmental education and training
efforts initiated at the federal and state level. Federal and state organizations provide
services for a large audience consisting of a wide variety of population groups. Therefore,
many of these organizations feel that while they develop environmental education programs
to inform the general public, it is inappropriate to specifically target urban poor and
minority groups. Thus, most environmental education and training programs sponsored by
the federal government or by state governments and organizations address the needs of the
entire nation or an entire state instead of targeting the particular needs of one community.
CONCLUSION: Grassroots organizations need adequate funding in order
to be truly effective.
There are a rising number of innovative urban environmental education programs
that in 11 liHHj tin i Injii il by grassroots organizations. Many of these organizations are
community-based and are able to specifically target their environmental education efforts to
urban poor and minority groups. Urban grassroots organizations have close contact with
the local community and thus become aware of the specific environmental risks facing that
community. They can, therefore, appropriately target their programs to address these
issues.
Unfortunately, many grassroots organizations lack the funding needed to provide
truly effective programs. Some may be in need of more staff; some may need new
equipment, or even new office space. Limited funds, always a problem for small
grassroots organizations, may indeed force the closing of initiatives that are innovative and
successful. With adequate funding, grassroots organizations could continue and even
expand their efforts to provide programs that include effective strategies for reaching
community residents with practical and targeted environmental education initiatives.
-------
CONCLUSION: Much of the work done by grassroots organizations seems
to go without notice by governmental groups,
environmental organizations, as well as the general
public.
This study discovered several grassroots organizations that are actively involved in
environmental education targeted to urban poor and minority populations. However, the
team concluded that there may be a multitude of grassroots organizations that remain
undetected because much of the work done by these groups seems to go without notice.
There appears to be little communication among individual grassroots organizations
and even less between these groups and federal or state organizations. Because of the
limited amount of networking between organizations, many organizations never learn of
other successful urban environmental education programs. Also, many organizations,
particularly small community groups, do not publicize their efforts. Some organizations do
not possess the needed funds to publish literature and others do not feel that written
material appropriately addresses the audiences that they target. Such organizations may
prefer to use a "word-of-mouth" method to inform urban poor and minority communities
about environmental issues.
CONCLUSION: There is a need for more communication between
grassroots organizations and the EPA.
While organizations at the grassroots level need to better understand the EPA's role
in urban environmental education, the EPA also needs to learn of effective urban
environmental education efforts that are being developed by grassroots organizations.
There appears to be a need for more inter-communication between these two groups.
In general, it was found that most grassroots organizations are skeptical of
environmental education attempts of the Environmental Protection Agency. They often
believe that the EPA is only concerned with regulating or taking control of existing urban
environmental education programs. Moreover, local groups feel that the EPA is unaware
of local urban environmental needs and is unable to address the needs and concerns of
urban poor and minorities at a level which these groups can understand. Because of this
communication gap, grassroots organizations may not recognize that the Environmental
Protection Agency has a genuine interest in assisting on-going, successful environmental
education efforts which are targeted toward urban poor and minority populations.
CONCLUSION: There is a need for more minority students to become
educated in science and engineering fields.
America is changing demographically, particularly in the composition of its young
people. Minorities now make-up a large percentage of this population and so are
increasingly entering the workforce. However, the number of minorities preparing for
careers in science and engineering is minimal. Many minority students are frequently never
given real encouragement to enter technical fields and thus, never fully develop a long-term
interest in math and science fields.
Most of our country's experienced scientists and engineers recruited after Sputnik
will be retiring in the 1990's, creating a void of science and engineering professionals. At
the same time, the workforce is increasingly becoming comprised of minorities and women
(The Task Force on Women, Minorities, and the Handicapped in Science and Technology,
1988). For this reason, it is imperative that we encourage minority students to become
more literate in mathematics and science. If we are to continue as an advanced industrial
society, many must enter science and engineering careers. As environmental issues
28
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become more complex, the need arises for those in technical fields to study environmental
problems and become active in environmental organizations. It is apparent that decision
makers in all fields must become environmentally Literate if we are to effectively protect our
environment.
