Our climate is changing at an alarming rate, and as a nation our young people are not prepared to provide the solutions necessary to mitigate and safeguard our world’s biodiversity, growing population, agricultural and transit systems and more.  In a digital age, we are able to connect in new and innovative ways and collaborate and create like never before.

The National Wildlife Federation’s Green STEM Initiative is the result of a magnificent collision between environment-based education and STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics); creating a new system that will provide a national workforce that’s ripe with skilled, knowledgeable, innovative, and technologically savvy citizens.

 To prepare our young people for a future that’s vividly different and uncertain, America needs to remedy what is often described as the “leaking” STEM pipeline.

Educators are looking for real answers.  Green STEM is a practical way, through disciplined instruction and experiential work on environmental and sustainability subjects, to help students better understand and be given relevant opportunities to inquire, assess, design, build and foster innovative solutions to environmental challenges and related technological needs. Students who are exposed to programs that incorporate useful STEM education see the world in a holistic way, gain skills in the process of inquiry, become better problem-solvers and inventors who can utilize their knowledge of math, science and technology to design and engineer innovative solutions to serious problems.  NWF’s Eco-Schools USA is primed and ready to help teachers facilitate learning experiences in Green STEM throughout K-12 as they engage students in greening solutions by addressing the building’s needs inside and out.

Nearly 4 in 5 STEM college students say that they decided to study STEM in high school or earlier…almost 20 percent knew before they even entered high school.  Microsoft Corporation

In order to help move students more smoothly through the STEM pipeline the highly anticipated, debated, and newly released Next Generation Science Standards have been developed to prepare our students for a better future, a future where they can be scientifically literate, competitive, and successful.  Educators will find many welcomed changes:

• K-12 Science Education Should Reflect the Interconnected Nature of Science as it is Practiced in the Real World.
• The Science Concepts in the NGSS Build Coherently from K-12.
• The NGSS Focus on Deeper Understanding of Content as well as Application of Content.
• Science and Engineering are integrated in the NGSS, from K-12.
• The NGSS are designed to prepare students for college, career, and citizenship.

For more information regarding National Wildlife Federation’s Green STEM Initiative                             please follow the link or contact us at eco-schoolsusa@nwf.org

Hurricane Sandy 2012. NOAA image.

The Importance of Teachable Moments

As educators, we have looked to teachable moments throughout our time in the classroom to effectively communicate our content in real time and help students make connections to their own lives. Examples include, the attacks on the World Trade Center, the declassification of Pluto as a planet, the Gulf oil spill, the election of the first African American president of the United States, the spread of the Influenza A virus H1N1, and the 2012 presidential election.

Waves from Hurricane Sandy batter the Brooklyn coast. NASA photo.

Superstorm Sandy provides teachers the unique opportunity to calm students’ overwhelming fears, concerns, and sadness related to the events that have so greatly impacted the East Coast’s landscape, communities and wildlife.

Teaching students about weather patterns and how changes in our climate system are impacting these natural events will lead to better understanding of our Earth system; and with understanding emotions can be soothed.

Solutions to mitigate impacts

Climate change is and will continue to impact our nation and the world in which we live, therefore, it is important to arm students with actions they can take to feel empowered.

What Can I Do?

• Protect wetlands: they are coastal communities’ first line of defense against extreme weather events.
• Don’t just recycle: work on reducing and reusing too!
• Don’t let energy vampires drive up carbon emissions.
• Drive less, walk and bike more, carpool and commit to drive 10 miles less a week

Educational Resources

Eco-Schools USA is proud to offer educators and their students with a wealth of free resources that include ways to help students cope with catastrophic events, curricular connections, and ways to take real action.

• Eco-Schools USA – Hurricane Sandy
• Generation On
• My Planet, My Part
• NWF – Cool It! Tips for Going Green

According to the American Heart Association 1 in 3 American kids and teens is overweight or obese, nearly triple the rate in 1963.  With good reason, childhood obesity is now the No. 1 health concern among parents in the United States, topping drug abuse and smoking.

