Profiles of Environmental Education Grants Awarded to Organizations in Massachusetts
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2015 Grants
Greenagers, Inc. $36,700
Will Conklin, 33 Rossetter St, Great Barrington, MA 01230-0000
http://www.greenagers.orgExit
Crafting the Landscape
In collaboration with two local middle schools and a cooperative grocery store, Greenagers, Inc., implements an environmental education project in an after-school and summer program. Approximately 100 underserved youth develop a working relationship with their forests, watersheds, and “foodsheds” by creating virtual communities and environmental goals in the video game, Minecraft. These virtual goals are translated into real, actionable service projects in their community. Middle school students participate in 2-hour after-school sessions twice a week and also attend a 5-week summer program, where they learn to identify a community need and then create a service project to address the issues. The service projects focus on climate change, taking action on toxics, and protecting water. Each student receives nearly 200 hours of program time and contributes about 40 hours of direct environmental community service to the community.
Massachusetts Audubon Society $69,632
Kris Scopinich, 208 South Great Rd, Lincoln, MA 01733-4800
http://www.massaudubon.orgExit
Building Climate Action Communities
Massachusetts Audubon Society develops a regional model to enhance the climate literacy of staff, which in turn increases staff capacity to integrate education on climate change and its effects on local ecosystems into their programs. The project partners — Massachusetts Audubon Society, Connecticut Audubon Society and Audubon Society of Rhode Island — infuse climate change into existing community-based environmental education programing at each organization. The three partners also work with community-based organizations to develop, test and disseminate a model that integrates the study of New England ecosystems and the effects of climate change on local plants, wildlife and people into a pedagogically based curriculum. Trained staff and community organizations then implement more than 40 climate literacy program pilots into existing informal environmental education programs across the region, which reach nearly 1,000 people. The community organizations implement about 30 community-based programs and events, expecting to reach nearly 600 people on climate change issues.
2014 Grants
"e" Inc. $88,000
Dr. Ricky Stern, 114 16th Street, Rm 1030, Charlestown, MA 02129-4404
http://www.einc-action.org/home.htmlExit
Afterschool Planet Protector Teams
“e” Inc partners with community centers and local schools in the Boston area to provide weekly in-residence after school science-and-action programs that educate urban youth about an environmental science topic of their choice -Climate Change & Impact on Our Community, New England Habitat Investigation, or Ocean and Watershed Explorers. The 33 week program includes 540 urban students, K-5th grade, divided into teams that take part in hands-on science activities and action engagement lessons aligned with State and Next Generation Science Standards. The students develop a final team stewardship project, along with a short educational video about their project.
New England Environmental Education Alliance Inc. (NEEEA) $81,000
Adrian Ayson, 5D Walnut Street, Deven, MA 01434-5000
http://www.neeea.orgExit
Environmental Education with Collective Impact
New England Environmental Education Alliance (NEEEA) Inc. creates 8 highly coordinated summits designed for environmental and educational professionals and organizations to advance the reach and effectiveness of climate change education in New England. Through NEEEA’s and each state environmental education associations’ network and partnerships, upwards of 1,000 professionals come together to attend these combined summits. With 2 regional conferences in each New England state, each summit focuses on a different climate change education topic. Additionally six projects are created to identify, promote and facilitate the replication of the top climate change education programs and resources in each state.
2012 Grants
New England Aquarium $216,000
Sarah Bursky, Central Wharf, Boston, MA 02110
neaq.org
Summer on the Marsh: Citizen Science Goes to Camp
Summer on the Marsh establishes a regional network of eight summer camp programs, in the five coastal New England states, grounded in field experiences for environmental education. The program includes citizen science monitoring by campers, ages 9-12, support and training for informal science center staff and partner scientists, and dissemination to peers at regional and national forums. The vision of Summer on the Marsh is to facilitate real-world conservation opportunities throughout New England that will establish a stewardship ethic in young people. The primary goal of this project is to enhance the capacity of marine science centers to meaningfully engage youth in field based citizen science protection for coastal waters. Participants learn how salt marshes connect to their own homes, how marsh health affects human health, and how monitoring can help measure how healthy a salt marsh is. Educating and engaging young people about the health of ecosystems where they live allows them to become better stewards.
