Green Roof on PS 41 in New York

The only space was on the roof. PS 41 felt very vertical to me. I climbed up and down the four flights of stairs about fifty times during our interviews. But I grew to love that climb. I climbed up to one of the most peaceful places I have ever visited. When I reached the top and looked out at the green roof, it was the smell that surprised me the most. It smelled wonderful—like a meadow. Even though the plants there are very tiny, they gave the most wonderful scent. Most of the plants are succulents, or plants that live without much soil or water. There is only about four inches of soil under those plants. The architects had to minimize the weight of the green roof components because the roof wasn’t built to hold all those plants and people. A green roof was likely not on the agenda when they built PS 41 decades ago.

Only forty adults can be on the roof at one time, which adds to its tranquility, if you ask me. I wish my video diary could convey the smell, but just imagine you are in a meadow, and hopefully the visuals will transport you there:

Click here to view the embedded video.

In the coming weeks, our plan is to share stories about the amazing people who made this green roof a reality. As a parent, I can’t imagine signing up to such a project – so much work, fundraising, engineering research. But my co-workers scoffed at my skepticism. They said, “Carla, can’t you see? When you have such a big dream, you are magnet to amazing people, and they help you get it done.” Big dreams – I’m familiar with that. I know these folks inspired me with my big dreams and I hope they do the same for you. In the meantime, consider registering your school as an Eco-School and join our big dream today!

Kindergartners congregate on PS 41′s Greenroof Environmental Learning Laboratory in Manhatten. Photo by Carla Brown.

Me in my crate playground quite a few years ago

I grew up in downtown Philadelphia, where sidewalks and concrete abound.  I was a lucky kid too – I went to a school that took us out to a retired farm once a week and set us loose to explore after a hands on science lesson.  It was amazing, but it was just once a week, we had to leave the city, and most kids I knew didn’t have that opportunity.  That experience inspired me to work to ensure that all kids have the chance to fall in love with nature right in their own schools and communities. Stepping out onto the roof at PS41 affirmed my commitment to this work.

Already PS41’s Greenroof Environmental Literacy Laboratory, lush with native plants, serves as a haven for migrating birds (check out this gorgeous Northern Parula that found its way there for a rest while migrating South for the winter just days after the roof was completed!) and a calm and beautiful oasis of hands on, experiential environmental learning.  The 804 students who attend the school are already using the site to enhance their science, math, literacy, and art knowledge and skills.

A Northern Parula spotted on the green roof of PS 41. Photo courtesy Vicki Sando.

Rather than paving the way for the future, they are greening the way!

All kids deserve such great teachers, school leaders, and such great opportunities.  Right now, your school can register to become an eco-school to create a better future for your students and celebrate the great work that is underway. Already in New York City 44 schools have signed up.  What is your school doing to green the way for your students?

P.S. Stay tuned for stories of some of the inspiring leaders, like Vicki Sando in the pic below, who made this dream a reality!

Vicki Sando, a teacher at PS 41, reads from The Curious Gardener on the schools green roof.

Her science teacher, Ms. Marple, said she would love our help setting up recycling centers around the school. Ms. Marple registered our school, Armstrong Elementary, as an Eco-School – a program by National Wildlife Federation to reward green schools.

The grade three classes made the recycling bins, set them up around the school, and designed promotional posters. They made announcements about recycling on the morning TV show. Each week, they gathered and weighed the recycling. Ms. Marple took cans and bottles home to her residential recycling. I took the plastic caps and juice pouches for craft projects.

For the plastic cap recycling, we were inspired by this article in Ranger Rick magazine about plastic cap Fridge Flowers by Michelle Stitzlein. She works with schools to make large plastic cap mosaic murals. If we got too many plastic caps, our back-up plan was to bring them to Aveda’s plastic cap recycling program.

For the juice pouch recycling, I have collected them for a few years now, and I sew them together to make bags. But what I really wanted to try was sewing trash clothing so we could have a trash fashion or “trashion” show. We were inspired by the Eco-School trash fashion show at United High School in Armagh, PA. If we gathered too many juice pouches, our back-up plan was to send them to Terracycle.