 

Health risks associated with obesity in young people -

• High Blood Pressure
• Diabetes
• Low Self Esteem
• Depression

Former Surgeon General Richard Carmona -
“Because of the increasing rates of obesity, unhealthy eating habits and physical inactivity, we may see the first generation that will be less healthy and have a shorter life expectancy than their parents.” 

Click here to view the embedded video.

Jamie Oliver speaks on children and nutrition.

 These stats bring us to the food movement, not just the eat local and community CSA movement, but the food movement within our nation’s schools. Recently the USDA released new school nutrition guidelines for the first time in 15 years with the hopes of “raising a healthier generation of children”.  In an article from CNN Health, the new guidelines increase the availability of fruits, vegetables, whole grains and low fat milk while cutting the amount of sodium and saturated fat.  Also under the new rules federal minimum and maximum calorie intake guidelines would be established for the first time.

What better way to celebrate than through National Farm to School Month and National School Lunch Week October 15-19. The Farm to School Program is an effort to connect schools with local or regional producers in order to serve local or regionally produced foods in school cafeterias.  Check out the Farm to School Network for information, webinars, resources, and activities related to your state.  National School Lunch Week 2012′s theme is “School Lunch – What’s cooking?” and is celebrating the positive changes that have been made in school lunch programs across the country. 

So between new meal patterns, chef-inspired recipes and freshly prepared meals it just might be time to rethink eating at school!

One school district in Texas responds to the new changes with sleeves rolled up and ready!  Arlington ISD, the 8th largest school district in Texas, serves more than 60,000 meals per week, in its 73 schools.  Jackie Anderson, Director of Food Services feels the new guidelines have not been difficult to assimilate too since the district has been following the Texas Public School Nutrition and Food Policy which already has many of the same mandates that are now a part of the USDA’s School Nutrition Guidelines.  Although many changes have been seamless, Arlington has met some challenges which include, grade banding to insure students at specific grade levels are meeting the required standards. In addition, the district must meet minimums and maximums for proteins and grains per day and per week for different age groups as well as specifications for vegetable subgroups each week and every reimbursible meal must include a fruit or vegetable. 

An exciting part of what Arlington ISD is doing to meet the changes head on is working with the district’s professional chef, Eddie Palomino, whose main focus is the catering department, but also makes time to work with school kitchen staff, on reformulating recipes and making them more flavorful, working on presentation so food is more attractive to students, and most importantly making it fun to eat at school!

Greening the school building inside and out, the curriculum, and the student experience

    Other school nutrition ideas -

• Eco-Schools USA – Sustainable Food and Healthy Living pathways
• Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution for Schools
• Truck Farm
• USDA – Healthier School Day
• Choose My Plate

The Colorado Rockies (photo by Jennifer Hammonds)

What better place to do that than in beautiful Denver, CO, at the just-concluded second annual Green Schools National Conference?

With about 1000 attendees representing 43 U.S. states, 5 Canadian provinces and the Bahamas, the conference was a great place to gather around the common cause of greening more American schools. National Wildlife Federation’s Eco-Schools USA program was proud to be a part of the excitement, camaraderie and discussion during this three-day event dedicated to propelling the movement forward.

Among highlights was the participation of area students in the ‘Student Summit’ with featured speaker (and fellow kid) Alec Loorz, founder of Kids vs. Global Warming, who inspired and motivated with his passion for environmental conservation.  The goals of the student summit were to:

• Give students the opportunity to connect and discuss environmental issues
• Allow the exchange of ideas and creation of new structures for sustainable change
• Draw on the knowledge and skill sets of experts and resources at the Green Schools National Conference
• Create a collaborative space to build on their strengths and recognize the power of youth leadership in the larger efforts to develop sustainable learning environments.