RECOMMENDATIONS
One of the goals of this research project was to formulate and present a set of
recommendations to the Education and Training Committee of the EPA's National
Advisory Council for Environmental Policy and Technology. The Committee will consider
these recommendations regarding how the Environmental Protection Agency can best assist
environmental education efforts for urban poor and minority populations. These
recommendations will lay the groundwork for its effort to develop recommendations to be
forwarded to the EPA Administrator which address this issue. ,,
Below is the set of eight recommendations formulated by this research team. Each
one was formulated by either one or both of the following procedures:
• Through a literature review and data search
• Through phone interviews with environmental educators or faculty
BACKGROUND RECOMMENDATION 1:
Because EPA is recognized as the central organization in environmental protection
across the United States, smaller programs and organizations look to it for assistance.
Although ready to help, the EPA may not always be able to because it is already
overwhelmed by requests for information. For example, at the EPA Headquarters in
Washington, D.C., the EPA operates a hotline which is manned by 30 operators who are
overwhelmed with requests for information. A great deal of the information requested
from this hotline may also be available at the regional offices. Since many who use the
Headquarters' hotline are calling from regions outside of Washington, D.C., they may be
able to obtain the information they need through their respective regions.
RECOMMENDATION 1: The EPA regional offices could improve their
information distribution methods.
A regional hotline set up at each regional office would not only alleviate the
pressure on Headquarters, but would also allow the EPA to better distribute its
information.
Another way regional offices could improve their distribution methods would be to
organize regional directories. The public could have access to updated information
concerning regional environmental education programs, including phone numbers,
addresses, and program descriptions. Although the total fulfillment of this idea may be
difficult, it does have some merit. For instance, regional studies on environmental
education would be less difficult if regional catalogs existed.
BACKGROUND RECOMMENDATION 2:
The limited amount of effort directed at urban environmental education may be a
result of the inadequate representation of urban poor and minorities in the field of
environmental science. Without their input and involvement in this field, it is difficult to
29
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develop programs that appropriately address urban environmental needs and concerns. It
appears that there are not enough minorities in the environmental sciences to affect change.
In the near future, minorities will make up a large pan of our society. If we are to
continue to improve our environmental situation in the future, we need to educate this
population.
RECOMMENDATION 2: The EPA could serve as a model by employing
minorities as interns, researchers, or employees.
This recommendation was introduced to us through contacts during our phone
interviewing. One program director suggested that grassroots organizations could steer
minorities to the EPA who could, in turn, offer them apprenticeships or other job
opportunities. If the EPA takes the initiative to introduce minorities to the environmental
sciences, other organizations may follow its lead. In the long run, this could increase
minority involvement in the environmental field.
BACKGROUND RECOMMENDATION 3:
Environmental education and training on ail levels and in all areas have traditionally
been underfunded. This can be attributed to the tradition of such programs being
undervalued. Proactive environmental programs that aim to achieve long-term results do
not seem to receive the priority of prevention programs that produce immediate results.
During our phone interviewing, we asked the respondents about their opinion
regarding how the EPA could best assist the existing efforts in environmental education and
training for urban poor and minority populations. The overwhelming responses were
grants and staff assistance.
RECOMMENDATION 3: The EPA could support and become more directly
involved with urbanenvironmental education
programs.
The EPA may consider offering grants to certain model urban environmental
education programs. The non-profit programs would be selected through an application
process. These programs would then be considered EPA "model" programs. Not only
would this process act as an incentive to many programs, but it could also help support
effective programs that lack the proper funding needed to expand their efforts.
BACKGROUND RECOMMENDATION 4:
In pur research, we found some successful environmental education and training
programs. Unfortunately, there is little communication among the various sponsors of
these programs. There appears to be no network through which these sponsors can
communicate.
This idea of networking was also one of the top responses given to us in regard to
our our question: How can the EPA best assist existing efforts in environmental education
for urban poor and minority populations?
RECOMMENDATION 4: The EPA could create a networking system
through which organizations sponsoring
environmental programs can communicate.
Because of the lack of a networking infrastructure, the sponsors of programs may
be unaware of relevant work done in a particular area. As a result, a program may be
30
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implemented in one area that has already been unsuccessful somewhere else, wasting
precious time and money.
With an adequate network system, environmental organizations could be exposed to
the best and most up-to-date environmental education and training methods, materials, and
data bases.