2011 Grants
The Coalition for Buzzards Bay, Inc. $67,629
Robert Hancock, 114 Front Street, New Bedford, MA 02740
The Bay in My Backyard.
The Coalition for Buzzards Bay partners with YMCA Southcoast (New Bedford and Mattapoisett) and Wareham Public Schools to host The Bay in My Backyard project, which educates underserved students, grades 2-8, in 600 hours of after -school and summer programs on water quality issues. This is a two-year project which is part of the Coalition's multifaceted approach to improving water quality across the Buzzards Bay ecosystem, including a volunteer water quality monitoring effort that supports citizen advocacy and an extensive land conservation and restoration program. The first year focuses on youth-led learning and exploration, and the second year focuses on local stewardship projects which align with the Massachusetts curriculum frameworks in improving water quality across the Buzzards Bay ecosystem.
New England Environmental Education Alliance, Inc. $149,774
Drew Dumsch, P.O. Box 142, Lincoln, MA 01773
Advancing EE in Region 1 Through A Comprehensive Sub-Grants Program
The New England Environmental Education Alliance (NEEEA), through partnership with each of the six environmental education state associations in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island, convene the Region 1 Leadership Team to identify priorities, procedures, and requirements for implementation of a small grants program in Region 1. To accomplish this goal, NEEEA issues a call for proposals from sub-grantees that meet educational and environmental priorities of the EPA and Region 1 states, recruits grant reviewers, and reviews applications for sub-grants from local, regional and state applicants. NEEEA awards a minimum of 19 small grants (three per state and one regional) for projects, programs and activities that meet established priorities and requirements of the EPA sub-grant program. In addition, NEEEA collects quarterly reports from sub-grantees and provides support and technical assistance when appropriate. Finally, NEEEA completes an evaluation of the process, outcomes and outputs of sub-grantees to be shared in a regional wrap-up webinar and with the EPA, while simultaneously increasing state capacity for the delivery of environmental education and advancement of environmental literacy among each state's citizens. In the end, NEEEA and its established state associations target diverse audiences including minority, low income and tribal communities.
2010 Grants
Needham Public Schools $44,510
Mary Rizzuto, 1330 Highland Avenue, Needham, MA 02492
Eco-Explorers Project
Needham Public School's Eco-Explorers Project is designed to provide a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary district-based approach to environmental education among a community of suburban students who are increasingly disconnected from their natural environments. The project creates the Environmental Education Leadership Team (EELT), which is made up of the local Science Center, elementary school teaching staff, community partners, and town departments. The EELT first engages in 36 hours of professional development as a learning community, and then focuses on sustainability, especially as it relates to environmental and food security. The EELT visits each of the five elementary school-based outdoor spaces and learns from the stewards of each of the Needham community's outdoor spaces involved in the project. These range from a 1/4-acre farm, to an educational nature trail with multiple ecosystems, to a fully equipped courtyard outdoor learning center. EELT uses its skills, knowledge, and enthusiasm to recruit elementary school teachers to attend Needham Science Center's workshops and ultimately to educate students through the classroom and field experiments. In addition, with an extensive group of highly committed community partners, the audience extends into the parent and citizen community.
The Walden Woods Project $12,293
Susan Frey, 44 Baker Farm Road, Lincoln, MA 01773
World Wide Waldens
The Walden Woods Project's flagship program is World Wide Waldens (WWW), which responds to the growing need to educate the next generation of global environmental stewards. WWW provides a flexible curriculum of activities for high school students and a web-based platform for educators. WWW targets high school teachers in workshops in Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont. Two webinars are also available to any interested educator in New England. WWW selects co-sponsoring organizations in these states based on their ability to reach at-risk and under-served groups. Stewardship projects on Walden Wood's website demonstrate the array of topics that students explore, ranging from a water filtration project in Lahore, Pakistan, to a bay grass restoration project in the Chesapeake Bay. WWW's primary goal is to build capacity to work in partnership with other environmental organizations to provide high-quality teacher training.
2009 Grants
Massachusetts Audubon Society, Inc. $14,810
Gloria Villegas-Cardoza, 208 South Great Road, Lincoln, MA 01773
Greening the Greenway
Partnering with Groundwork Lawrence, high school students create a Green Team. The Green Team is then provided with 55 hours of direct training and experience and undertakes assessments of the Spicket River and adjacent green areas in Lawrence by identifying plants, animals, and urban ecology. Students document the ecological value of seven sites along the river, review information to create a natural resource management plan for the river, and present the information to local stakeholders, such as the Lawrence City Council and the community.