An amazing group of environmental champions from various areas were in attendance, including Secretary of Education Arne Duncan (see his remarks here), Stonyfield Farm Chairman Gary Hirshberg, Captain Planet Foundation Chairman Laura Turner-Seydel, Gracefully Global Group Chief Creative Officer Graciela Tiscareno-Sato and Majora Carter of the Majora Carter Group.

The event’s Film Showcase included several outstanding works, including Carbon Nation, What’s on Your Plate? and Two Angry Moms.

In addition to speakers and resources at the event itself,  attendees had several professional growth opportunities, which included field trips to local green schools (including the Denver Green School); ‘Solutions Summits’ like Making the Case: Connecting Green and Healthy Schools with Student Achievement and Overcoming Obstacles to Bring Healthy Food Into Schools; and more than 100 other sessions related to our common goal, moving the greens schools movement forward.

To find out more about the Eco-Schools USA program’s alignment with the Department of Education’s new US Green Ribbon School Awards program click here. To find out how to become an Eco-School, visit our website. To learn about how green schools are healthier schools, read more from our newly launched ‘Healthy Schools’ pathway.

Teachers link what they already teach to Eco-Schools USA pathways (Jennifer Hammonds)

Case in point: the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, & Pensions (HELP) voted to include environmental education provisions in an amendment to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act in 2011, marking the first time environmental education has been formally introduced in federal K-12 education policy.

Another example of federal support has come from the Department of Education, as they introduced the prestigious Green Ribbon Schools award in 2011:

The U.S. Department of Education Green Ribbon Schools will recognize schools that save energy, reduce costs, feature environmentally sustainable learning spaces, protect health, foster wellness, and offer environmental education to boost academic achievement and community engagement.

Green school support is not only evident at the federal level, but in the work of many states supporting efforts to green the school community. Here in Texas, for example, the state awards its schools through their Texas Green Ribbon Schools program.

Green Ribbon Schools:

• promote healthy living for students, parents and staff
• connect students to nature
• take steps to create an environmentally-friendly campus, encourage physical activity and cooperative outdoor play, foster healthy habits and use nature as a learning tool
• create their own vision and plan and improve over time

Locally, the Houston Independent School District (HISD), the largest in Texas and seventh largest in the nation, is setting its sights on a sustainable future for its students and staff by broadly promoting green efforts, providing professional development for its teachers and working with community members like the Katy Prairie Conservancy, Houston’s  Outdoor Education Center and Urban Harvest.

Recently I had the pleasure and privilege to participate in the 5th Annual Houston Environmental Education Summit, sponsored by many wonderful organizations and community partners including NWF, the University of Houston Downtown and the City of Houston.  There, I was thrilled to hear Dr. Gavin Dillingham, Houston’s Energy Manager, share his ‘outdoors in nature’ experiences from childhood and how he now shares the outdoors with his own children. Dr. Dillingham shares NWF’s passion for getting students outside to experience nature as well as Eco-Schools USA‘s passion for greening the school facilities.

He also described HISD’s recent initiative, the Green School Challenge. After providing participating schools with baseline data, they will then work to reduce energy and increase recycling (both energy and recycling are found as sustainable pathways through the Eco-Schools program, and educators were surprised to see the natural links between their curricula and what Eco-Schools USA already offers).

As evidenced by the support of the federal government, national organizations, state programs and local initiatives, the green school movement gets stronger every day as we work to sustain our precious resources for generations of students to come.

Goodway.com

Why the increase? Was it the school itself?  I wondered what secrets the building held.

Considering that students spend approximately 1,239 hours in school during the course of a school year (based on 177 days of instruction, that’s almost half of a year), you might think the health of the school’s facilities would be a priority for administrators.  Unfortunately, school districts nationwide face tremendous budget constraints and are often forced to make tough decisions about what they spend money on.

But at what cost—or, better yet, at whose cost?

• According to National Education Association’s VP, NEA, Lily Eskelson, 1/3 of our schools have some Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) concerns that cause respiratory problems for children—statistic she calls “horrific,” and I call unacceptable.
• According to a 2010 survey by the National Association of School Nurses (NASN), 40% of nurses know children and staff that are adversely affected by pollutants in schools.