BACKGROUND RECOMMENDATION 5:
Through our extensive information search, we found a number of programs that in
one way or another work with four year colleges or universities to improve environmental
education for minorities. It was pointed out to us during our phone interviewing that a
larger concentration of urban poor and minorities may be found at the two year community
college level. ^
RECOMMENDATION 5: The EPA could support or participate in more
urban environmental education programs with
two year community colleges.
Specifically targeted environmental education programs for the urban poor and
minority populations may have better participation in a place where more minorities and
urban poor students are located.
BACKGROUND RECOMMENDATION 6:
When creating our surveys, we tried to think of a few reasons why some
environmental education programs may be attractive to minorities and urban poor
populations. A few of these reasons include cost, availability, and the language barrier.
With this in mind, we formulated questions to gain information from programs concerning
these topics. From a combination of survey information and phone interview information,
we determined that written communication may be a problem between the EPA and
minority and urban poor communities. It is sometimes difficult for urban poor and
minorities to understand the EPA's material, which is often used in urban environmental
education programs. If the problem was not a foreign language barrier, it was a technical
language barrier.
RECOMMENDATION 6: The EPA could advocate and produce materials
that are easily understood by all minorities and
urban poor on all levels and in all necessary
languages.
BACKGROUND. RECOMMENDATION 7:
Our last recommendation came as a direct result from the opinions expressed by our
phone interviewees. By speaking with many of our contacts, we discovered that the
smaller environmental education groups feel out of touch with the EPA. Some of the
contacts feel intimidated and uneasy about working with the EPA.
RECOMMENDATION 7: The EPA could enhance its public relations.
The EPA should let the public know that it is there to help. Some suggestions
would be to produce a few public service announcements, make on-site visits with
environmental educators, and engage in more guest-lecturing to schools. Not only could
these suggestions improve public relations, but also they could serve to advocate
environmental protection.
31
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APPENDIX A
Target Cities
-------
Target City
Total Percent Environmental
Population Black Hispanic Problem(s)
Boston
Atlanta
Chicago
Austin
Sacramento
641,000 22.4 6.4
495,000 66.6 1.4
3,369,000 39.8 14.0
254,000 12.2 18.7
257,000 13.4 14.2
water pollution
air pollution
soil pollution
toxic waste
lead in water
pesticides '
asbestos
vapor release
garbage/recycling
(United States Department of Commerce, 1989)
-------
APPENDIX B
Organizational Survey
-------
Your Name:
Name of Organization:
Location:
1.) Do you offer materials for environmental education as part of
you usual efforts?
Yes No (circle one)
2.) If yes, what sort of material(s) do you offer?
(you may circle more than
one)
a.) films
b.) videos
^ c.) workbooks
d.) textbooks
e.) slide shows
f.) computer software/
programs
g.) other
3.) Are the materials you offer specifically targeted at the
environmental concerns of your organization in the geographic area
where you are located?
Yes No (circle one)
3a.) If yes, ^hat are"your environmental concerns?
4.) Are your materials targeted at specific population groups such as
urban populations or minorities?
.._: Yes No (circle one)
4a.) If yes, what population groups?
5.) If you don't offer educational materials, do your efforts involve
the environmental education of urban poor/minority communities?
Yes No (circle one)
Sometimes
6.) Do you offer your environmental education materials in a
language other than English?
Yes No (circle one)
-------
Sometimes
6a.) If yes, what other language(s)?
7.) Why does your organization develop environmental education
materials?
a.) for use in schools
b.) for the general public
c.) other
8.) Do you offer training in the use of your material(s)? (ie. does a
member of your organization show the user of your material(s) how
to use it(them))?
Yes No (circle one)
Sometimes
8a.) If yes, is this training voluntary?
Yes No (circle one)
8b.) If no, is the training mandatory as a requirement for using the
material(s)?
Yes No (circle one)
9.) What sort of training do you offer?
10.) Is there a charge for your training?
Yes No (circle one)
11.) Is the training provided at the user's site (ie. at the school)?
Yes No (circle one)
12.) Is your material updated periodically?
Yes No (circle one)
12a.) If yes, how often is your material updated?