Check out this video about our project:

Click here to view the embedded video.

So this year we successfully set up the recycling centers. The grade three classes learned how to gather the recyclables as part of their weekly routine.

There was a natural competitive aspect, where they wanted to say that “if we gather the most recycling of all the classes, then we win!” But I cautioned them by saying that when you gather lots of recyclables, that’s not necessarily a good thing. It means you are choosing to eat things in packages rather than making food that doesn’t require packaging. Choosing options without packaging is called “pre-cycling” and it’s the best option.

This kids were very enthusiastic about the project, especially when I showed the first trash fashion items. I am also developing new trash crafts that allow the kids to design their own trash fashion. My family attended a trash fashion show that was part of Alexandria’s Earth Day celebrations for many ideas. More on that in a future blog!

Thank you to Ms. Marple and the grade three classes for taking on this recycling project. Thank you also to the administrators for allowing the project to happen, and to all the students at Armstrong school who recycled.

National Wildlife Federation’s Storytelling Video Diary Series shares the candid tales of 10 NWF staffers from around the country; armed with their cameras in California, Wisconsin, the Pacific Northwest, Northern Virginia, and Washington, DC, these nine staffers will share with you their individual trials, epiphanies and stories as they unfold in their daily adventures.

Over the course of six years, these wildlife rock stars–and yes, volunteers–got more than 180 Montclair homes (30 over just the last year), 10 schools, five community gardens or parks, five businesses, three churches and two synagogues to become Certified Wildlife Habitat^® sites.

Sabina Ernst tells the Montclair story better than anyone:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Sabina: “I live in Montclair, New Jersey, and I have been part of the habitat team here since pretty much the beginning. I heard about Dave Wasmuth through a friend and started to get interested in native plants. It was something that really interested me because it seems very sustainable and the right model to follow….The whole town is represented not just one cluster…. It is a good thing to do.  It has been really fun. It feels like we have done a really good thing for Montclair and for the Earth.”

Certified Habitats bring welcomed visitors (photo taken in front of Sabrina's front yard)

The Montclair volunteers also made this great website to spread the good news, and organize the community effort.

New Jersey’s First Community Wildlife Habitat

With the community pulling together for wildlife like never before, Montclair has become New Jersey’s first certified Community Wildlife Habitat and the 38th certified community in the nation.

This means that residents, businesses, places of worship and others are providing the basics for desired wildlife – food, water, cover, and places to raise young – while helping the environment by using native plants, composting, eliminating pesticide use, and conserving water.

Dave and Jose Proud Gardeners and Community Leaders

Backyard Habitat Tour

On July 11, I took advantage of their annual “Backyard Habitat Tour,” where Montclair residents opened up their backyards for visitors to see the amazing things they have done to bring nature to their backyards. These National Wildlife Federation volunteers are working every day to improve their community and help wildlife.

It was great meeting Dave Wasmuth who has led the charge in Montclair. His gardens were a great mix of flowers, native plants and vegetables.

I also got to meet Jose German who, along with Dave, made their home a special place. Jose was really inspirational to me. He left his job as an accountant to form www.greenharmonynow.com, a landscaping business that helps businesses and homeowners choose wildlife friendly landscaping.

Dave and Jose also showed me how Montclair planted some trees along their road. Many of the trees died but the one planted in Dave and Jose’s yard is thriving. I think they are on to something!

Wildlife Habitat Makes Homes and Communities a Special Place

Sabina has lead the charge to not only make her yard wildlife-friendly but also she has worked with her local schools where her children attend school to certify them in NWF’s Schoolyard Habitat program. She also told me that she has seen a Cooper Hawk in her backyard, along with the cute rabbit that I saw.

Spreading the Love for Wildlife

Dave, Jose, Sabina and others are not just thinking about Montclair. They are reaching out to other neighboring towns as well.

Anne Stires is from down the road in Verona, and she is so excited by this project that she joined the Montclair Habitat Team and helped out the Montclair volunteers with their event. Anne is also the President of the Hilltop Conservancy in Verona, which is responsible for protecting and restoring one of the last large tracks of undeveloped land in this area.