Nashua River Watershed Association $10,313
Elizabeth Campbell, 592 Main Street, Groton, MA 01450
Service Learning to Address Invasive Species
In this project, students learn about healthy ecosystems and use math, science, and English to integrate their knowledge across curricula areas. In the summer before the school year, teachers and volunteers are trained regarding what a balanced ecosystem requires, how invasive species disturb an ecosystem, how to identify five invasive plants, and how to control invasive species and preserve a balanced ecosystem. During the school year, students in grade 5 identify and participate in a range of activities focused on ways to improve wildlife habitat. Students study their local ecosystems through hands-on projects to identify invasive species, to participate in a range of methods to control purple loosestrife, and to identify ideas, through critical thinking, for the most successful ways to improve wildlife habitat.
WGBH Educational Foundation $103,025
Kate Taylor, One Guest Street, Boston, MA 02135
The Children's Sustainability Shorts and Teacher Project
The Children's Sustainability Shorts and Teacher Project is designed to supply elementary school teachers with a diverse set of materials and resources to provide sustainability education to elementary students. As part of this project, WGBH produces four animated short videos for children that creatively explain and present the hidden systems at work behind everyday products and processes. An interdisciplinary team of producers, writers, animators, and Web developers works collaboratively to generate the videos that serve as a catalyst for teachers to engage their students in sustainability issues. In addition, WGBH produces a variety of professional development materials for educators, including lesson plans to enable them to teach sustainability concepts presented in the videos. The materials are delivered on line via Teachers' Domain, a service designed to help teacher introduce concepts as part of formal classroom instruction. This on-line source improves sustainability education nationally by delivering an accessible resource for elementary school teachers that can be used to enhance their teaching.
2008 Grants
Gloucester Maritime Heritage Center $22,574
Harriet Webster, 23 Harbor Loop, Gloucester, MA 01930
Ocean Explorers: 3rd and 4th Grade Marine Science Program
The Ocean Explorers: 3rd and 4th Grade Marine Science Program educates students on local marine resources. Through first hand exposure to the local marine source, Gloucester Public Schools elementary students develop a respect for the natural environment and a sense of their own impact on the environment. In this project, third- and fourth-grade GPS classrooms make two full day visits to the Gloucester Maritime Heritage Center where students rotate through a series of hands-on activities in the lab and aboard a small research vessel. A GMHC educator visits each classroom four times during the school year to conduct hands-on lessons relating to marine science topics. Students explore plankton collection and identification, water quality, marine habitats, and human effects on this environment. Through these activities, this program equips children with skills and information needed to pass state mandated science tests and develop a model program for dissemination to other New England coastal communities.
Organization for the Assabet River $12,502
Amanda Lee Davis, 9 Damonnmill Square, Suite 1E, Concord, MA 01742
Community-Based Water Wise Workshops
Working in partnership with Massachusetts Audubon Society’s Drumlin Farm Education Department, this organization offers a series of 1-hour, outdoor, summer workshops for children ages 6 through 12 on watershed and the water cycle, aquatic plants, aquatic animals, water bugs, water testing, water conservation, and water pollution. A total of 56 workshops are being offered over the 7 weeks of the summer program.
2007 Grants
Appalachian Mountain Club $15,000
Gary Gresh, 5 Joy Street, Boston, MA 02108-1490
A Mountain Classroom
Through a 1- to 5-day field trip to the Appalachian Mountain Club’s (AMC) Pinkham Notch Visitor Center, the A Mountain Classroom program exposes students to hands-on exploration in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. The program offers a unique combination of investigative lessons in ecology, exposure to spectacular mountain environments, and physically challenging activities that result in teambuilding and develop character. Curriculum options include Biological Sciences (forest ecology, watersheds, winter ecology, and wildlife), Earth Sciences (mountain weather and geology), and Outdoor Skills (teambuilding, leadership, map and compass, hiking, snowshoeing, and low-impact outdoor ethics skills). When they participate in this program, teachers observe AMC staff modeling relevant hands-on teaching and learning techniques that integrate environmental education into various disciplines. The teachers then integrate these techniques their classroom.