-------
After receiving your completed survey, we will be conducting
follow-up phone interviews in order to obtain more detailed information.
If you would like to participate please fill out your name and telephone
number on the following section of this survey. Thank you.
Name \
Position in Organization
Addres s
Telephone number ( )-_
Best time to contact you
Do you know other experts or possible contact people we should contact
who might complete this survey? (please list names, addresses, and phone
numbers)
Do you know other organizations or institutions we should contact? (please
list names, addresses, and phone numbers)
-------
APPENDIX C
School Survey
-------
School or School District name
1.) Is environmental education currently part of your curriculum?
Yes No (circle one)
Not sure
2.) Do you intend to include or continue to include environmental
education as part of your curriculum in the future?
Yes No (circle one)
2a.) If not, why? (please explain)
3.) Do your students express concern about their urban
environment?
Yes No (circle one)
Sometimes
3a.) If so, what issues concern them? (please explain)
4.) What type of materials(s) do you use to aid in educating you
students about environmental issues?
(you may circle more than
one)
a.) films
b.) videos
c.) workbooks
d.) textbooks
e.) slide shows
f.) computer software/
programs
g.) other .
-------
4a.) which of (a-g) is used most frequently? Why? (please
explain)
4b.) Out of the items listed which do you feel will work the best for
your students? Why? (It may be different from response in 4a.)
4c.) Are you familiar with environmental education materials
available from: (circle one)
Project Wild Yes No
Project Learning Tree Yes No
National Wildlife Federation Yes No
ERIC Yes No
EPEE Yes No
Water Pollution Control Federation Yes No
National Geographic Yes No
TVA Yes No
ECONET v Yes No
Environmental Clearinghouses Yes No
Universities' Schools of Education Yes No
Environmental Studies Yes No
Your state departments of health, environment, education
Yes No
4d.) If yes, please circle the names above that yqu are most familiar
• , 't
with.
5.) Do your students have access to personal computers?
Yes No (circle one)
6.) Is the material that you use appropriately targeted to your
students?
Yes No (circle one)
7.) Is this material written at an appropriate age level?
Yes No (circle one)
-------
8.) Does this material acknowledge the ethnic differences among
your students?
Yes No (circle one)
Sometimes
9.) Is this material targeted to an urban population?
Yes No (circle one)
10.) Does this material address the environmental concerns of your
geographical arga?
Yes No (circle one)
Sometimes
11.) Do you find the appropriate material readily available?
Yes No (circle one)
Sometimes
12.) Is there any form of training offered/available in the use of
these materials for those administrating the program?
Yes No (circle one)
Sometimes
12a.) If yes, is the training easily accessible?
Yes No (circle one)
12b.) If no, would the program work more effectively with some
type of training?
Yes No (circle one)
Not Sure
13.) How is the training provided?
a.) by trained professionals
b.) by volunteers
c.) other
14.) How effectively is environmental education integrated into your
total curriculum?
12345
not integrated totally integrated
15.) Could you please list some of your criteria for effectiveness?
-------
16.) Do you believe environmental education should be integrated
into existing courses, or should it be a separate course? (please
explain your answer)
17.) How did you find out about the materials available to aid you in
your environmental education curriculum?
18.) Do you have a budget that will allow you to purchase materials
that are necessary for environmental education programs?
Yes No (circle one)
18a.) Is there a fee for materials?
Yes No (circle one)
19.) Do you find appropriate material readily available?
Yes No (circle one)
20.) How do you access environmental materials (ie. on loan from
the library, purchased, provided free from the organization)?
20a.) Please list contacts if possible and describe the way you go
about getting material.
-------
After receiving your completed survey, we will be conducting
follow-up phone interviews in order to obtain more detailed information.
If you would like to participate please fill out your name and telephone
number on the following section of this survey. Thank you.
Name i
T
Position in school system
Address
Telephone number ( )-
Best time to contact you _.
Do you know other experts or possible contact people we should contact
who might complete this survey? (please list names, addresses, and phone
numbers)
Do you know other organizations or institutions we should contact? (please
list names, addresses, and phone numbers)
-------
APPENDIX D
Contact List
-------
The following list of contacts are of those we interviewed over the
telephone. Although their information was not appropriate for our study, it
may be of some use to the Environmental Protection Agency. The contact
names are listed in alphabetical order.