All this inspiration makes me see how Dave, Jose and Sabina’s efforts can be multiplied by others across New Jersey.

We could create a large “corridor” of backyard, school, and community habitats across New Jersey. Of course, we need to protect our critical landscapes like the New Jersey Highlands, but it all starts in the home or in this case in the backyard.

Learn more about how to turn your garden or yard into a National Wildlife Federation Certified Wildlife Habitat^® site

Ten years later, the release of the film The Last Mountain brings to light similar haunting facts about the carnage and destruction inflicted on rural Appalachia, West Virginia happening today.  Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.  joins in the fight alongside residents of the Coal River Valley in West Virginia, who endure earsplitting explosions, extreme flooding, raining boulders that tear through communities, toxic sludge and poisoned water wells, life threatening exposure to toxins, and devastating pre-mature deaths.  

Roughly half the electricity in the U.S. comes from burning coal—one-third of that coal comes from the Appalachian Mountains. Yet there is a vast amount of mis-education about coal.  In the film, we are shown a school full of young imperiled children attending an elementary school coated in silica dust just below an impoundment holding 2.8 billion gallons of sludge.  Classrooms are filled with cancer and autism clusters that clearly defy statistical logic.  I couldn’t help but think about the irony that just weeks ago fourth-grade curriculum materials developed by the American Coal Foundation were distributed to tens of thousands of teachers.  The materials included no mention of the adverse environmental or health impacts of coal, presenting an unfair and unbalanced picture for our children.

So while the fourth largest coal company continues to blow up mountain tops for coal, we not only have local communities enduring life-threatening exposure to toxins, but the coal industry is using the classroom as a forum to propagandize kids on behalf of their product leaving out critical implications?  

As the future of the Appalachian Mountains holds great potential to harvest wind energy as an alternative, children have a right to know the full story on electricity production via coal burning.  Environmental and energy-based lesson plans and curricula should present a fair and balanced viewpoint and prepare our children for a complex and possibly perilous set of future environmental realities.

Learn more and get involved in the movement to end mountain top removal. 

The Last Mountain opened last weekend in New York City and Washington, DC. See when this gripping documentary will be playing in a city near you.

Take action against mercury and air toxins from coal-fired power plants!

UPDATE! On May 16, Scholastic removed their biased coal-industry funded curriculum from their website!

Thank Scholastic by clicking here to sign this twitter petition: Thank @Scholastic for removing their coal-industry backed, unbalanced curriculum from their website http://act.ly/3o6 RT to sign

The coal industry wants Americans to know that the majority of their electricity comes from coal-burning and it apparently feels this awareness needs be instilled at a young age: nine years old to be exact.  Witness a new coal industry education program aimed at 4th graders.  It is called The United States of Energy! and it comes from the American Coal Foundation and Scholastic. It purports to educate kids on where our energy “comes from, how it is used, and what part it plays in communities today.”

photo via Seth Anderson, Flickr

In our view, there is nothing wrong with letting kids know that electricity is produced by coal-burning and is used for many beneficial purposes.  But, when describing the role it plays in communities, there is much more to the story than the coal industry and Scholastic seem willing to share with our children.

• The role that coal-burning plays in escalating the global warming crisis is omitted even though this is well-established in science. The unfairness of this omission is profound.  The nine-year-olds who are being “sold” on the value of coal as a fuel source through this curriculum will live long enough to see dangerous rises in sea level, longer droughts, more intense wind storms and flooding, massive wildfires, spreading disease vectors and less breathable air.   This will be our legacy to them and will be due to more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.  To be fair to our kids, a complete look at community implications must cover this subject fairly and accurately
• In addition to adverse environmental effects of coal-burning, there are serious childhood health implications that can have a particularly hard impact on low-income urban communities. The American Public Health Association points out that, in parts of some major U.S. cities, one-third to one-half of pediatric hospital admissions are for children with asthma who struggle to breathe when exposed to more pollution in the air.
• The coal industry and Scholastic have once again ignored the advice and policies of the professional environmental education (EE) community as embodied in its Guidelines for Excellence to provide materials and lesson plans that are of proper depth and are fair and accurate.  The EE field has great skill and offers solid guidance in developing education materials on complex environmental subjects requiring a fair look.