According to Joel Forman, MD, Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Community and Preventive Medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, environmental exposures linked to pediatric diseases include:

• Asthma-Outdoor air pollutants, molds, and pesticides
• Neurodevelopmental disorders-lead, mercury, pesticides, synthetic chemicals
• Obesity-built environment (lack of access to natural play and exposure to the outdoors)
• Endocrine disorders-percholate, DDT
•  Cancer-pesticides, radon, solvents, synthetic chemicals, EMF’s (electric and magnetic field exposure)

A few more harrowing facts:

• Environmental related disease costs for our school children are estimated at $54.9 billion annually!
• America’s students are at greater risk of developing diseases due to environmental toxins.
• Pound for pound, children drink more water, eat more food, and breath more air than the average American adults”
• “Children have a longer “shelf-life” [meaning] they have more future years ahead to develop illnesses with a long latency from the inciting or contributing exposure.”

More, from EPA’s report “How Does IAQ Impact Student Health and Academic Performance?”

“Recent research suggests that a school’s physical environment also can play a major role in academic performance. Leaky roofs; problems with heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems, known as HVAC systems; insufficient cleaning or excessive use of cleaning chemicals; and other maintenance issues can trigger a host of health problems — including asthma and allergies — that increase absenteeism and reduce academic performance. [...] Improvements in school environmental quality can enhance academic performance, as well as teacher and staff productivity and retention.”

For even more on the dangers of poor IAQ, watch Dr. Sanjay Gupta’s CNN investigative report “Toxic Schools.”

How Can Eco-Schools USA help?

By being a part of the solution!

Eco-Schools USA works to create partnerships with other organizations and schools in an effort to promote sustainable environments for our students.

Recently we introduced a Health Schools pathway to help schools address their facilities by empowering students with knowledge, audits, and examples of student-driven actions to better the school environment (it also connects to one of the three pillars in the Department of Education’s new US Green Ribbon School Awards program, health of students and staff,  and will make it easier for Eco-Schools to gain Green Ribbon recognition).

To find out how to become an Eco-School, visit our website.

US Drought Map

According to NCDC and NOAA, Texas has experienced the driest 12 month period on record and the entire state is at some level of drought with 81.1 percent falling into the exceptional category.

According to Texas AgriLife Extension Service economists say this summer’s drought has led to a record $5.2billion in agricultural loses.

Hammonds' Water Conserving Flusher

The Hammonds' Family Clothesline

Solutions our family has implemented at home to conserve natural resources and our cash flow include, using a clothes line (clothes have never dried faster then when they’re in 100 degree + temperatures), installing dual flush toilets, raising the thermostat to 80 degrees during the day, and using energy efficient fans.

Did you know schools are one of the biggest if not the biggest consumers of energy within a municipality.

Every change no matter big or small impacts us all, today, tomorrow, forever.

Written 15 years ago, the National Science Education Standards provided states with the prowess to produce the next generation of scientifically literate citizens. With the power of scientific inquiry at the heart of these standards states developed standards covering a myriad of topics from the structure and function of cells to Newton’s laws of physics.  So much great information, but soon it was evident – too much surface knowledge – the infamous “a mile wide, inch deep” plagued our nation’s students.

Even though educational reform is a highly debated topic there is no debate that our students are falling behind in STEM disciplines.  According to the most recent PISA report, out of 34 countries in OECD, the US ranked 29th in mathematics literacy and 25th in science literacy, neither was significantly different from the average. That said, I was ecstatic at the briefing to introduce the new Framework for K-12 Science Standards to hear…

1) Science is for all students…
Not just for those in grades being tested. It’s nice to see the new framework lay the foundation for students to
build upon prior knowledge instead of struggle to find connections throughout their K-12 experience.

“All students should be able to learn about the broad set of possibilities that modern life offers and to pursue their aspirations, including their occupations of interest.”

“Students’ preparation in other subjects, especially literacy and matematics, also affects their acheivement in science”.