Silent Spring Institute $39,075
Ruthann Rudel, 29 Crafts Street, Newton, MA 02458
Promoting a Novel Web-based Environmental Health Mapping Tool
The goal of this project’s outreach effort is to advance awareness of the link between the environment and women’s health by engaging a broad audience in using an innovative Web-based interactive geographic information system (GIS) mapping tool, the Massachusetts Health and Environmental Information System (MassHEIS). The Silent Spring Institute informs the public and community decision-makers about MassHEIS and facilitates their use of this new resource through numerous presentations to state-wide organizations of local health and decision-makers, as well as to grassroots health-affected and environmental groups. Through follow-up with users, Silent Spring evaluates (1) the impact of MassHEIS on their understanding of environmental and health issues, and (2) actions users have taken to reduce pollution, plan for improved environmental and health data collection and tracking, or promote environmental stewardship in other ways.
2006 Grants
Hitchcock Center for the Environment $9,468
Julie Johnson, 525 South Pleasant Street, Amherst, MA 01002
Riverview: A Current Look at the Sawmill River
The Riverview project brings elementary school students into contact with a local habitat, the Sawmill River, and its watershed. Students, teachers, and school administrators learn through direct contact about local habitat, causes of and solutions to pollution, resource conservation, and plant and wildlife habitat protection in the watershed. Students deliver presentations throughout the project. They wrap up the program with student-led presentations and demonstrations (science projects, journals, maps, and storybooks), which are showcased in public buildings throughout the town for the public.
New England Wildlife Center $85,000
Katrina Banagis, 19 Fort Hill Street, Hingham, MA 02043
New England's Wild Legacy
This project is geared toward students and teachers in low-income communities in and south of Boston, many of whom have never had the opportunity to learn in outdoor classrooms. The New England Wild Legacy project is expanding its programming so that schools that receive the Sevens curriculum also obtain the As Clear As Mud curriculum. Sevens promotes awareness and understanding of natural objects, and As Clear As Mud enables students to use this new understanding to assess habitat quality and create individual action plans. The goal of this project is to develop a model that can be replicated, working with teacher teams and students to provide a continuum in environmental education from elementary to middle school. The project provides teachers and undergraduate students with scientific skills and a knowledge base so that they can pass environmental stewardship on to their students and peers. Staff from the New England Wildlife Center (NEWC) conduct nature walks around schools and neighborhoods with teachers so that they can become knowledgeable about plants, animals, and habitats near the classrooms. NEWC co-teaches Sevens and As Clear As Mud with teachers in the classrooms, and all of NEWC’s resources and materials are available to participating teachers and classrooms. In addition, college students who participate in NEWC’s internship program assist teachers and students in the classroom, on field trips, and at the NEWC facility. Key project partners include the teachers and principals from Raymond, East Junior High, and North Junior High in Brockton, Massachusetts; Murphy, Shaw and Uphams Corner Charter Schools in Dorchester, Massachusetts; Haggerty School in Cambridge, Massachusetts; Hale School in Roxbury, Massachusetts; McKay School in East Boston, Massachusetts; and South Shore Public Charter School in Norwell, Massachusetts.
Trips for Kids New Bedford, Inc. $9,938
Joann Clarke, 224 Brock Avenue, New Bedford, MA 02744
Explore Your Environment
Explore Your Environment (EYE) educates inner-city youth, ages 9 through 15, on a variety of environmental issues, including air and water quality, litter reduction, healthy natural habitats, and vernal pools. It also provides education on industrial waste and pollution, because there is a hazardous waste site in the community. Students and staff visit New Bedford Harbor as an introduction to the significant local issues of industrial waste and pollution. They also identify many varieties of seaweed and their uses in food and medicine. The students visit the Bioreserve to explore vernal pools and learn about ecology and habitats. This program is offered through a summer camp program, where students and staff use the local environment as the classroom. Professional teachers and naturalists lead all the exercises.
2005 Grants
Earthworks $20,000
Laura Doty, 34 Linwood Street, Boston, MA 02119
Model Outdoor Teacher-in-training Program
Earthworks is expanding its Outdoor Classroom Program to include a teacher-in-training component. The Outdoor Classroom Program enables students in a limited number of second and third grade classes in three Boston schools to receive weekly hands-on lessons from Earthworks staff on nature, ecology, and stewardship for schoolyard and neighborhood orchards. Additional staff teams teach with classroom teachers on the Outdoor Classroom Program to include every grade and every class (K-5) in the three Boston schools Earthworks is now assisting. The “teacher-in-training” pilot program significantly expands the successful Outdoor Classroom Program.