Our bottom line is that our kids have a right to know the full story on electricity production via coal-burning and not just the see the smiling face that the coal industry might want to put on it. We think that for-profit businesses using the classroom as a forum to propagandize kids on behalf of their product is a bad idea ethically and educationally.   We also think that Scholastic should not be aiding and abetting the coal industry in developing one-side lessons that smack a bit too much of brainwashing.  Too much influence on classroom lessons from business interests almost invariably lacks the thoughtful and well-reasoned balance that our kids deserve.

As adults and educators, we must be more mindful than ever that environment and energy-based lesson plans and curricula should help our children to be prepared for a complex and possibly perilous set future environmental realities.  We should not be encouraging ignorance of these subjects or keeping our kids in the dark.

Call or write to express your views or let @Scholastic know how you feel on Twitter.

So, what do we know about the 10% of schools that take environmental education seriously?  And, how might we use this information to benefit our own kids?   Quite aside from the obvious benefit that your children will learn to protect the environment for themselves and for future generations and live in a cleaner world with the natural abundance, here are five key advantages that may appeal to your “parenting” instincts:

1. Your kids will be happier, higher-performing students

Through 15 years of research and testing, environmental education has been shown to improve the average student’s classroom performance.  Marginal students become solid performers and good students become great students.

In one study by the State Education and Environment Roundtable, students enrolled in comprehensive environmental education programs scored higher on 137 out of 179 measures than their peers in the same school that did not get the environmental education programming.

Another study by Evergreen College compared 77 carefully matched pairs of schools – one with environmental instruction and one without – the kids in the environmental education schools scored higher on standard statewide tests in math, reading and science and continued to do so for several years.

Why does this happen?  Researchers attribute higher test scores and learning skills to the way that environmental education uses all of a child’s basic “intelligences” – learning through physical actions, visualization, and all of their senses – as compared sitting still and simply listening to a lecture.

2. Your kids will learn “executive function”

Children who sit isolated at a computer all day need to get out more.  Most American kids are losing touch with the skills their parents developed when they were gathering together, inventing games, choosing sides, making up rules and learning how to work together building forts, arranging picnics or more.

The core abilities these activities develop are called “executive function” which makes the difference between being a capable leader in adult life or having a more passive (follower) attitude.

Because environmental education programs involve understanding and solving real world problems, such as recycling, stream testing, litter cleanups, tree planting and habitat projects and these activities are often learned and conducted in team settings, it is particularly good at shaping lasting executive function skills in your kids.

3. Your kids will be more motivated and better prepared for college

The American high school drop-out rate is 30% and can be as high as 50%-60% in large urban school systems. Can environmental education help kids stay in school and move on to college? Yes.

The subject is inherently interesting to kids and makes school instruction more relevant. This reduces discipline problems, helps fight absenteeism, and helps keep kids in school, obviously improving their chances for graduation.

Moreover, the problem-solving and independent study features common to many environmental education programs better prepare students for the rigors of unsupervised learning that they must adapt too as they make the high school-college transition.

4. Your kids will be ready for the emerging green economy

From now on, environmental literacy will be a foundation for major job creation in America and the world.

Economists predict that environmental and energy subjects will have the same importance in the coming 20 years that the Internet and computer technology had in the past 20 years.

Our economy is shifting rapidly toward alternative energy, greener consumer products, innovative green cars, homes and businesses, more effective recycling and new approaches to agriculture, forestry and aquaculture.  A large percentage of the careers and jobs that will emerge in the future will be green.  And, the entrepreneurs of the coming generation will succeed best through green innovations and learning.

5. Your kids (and their kids) will lead healthier lives

Environmental education has the side benefit of greater awareness of environmental health risks.  The National Institutes of Health has an institute completely devoted to understanding the environmental causes of disease as does the Centers for Disease Control.  There are countless examples in the health care field of how mindless exposure to environmental risks such as asbestos, toxic chemicals, ozone and water pollution have had lasting adverse health effects.