Lisa Abbot
Student Environmental Action Coalition
Campus Y
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
CB#5115, rm. 102 YMCA Bldg.
Chapel Hill, NC 27599-5115
(919)962-2084
I
Howard Adams •
The National Center for Graduate Education for Minorities
(219)287-1097
American Council on Education
Office of Minority Concerns
(202) 939-9395
Carl Anthony
Earth Island Institute v
(415) 547-1794
David Baker
National Wildlife Federation
(202) 797-5472
(716) 877-2004
Dr. John Baker
Agriculture and Natural Resources
4H(Boston)
(413) 545-4800
Rachel Baker
San Francisco Conservation Corps.
(415) 826-7800
Clyde Belcourt
(612) 872-7812
Tom Benjamin
FUND Consultants, Inc.
(703) 335-1816
Dr. Bernard Benson
University of Tennessee
(615) 755-4237
Dr. Richard Berne
Western Carolina University
Center for Environmental/Energy Education
(704) 227-7476
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Jack Bond
City Manager, Durhant, NC
(919) 560-0000
Dr. Kofi Bota
Clark Atlanta University
(404) 880-8597
Lester Brown
World Watch Institute, Pres. CEO
(202) 452-1999
Miles Brown
Department of Environmental Protection
(617) 292-5500
Steve Brown
Council of State Governments
(606) 231-1866
Richard Brown
Dir., Office of Environment and Energy
(202) 708-2894
Bunyan Bryant
University of Michigan, School of Natural Resources
(313) 763-2470
Pat Bryant
Gulf Coast Tenants Leadership ^
(504) 949-4919
Care Butler, Program director
Opening Doors to the World
The Fresno County Office of the Superintendent of Schools
2314 Mariposa
Fresno, CA 93721
(209) 488-3337
Cal. State Univ. at Hay ward '
(415) 881-3016
(415) 881-3361
Dona Canales
National Audubon Society
(212) 832-3200 NY
(202) 547-9009 DC
Dr. Zerle Carpenter
Natural Resources, 4H (Austin)
(409) 845-7967
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Bill Carter
Ecology Action
(512) 474-6247
Center for Environmental Management
(617) 381-3486
Center for Third World Organizing
(415) 654-9601
Dr. Ben Chavis
United Church of Christ
Commission for Racial Injustice
(212) 870-2077
Marsha Chen
CEIP
(617) 426-4375
Ed Chiosso
County Office of Education
(415) 363-5400
Jack Clifford, Program Analyst
Office of Water
Washington, D.C.
(202) 382-5684
Tom Colwell
New York Center for the Urban Environment
(212)998-5637
Jeff Cooke
CEIP Fund
(617) 426-4375
Doug Cooper
Office of Administrator, EPA
(202) 382-4727
Dr. Anthpny C<
Dean, Center for Environmental Management
Tufts University
Medford, MA
(617)381-3486
Don Dahlston
U Cal., Dept. of Nat. Resources
(415) 642-4249
Dianne Davis j
/ Natural Resources, 4H(Atlanta)
( (404) 485-2831 '(
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Desquesne University
(916) 758-0470
Herbert Dixon
STEP
(615) 322-6178
Cheryle Dobbins
Historically Black Colleges/Universities and Minority Institutions
(HBCU/MI)
(202) 907-0322
Dr. Pat Doyle
Middle Tennessee State University
Jones Hall, Box 173
Murfreesboro, TN 87132
(615) 898-2069
Education Commission of the States
(202) 624-5838
David Engleson, Environmental Education Consultant
Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction
Box 7841
Madison, WI 53707
(608) 267-9266
Environmental Lobby of Massachusetts
(617) 742-2540
Executive Office of Environmental"Affairs
(617) 727-9800
Dr. Kenneth Farrell
Natural Resources, 4H(Sacramento)