Gloucester Maritime Heritage Center $9,772
Harriet Webster, 23 Harbor Loop, Gloucester, MA 01930
Rockport High School Eelgrass Cultivation Program
The Gloucester Maritime Heritage Center (GMHC) is implementing a program that enables two teachers from Rockport High School to attend a 5-day workshop on the ecology and biology of eelgrass. GMHC is partnering with Rockport High School, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sea Grant Hatchery, and the Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management. The teachers instruct students in aquaculture classes about how to grow eelgrass from seed and replant it in designated local waters. Students learn about the various forms of eelgrass, how it grows, how it creates a critical marine habitat, how it filters out pollutants, and how it prevents erosion. At the end of the school year, teachers will gather at a symposium to discuss the successes and challenges of the first year of the eelgrass cultivation project.
Society for the Conservation and Study of Caribbean Birds $40,000
Lisa Sorenson, Department of Biology, 5 Cummington Street, Boston, MA 02215
Community Education for the Wise Use of Wetlands
A significant environmental concern in the Caribbean — threats to and destruction of wetlands — is addressed under this project. The Society for the Conservation and Study of Caribbean Birds is partnering with the Puerto Rican Ornithological Society to conduct workshops in Arecibo for educators and public information sessions for the community. A goal is forming a local wetlands support group. The workshops provide educators, students, and the community with an understanding of how stewardship for wetlands can reduce pollution.
Tellus Institute $12,200
Erika Spanger-Siegfried, 11 Arlington Street, Boston, MA 02116
Climate Change Vulnerability and Adaptation in the New England States
Stakeholders are educated about creating the most cost-effective solutions to adapting to climate change as part of this project. Coastal zone, forestry, and agriculture sectors tend to be vulnerable to changes in climate. By targeting educators in these sectors, a greater awareness is fostered to find solutions to reduce current and future impacts. This project delivers education through direct outreach, informational meetings, and train-the-trainer workshops. Stakeholder groups in each community are provided with the background and means to use new outreach materials and information to educate their constituents and the broader public on reducing the effects of climate change.
2004 Grants
Appalachian Mountain Club $10,200
Dr. Kenneth Kimball, 5 Joy Street, Boston, MA 02108
The Mountain Watch Program
The Appalachian Mountain Club (AMC) offers educational programs and workshops for the public. The Mountain Watch program educates the local community, students in New England schools, and members of the public visiting the AMC facilities in New Hampshire about the relationship between air pollution, climate variability, and their potential impact on the northeast's higher peaks.
Cohasset Middle High School $4,855
Jack Buckley, 143 Pond Street, Cohasset, MA 02025
Building Assessment Tools for Monitoring Bacteria in the Gulf River and Cohasset Harbor
This project enables students and teachers to further develop assessment tools for monitoring bacteria in accordance with an educational model for water quality monitoring. A summer institute engages students in investigations of community problems and trains the students to conduct these investigations in accordance with protocols. The students present their results to the public following the completion of the projects. The outdoor environment is used as the primary classroom.
Northeast Sustainable Energy Associates, Inc. $7,355
Chris Mason, 50 Miles Street, Greenfield, MA 01301
Problem-solving Transportation Issues
This project is expanding the Earth Smart Travel program by increasing the number, geographic range, and effectiveness of environmental education organizations that train teachers and that reach students directly. The project provides activities that involve students in evaluating the environmental impacts of their current transportation options and identifying earth-friendly means of transportation.
Tent City Corporation $4,800
Angela Perondi Pitel, 359 Columbus Avenue, Boston, MA 02116
Fuel Cell Education Program
This program is implementing a fuel cell environmental education unit as part of the Boston Renaissance Charter School's eighth-grade science curriculum. Teachers attend a workshop to learn about the fuel cell technology and how to integrate it into their science curriculum. The teachers return to their classrooms to pilot this educational unit. Renewable energy resources, such as hydrogen fuel cells, offer solutions for environmental problems as well as economic opportunities. These resources have the potential to revolutionize the way energy is produced and used in our society.