Environmental knowledge and awareness helps children and adults to stay clear of the worst risks and provides the knowledge and skills needed to assess future risks including when they become parents themselves.

Bringing Environmental Education to Your Child’s School

Parents would do well, when making a visit to their kid’s school to ask the principal about his or her plans to ramp up environmental education.  If you encounter a blank stare when you pop the question, you can suggest the following:

• Look at the website of the North American Association of Environmental Education.
• Check out National Wildlife Federation’s Eco-Schools USA program
• Check out National Wildlife Federation’s Schoolyard Wildlife Habitat program.
• Incorporate our award-winning Ranger Rick magazine, each issue of which is accompanied by a monthly educators’ guide that classroom teachers can use for younger children.

Earth Science Week 2010 begins this Sunday.

“Exploring Energy“, the theme of this year’s series of events, provides an opportunity to boost energy literacy in the United States.

Want to get involved? From October 10-16, explore clean energy and climate solutions by registering your school for NWF’s Eco-Schools USA program.  This international program provides a framework for students and teachers to learn more about Earth’s energy resources, both renewable and nonrenewable.  By moving at their own pace through the program’s Seven Steps, students learn how to monitor and reduce their school’s energy use.

Go beyond exploring energy during Earth Science Week 2010, and learn how to implement solutions that help move us away from a carbon-based society and toward a clean energy economy. 

Click here to read more by NWF education curriculum specialist Jennifer Hammonds.

New research shows that nature can also make people more caring. According to an article in the journal Scientific American, researchers at the University of Rochester have shown that experiences with nature can positively affect intrinsic aspirations and generosity. Exposure to nature, according to the series of studies, can affect our priorities in life—making us more compassionate and focused on the well-being of others.

How did researchers test the hypothesis that time outdoors can alter what we think is important in life?

The researchers ran a series of studies, during one of which randomly assigned individuals immersed themselves in a slide show that depicted either scenes of human-made or natural environments. After watching the images, participants completed a series of questions scoring their aspirations and priorities in life.

The results showed that people who watched the nature images placed lower priority scores on extrinsic life aspirations—like financial success or popularity—and higher priority scores on intrinsic life aspirations, characterized by deep and enduring relationships, for example.

Spending time with plants, animals, and friends outside can improve our physical and mental health, self-esteem, and classroom performance. This new research suggests that protecting our natural environments can also protect human nature—and how caring we are with others.

Related Reading:

TIME OUT: Using the Outdoors to Enhance Classroom Performance

Nutraceuticals World: Obesity Costs U.S. $147 Billion a Year

Washington Post: Doctors send patients outdoors for physical, mental health cures

1. Improved attention spans — the intense, ever-chaging and prolonged stimulation of electronic media cuts into the ability of children to sit quietly and focus on their school work. Some studies show that children with attention deficit disorders benefit markedly from an hour playing outdoors in nature.

2. Better overall fitness — we have long known that children in good physical condition are better learners.  Children who sit indoors warching TV for hours a day lack the conditioning to be effective effectrive in the classroom.

3. Less agressive behavior — the common "shoot 'em up" violence in television and video games teaches children that agression is a viable way to solve problems and teachers see it in class behavior.

4. Less anxiety and depression — children's moods lighten up when they have enough outdoor play time and helped them be better learners.  

5. Less isolation — outdoor play usually involves relating to other children.  It improves social skills and improves the ability for children to learn in teams. 

6. Improved eyesight – staring at electronic screen all day and not getting time outdoors has now been shown to cause higher levels of near sightedness in kids.   

7. More interest in science — children who appreciate the outdoors are more likely to relate to science education in a contect and outdoor classroom programs have been shown to increase interest in science learning. 

8. Higher test overall scores — There is considerable evidence that outdoor time and nature edcation has measureable effects on children's grades and overall performance on statewide tests in reading, math, science and motivation to learn.  

 If you would like to learn more, you can download NWF's Kids and Outdoor School Readiness Report

Also: check out NWF's Ecoacademics Weblog which lists studies of how school work improves through nature and environmental education.