(415) 987-0060
Kevin Flanagan
National Center for Municipal
Development, City of Boston \
(202) 429-0174
Ann Foskey, Outdoor Activity Center
1442 Richland Rd., SW
Atlanta, GA 30310
(404) 752-5385
Robin Freeman
(415) 655-3637
r
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Dr. Earl Gardner
University of North Alabama
P. O. Box 5015, Pine St.
Florence, AL 35632
(205) 760-4228
Dr. Linda Gibboney, Ph. D., Director
Education Extension, UCLA
(213) 825-4191
Dr. Shelby Gibbons
Entrepenurial Training in Urban Agriculture
(415)465-5158
Ellie Goodwin
Natural Resource Council SF
(415) 777-0220
Tim Gordon
East Bay Regional Park District
(415) 525-2233
Shirley Griffin
Department of Education
(508) 827-5907
Michael Guirrero
Southwest Organizing Project
(505) 247-8832
Herb Gunther
Public Media Center
(415) 434-1403
Dr. Bill Gustafson, Ph. D.
Continuing Education Specialist
Department of Engineering, Science, and Math, Division of Science
UCLA Extension/UCLA
(213) 825-7093
Dr. Cynthit Harris
ATSDR (Minority Health Initiative)
(404) 639-0600
Dr. Maurice Hartley
Rutgers University
(201)932-8513
Bill Harvey
Governors School on the Environment
(919) 737-3590
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Chappell Hayes
(415) 655-9832
Joan Heidelberg
NAEE (North American Association for Environmental Education)
Troy, NY
(513) 698-6493
Dr. Robert Helgesen
Natural Resources, 4H(Boston)
(413) 545-2766
Amahia Hicks
Commencement 2000
(415)705-2604
Lela Hill
Camps, Inc.
(415) 524-9280
Don Hplums
Council of Chief State School Offices
(303) 866-6787
Libby Hopkins
US Fish and Wildlife
(617) 965-5100 ext. 212
Bob Howe
ERIC
(614)292-6717
Human Environment Center
(202) 331-8387
Garland Hunter
Citizens for a Better Environment
(612) 824-8637
Dr. Louis lozzi
Rutgers University
(201) 932-9465
Janet Jackson
Philadelphia Zoo
(215) 243-1130 ext. 245
Carol Johnson
Opportunities in Science, Inc.
P. O. Box 1176, 1503 Jefferson Ave., SW
Bcmidji, MN 56601
(218)751-1110
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Robert Johnson
Environmental Performance, TVA
(615) 632-6599
Roy King, Coordinator
Environmental Education Outreach Programs
(904) 487-7900
Ken Komoski, Executive Director
EPIE Institute, Water Mill, NY
Environmental Products Information Exchange
(576) 283-4922 ,
*t
Winona LaDuke
Land Recovery Project
(218) 573-3049
(705) 658-4731
Kirk Laflin
New England Regional Wastewater Institute
2 Fort Rd.
S. Portland, ME 04106
(207) 767-2539
Mark Ledebetter
American Council for Energy Efficient
Economy
(202) 429-8873
Charles Lee
United Church of Christ
Commission for Raciat Justice
Bill Leland
Harbinger Comm. Directory
(415) 923-0900
Deborah Lentin
City University of New York
(212) 650-7000
Victor Lewis
Contribvtiiif-Editor, Creation Magazine
(415) 547-6723
Jack Liebster
California Coastal Commission
(415) 543-8555 ext. 221
Gary Longfellow
Marin County Office of Education
499-3852
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Karen Marshall
Center for the Environment
(606) 231-1939
Vicky Me Cullough
Native Americans for a CLEAN ENVIRONMENT
(918) 458-4322
Norris McDonald
Center of Environment, Commerce, and Energy
(202) 543-3939
James Me Elfish, Jr.
Environmental Law Institute
(202) 328-5150
Tracey Me Leod
Environmental Editor, Southern Reader
Oxford, MS
(601) 234-2569
Alan Miller
Univ. of Maryland
(301) 454-0945
Ty Minton
Antioch New England Graduate School
Roxbury St.
Keene, NH 03431
(603) 357-3122
Jeff Mori
.Japanese Youth Center
(415) 563-8052
Mary Mullin
American Lungs Association (Houston)
(713)968-5800
Deb bie Mvjels
PenninsuTi Conservation Center
(415) 494-9301
Ted Nash
Urban Redevelopment Corp.