The Walden Woods Project $17,997
Dr. Kent Curtis, 44 Baker Farm, Lincoln, MA 01773
Approaching Walden 2004
The Walden Woods Project is expanding its successful teacher training seminars with Approaching Walden 2004, a project that targets public high school history, science, social science, and English teachers in Massachusetts to attend a 2 week seminar. The project uses the writings of Henry David Thoreau and the Walden Woods setting to create place-based lessons about the teachers' own communities and links those lessons to the state's learning standards.
Town of Amesbury $4,936
Kathleen Crowley, 62 Friend Street, Amesbury, MA 01913
Citizen Scientist Project
The Camp Kent Environmental Center and the Powow River Conservation Area conduct many programs throughout the year, such as a 6-week program for students in grades 3 through 8 and free monthly family programs. In the new Citizen Scientist project, children, teens, adults, educators, and families participate in hands-on, environmental science-related field observations. The participants collect local environmental data, which in turn gives the community a better understanding of flora and fauna species.
Urban Ecology Institute, Inc. $97,800
Charles Lord, 355 Higgins Hall, 140 Commonwealth Avenue, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467
The Urban Ecology Collaborative
This project implements a multistate vision for EE programs for urban youth in kindergarten through grade 12 by building the capacity of the Urban Ecology Collaborative (UEC). UEC is a partnership of state agencies, nonprofit organizations, and public schools in Boston, Massachusetts; New Haven, Connecticut; New York City, New York; Baltimore, Maryland; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; and Washington, DC, that are working to coordinate the delivery of EE programs to urban youth. During the project, UEC representatives oversee a strategic planning process, conduct an inventory of EE programs across each of the six UEC cities, link EE programs within and between the UEC cities, and foster efforts related to capacity-building and improved outreach. This collaborative project is the first of its kind to address the pedagogical needs of urban students from an EE perspective. Key project partners are the Boston Public Schools, the Urban Resources Initiative, the New Haven Ecology Project and Common Ground High School, the Institute for Ecosystem Studies, the Baltimore Ecosystem Study, the Parks and People Foundation, the Casey Trees Endowment Fund, the Schoolyard Greening Consortium, the Green Education Movement, and Conservation Consultants, Inc.
Westport River Watershed Alliance, Inc. $5,000
Gay Gillespie, 1151 Main Road, P.O. Box 3427, Westport, MA 02790-0703
Watershed Education Program
Two components of this program, Adopt-A-Trout and the Dune Restoration Project, provide fifth-, seventh-, and eighth-grade students with interdisciplinary, project-based learning experiences while they make improvements in the ecological health of some of the natural habitats found in their own back yards. The project also hopes to develop and test new methods of assessment to measure student learning.
2003 Grants
Fall River Public School District $2,554
Pam Tickle, 417 Rock Street, Fall River, MA 02720-3344
Project Green Fever
This project targets 1,050 sixth-grade students in Fall River and focuses on environmental topics such as litter, recycling, and energy conservation. Six volunteers work closely with 19 sixth-grade teachers. Media coverage of this event reaches hundreds of additional residents.
Family Service, Inc. $62,493
Elizabeth Sweeney, 430 North Canal Street, Lawrence, MA 01840
Healthy Homes, Healthy Kids
This project involves training workers who provide direct services to parents in the northeastern Massachusetts communities of Lawrence and Worcester, which have many minority and low-income residents. The workers are trained to deliver environmental health education to parents of preschool children in order to reduce the children's exposure to toxic chemicals in their homes. The direct service workers attend an 8-hour workshop that provides environmental health education as well as strategies for dealing effectively with parents. Follow-up support is provided for the workers in two subsequent workshops. The workshops are based on curricula previously developed and tested by the project sponsors and the Toxics Use Reduction Institute at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell. The training and outreach project is designed to establish a sustainable pool of community workers with expertise in environmental health education and to reach hundreds of parents.
Family Service, Inc. $9,648
Elizabeth Sweeney, 430 North Canal Street, Lawrence, MA 01840
Healthy Kids
The "Healthy Kids" workshop is used to teach parents about the presence of toxics in their home environment, the impact of these toxics on their children's physical and mental development, and strategies to reduce the presence of toxics in the home. Bilingual/bicultural parent educators use curricula developed and tested by Family Service, Inc. This effort reaches approximately 200 parents, impacting the health of children in a cost-effective manner.