2) Limited number of core ideas…
This will allow students to better grasp and understand science concepts, specifically the focus on a limited number of core ideas.  It allows for deep exploration of important concepts, as well as time for students to develop meaningful
understanding, to actually practice science and engineering, and to reflect on their nature.

3) Earth systems and human impacts…
Were inconsistently taught, at the surface level, and without connection.  Within the core idea of Earth
and Space Science, Earth and Human Activity’s allows students to investigate how our Earth is a system made up of
smaller systems.  These smaller systems are affected by both natural and human activities.

“Humans have become one of the most significant agents of change in the earth’s surface systems.  Sustaining the biosphere will require detailed knowledge and modeling of the factors that affect climate, coupled with the responsible managment of natural resources.”

“Students will make the greatest strides in science and engineering learning when all components of the system – from professional development for teachers to curricula and assessments to time allocated for these subjects during the school day – are aligned with the vision of the framework.”

As I begin to delve into the finite details of the new framework, I’m confident that the standards forthcoming will
certainly change the way our nation’s student’s learn science and prepare for 21st century vocations and careers.  As a former classroom science teacher I am excited to watch science education’s transformation and as a member of National Wildlife Federation’s Eco-Schools USA team, I am thrilled to know the work we do to guide schools toward sustainabilty will have an even stronger foundation in this new and greatly improved Framework for K-12 Science Standards.

Eco-Schools Ghana and Norway visit NWF.

The global dimensions pathway guides students to make connections to the global community, to learn about and respect the cultures and environmental issues facing countries around the world.  It is so easy for those of us in the United States to focus on our needs and concerns, but to truly grasp the concept of global climate change we must reach out beyond the comfort of our national boundaries.  Eco-Schools USA was proud to receive members of Eco-Schools Ghana and Norway.  

 Lesson Learned 

After 4 years of writing, two penpals meet in Norway.

• There are 79 languages spoken in Ghana.  Students learn three languages, English, the regional language, and their local dialect.
• Norway has over 800 Eco-Schools and Ghana has Eco-Schools in 5 out 10 of its provinces.
• Students in Ghana do not have consistent access to electricity.
• Norway and Ghana consider eachother sister programs because many of the students have pen pals and participate in an Eco-Schools exchange program.
• The US shares 4 of its pathways with Norway, waste and consumption, energy, climate change, and transportation.

Energy Consumption

Watch how these Ghanian students decided to help the community become more aware of its electrcity consumption during Ghana’s electricity shortage.   The video aired with the local energy company’s commercial!

The Power of Eco-Schools

School waste disposal presentation.

When students in Ghana and Norway visit eachother they have the opportunity to have face to face conversations and present wonderful sustainabilty projects they are working on.  I listened to my new friend Hilde Opoku, recount a powerful story.  Ghanaian  students listened to Norwegian students present on school waste disposal, specifically the separation of hazardous from nonhazardous materials. 

The Ghanaian students had no idea the environmental impacts related to improper waste disposal and immediately upon return shared what they had learned with their school. 

An action plan was created and now the wheels have been set in motion to implement a school waste program.

This is the power of Eco-Schools, the power of students!

“American teens recognize their limited understanding of the issue.  Fewer than 1 in 5 say they are “very well informed” about how the climate system works or the different causes, consequences or potential solutions to global warming, and only 27 percent say they have learned “a lot” about global warming in school.  Importantly, 70 percent of teens say they would like to know more about global warming.“

In addition, Eco-Schools USA is doing its part to address student’s lack of climate change knowledge, by partnering with NASA to create a high school curriculum focused on understanding how climate change affects the various earth systems, as well as how the Eco-Schools program is an integral piece in creating our next generation of environmental stewards and champions.

With a greater federal investment in environmental education through the Green Ribbon Schools award, programs like Eco-Schools USA will have strength and momentum to do what it so strongly desires; to create an environmentally literate citizenry who are willing to actively participate as members of a community and nation that’s committed to sustainability.