(202) 376-2671
National 4H Council
(301)961-2800
National Toxics Campaign
(916) 446-3350
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Robert Nichols
Schlitz Audubon Center
(414) 352-2880
Dennis Nishikawa, Director
LEAP (Leadership Education for Asian Pacifies)
200 North St.
City Hall Rm. 370
Los Angeles, CA 90012
(213)485-3379
John O' Connor |
Director, National Toxics Campaign
(617) 232-4014
Bob Olsen
Institute for Alternative Futures
(703) 684-5880
Allan O'Neal, Jr.
Bear Creek Watershed Environmental Education Project
P. O. Box 880, Waterloo Rd.
Russellville, AL 35653
(205) 332-6200
Peter O' Neil
Department of Environmental Management
(617)727-3159
Sonja Pena
Center for Third World Activists
(415) 654-9601
Marsha Phillips
Department of Conservation and Historic Resources. Division of Litter
Control
1215 Washington Bldg., Capitol Square
Richmond, VA 23219
(804) 786-8679
Corky Potter
Penn S me University
(814) 863-2000
Barbara Popolow
Environmental Volunteers
(415) 424-8035
April Pulley
National Wildlife
(202) 790-4205
Quality Education for Minorities Network
(202) 659-1818
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Mary Lou Rajchel
Director and Chief Cabinet Aide
Office of Cabinet Affairs
Florida Department of Education
Tallahasse, FL
(904)488-0080
Doug Ratlcdge
Cedar Creek Learning Center
111 Union St.
Greenville, TN 37743
(615) 638-6100
Renew America
(202) 232-2252
Dr. Charles Rhyne
Jackson State University
1400 John R. Lynch St.
Jackson, MS 39217
(601) 968-2595
Jane Rogers
San Francisco Foundations
(415) 543-0223
Paul Rothkrug
Fund for the Rescue of the Environment
(415)922-1120
Runninggrass
Parker Elementary School
(415) 863-1444
Gary Sanjulian
National Wildlife Federation HQ
(202)797-6800
Maurice Sampson .
Urban Recycling Institute, Philadelphia *
Rudolph Shafer
Western Regional Environmental Education Council
2820 Echo Way
Sacramento, CA 95821
(916) 971-1953
Dr. Joe Sharpe
Tennessee Tech. University
(615) 372-3459
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Dr. Carolie Sly
San Francisco School of Education
(415) 338-1170
Pete Soto
Supt., Indian Boarding Schools
(602) 379-6741
Debbie Stansel
Administrator Assistant, National Wildlife Federation
(703) 790-4504
\
Gerry Stover
Environmental Consortium for Minority Outreach
(202) 381-8387
Dr. Erika Tallman
NSU Center for Understanding Environments, Science and Technology
(CUEST)
Box 740
Aberdeen, SD 57401
(605) 622-2456
Tom Taylor
US Fish and Game
(703) 358-2156
Nick Tedoruk
Awareness Program
(202) 857-5168
Josephina Tinajero
University of Texas, College of Education
(915)747-5426
Marsha Trouten
Fort Sunston, Environmental Sciences
(415) 239-6065
Eugene Tseng, Director
Internatiojul Business Development
American Ecology Corporation
30423 Canwood St.
Agoura Hills, CA 91303
(818)991-7361 ext. 63105
Cora Tucker
Citizens for a Better America
(804) 476-7757
Steve Ulsh
PA Fish Commission
(717)657-4518
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Water Education Foundation
(916) 444-6240
Dr. Lynn M. Waishwell, Ph. D.
Associate Professor
Director, Health Education Program
Illinois State University, Department of Health Services
(309) 438-8329
West County Toxics Coalition
(415) 232-3427
Ron White
American Lung Association (Boston)
(212) 315-8700
Morris Wiener
Northern Illinois University
Taft Campus, Box 299
Oregon, IL 61061
(815) 732-2111
Susan William, EEP Coordinator
Highland Research and Education Center
1959 Highlander Way
New Market, TN 37820
(615)933-3445
Dennis Yockers
State of Wisconsin ^
Bureau of Solid Waste Management
P. O. Box 7921
Madison, WI 53707
(608) 266-0870
Julian Zaragoza
Director of Programs, MESA(U Cal.)
(415) 642-5144
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