Saugus River Watershed Council $5,000
Nicole Cave-Luongo, P.O. Box 1092, Saugus, MA 01906
Outreach to Schools Project
The project's education coordinator visits schools in the ethnically diverse communities of Malden and Revere, Massachusetts, to teach 200 students about the current environmental issues and problems that affect them and the watershed as well as what they can do to help solve the problems. By having students work in small groups to perform interactive and hands-on activities, this intensive educational project makes a lasting impact on each student who participates.
South Shore Natural Science Center $5,600
Susan Cronin, Jacobs Lane, P.O. Box 429, Norwell, MA 02061
Good Things Come in Big Puddles
The South Shore Natural Science Center partners with Notre Dame Academy and the Norwell Conservation Commission to supplement an environmental education course with instruction about the importance of vernal pools and the certification process. The project is aimed at 11th- and 12th-grade female students who learn about the uniqueness of vernal pools and are exposed to possible environmental careers. Approximately 80 students in four classes are participating in the project along with three classroom teachers.
Taconic Chapter, Trout Unlimited $16,634
Herbert Rod, 100 Brookside Drive, Pittsfield, MA 01201
Yokum Brook Environmental Education Collaborative
The Yokum Brook Environmental Education Collaborative has partnered with Becket-Washington Elementary School, which is adjacent to an active river restoration project on Yokum Brook. Through this partnership, students receive a “living classroom” education in river ecology, the biology of fisheries, and ecosystem restoration. For example, the project encourages critical thinking about the Atlantic salmon’s habitat and water quality requirements.
The Boston Harbor Association $5,000
Vivien Li, 374 Congress Street, Suite 609, Boston, MA 02210
The Boston Harbor After-School Education Program
This program provides inner-city youth (ages 8 through 12) with after-school opportunities aimed at promoting long-term environmental stewardship of Boston Harbor and the Harbor Islands. The program is expanding on the success of existing youth programs by creating a series of 12 hands-on environmental activities specifically designed to make use of the time after school.
University of Massachusetts, Boston Environmental Studies Program $16,404
Robert B. Beattie, 100 Morrissey Boulevard, Boston, MA 02125
Opening New Windows on Environmental Justice
The University of Massachusetts (UMass) in Boston is partnering with Alternatives for Community & Environment (ACE) to create educational videos focusing on environmental justice issues and associated improvements in local communities. To further the connection to the communities, UMass's Environmental Studies program actively recruits students who live in the neighborhoods served by ACE to be student interns on the project. The videos are used to educate the communities, are incorporated into classes at UMass-Boston, and may be used as part of a training unit on environmental justice for EPA.
Worcester Natural History Society (EcoTarium) $10,000
Jennifer Glick, 222 Harrington Way, Worcester, MA 01604
Teen Action Science Crew
The EcoTarium's multilevel, work-based program targets low-income, inner-city, minority teens in their third year of the Teen Action Science Crew (TASC) Ambassadors Program. The students focus on sustainability and environmental justice issues, building skills through program development, delivering public programs, assisting with training and mentoring other teens, and community outreach. TASC is part of the museum's Science Career Ladder, which includes a nested hierarchy of programs that serve young people from elementary school through high school.
2002 Grants
Cohasset Public Schools $3,892
Jack Buckley, 143 Pond Street, Cohasset, MA 02025
Assessing the Gulf River - Student Monitoring of Water Quality in the Cohasset, MA South Coastal Watershed
This grant enables Cohasset Middle High School students to work as summer interns re-establishing water quality monitoring in the Gulf River, and to assist the Gulf Association in its goal of conducting a natural resources inventory (NRI) of the Gulf River Watershed. Archived water quality data (dating back 6 or more years) and data from the summer of 2002 are gathered and documented in a report that becomes part of the NRI document published by the Gulf Association.
Housatonic River Restoration, Inc. $13,835
Rachel Fletcher, 113 Division Street, P. O. Box 1018, Great Barrington, MA 01230
Housatonic River Restoration Environmental Education Network
The network establishes a regional partnership of classroom educators and environmentalists to create quality, place-based water resource education and ensure a responsible and knowledgeable constituency of river uses. The network supports and provides curriculum guides and training for classroom teachers to encourage them to use the Housatonic River as a teaching laboratory for their students, while implementing curricula that are compatible with the Massachusetts State Education frameworks.
Institute for Just Communities $100,000
Della M. Hughes, 40 Old Lancaster Road, Sudbury, MA 01776
Gulf of Maine Institute Without Walls: Environmental Leadership Training
The goal of the project is to link adults with youth living within the Gulf of Maine bioregion while addressing the challenge of building and maintaining a sustainable environment. By employing a community youth development approach and leveraging lessons from service education, project participants work on real-life issues and concerns related to sustaining the Gulf of Maine watershed. Through the program, participants also learn about activities in each of their watersheds that have an effect on the rivers and estuaries feeding into the gulf. Teachers are provided with training and technical assistance, and during the summer, participate in a week-long Environmental Leadership Institute. The project crosses a wide variety of regional boundaries. U.S. partners include the Gulf of Maine Institute Without Walls Guide Team, the Massachusetts Audubon Society, Roca Inc., the Cocheco River Watershed Coalition, the Gulf of Main Council, and the Pacific Institute of Research and Evaluation. Canadian partners include the Eastern Charlotte Waterways (New Brunswick), the Tusket River Environmental Protection Association (TREPA), and the Tri-County School District (Nova Scotia).
Keep Lowell Beautiful, Inc. $5,000
Frank Heslin, 32 Lowell Road, Westford, MA 01886
Keep Lowell Beautiful Litter Reduction Project
The "Keep Lowell Beautiful Litter Reduction" project combines interactive education programs and hands-on cleanups in the most highly littered areas of the city, where 20,000 Spanish and Khmer-speaking people reside. These neighborhoods have community organizers and groups that will assist with raising community awareness of the negative impacts of litter, developing solutions to the issue of litter in the neighborhood, and promoting a behavioral change toward litter.
Merrimack River Watershed Council $15,517
Beth Brazil, 600 Suffolk Street, 4th Floor, Lowell, MA 01854
Merrimack River Children As River and Environmental Stewards (CARES) Program
This program is a seventh-grade environmental education implementation program focusing on the Merrimack River and Salmon Brook watersheds. This project educates up to 22 seventh-grade teachers and as many as 1,000 students of Nashua, New Hampshire. The program includes specific community activities facilitated by the schools, such as field trips and watershed events to educate citizens residing in the towns within the Merrimack River watershed about the benefits of active watershed stewardship on public health and local environmental conditions.
Nashua River Watershed Association (NRWA) $5,000
Mary H. Marro, 592 Main Street, Groton, MA 01450
Ayer Nature Trail and Watershed Monitoring Project
This project enables 100 fifth-grade students and 6 middle school teachers to work directly with the Nashua River Watershed Association (NRWA) scientist-in-residence. Once a month, the NRWA scientist visits each class, and facilitates hands-on participatory activities in the forest and at pond sites. Twenty-five parent chaperones also participate in the Explore-A-Pond Program, often learning as much as the students.
New England Aquarium Corporation $20,000
John Anderson, Central Wharf, Boston, MA 02110
The Mercury Story
This project engages public audiences to learn about mercury pollution and its prevention by designing a traveling exhibit and training program to support public education in each New England state. The components of this project are based on successful work previously conducted at the aquarium, including a mercury education day and thermometer exchange. During the first 6 months of its tour, families, school groups, and community leaders from across New England have the opportunity to interact with the exhibit and participate in a mercury education day.
Northeast Sustainable Energy Association (NESEA) $5,000
Christopher Mason, 50 Miles Street, Greenfield, MA 01301
Earth Smart Travel
This project is a pilot project promoted by the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association (NESEA) to provide support and training on environmental transportation issues to environmental education organizations, such as the Massachusetts Community Water Watch and Tanglewood 4-H Camp. In turn, these organizations bring the program activities back to the schools and students with whom they currently work. NESEA involves at least 24 new schools and 2,100 new students annually in interdisciplinary education on transportation issues.
Northeast Sustainable Energy Association (NESEA) $5,000
Christopher Mason, 50 Miles Street, Greenfield, MA 01301
Earth Smart Spending
The Northeast Sustainable Energy Association (NESEA) is conducting a regional energy conservation workshop for fourth-grade through high school teachers and school facility managers. The workshop takes place in Albany, New York and focuses on current technology and available consumer choices for heating, lighting, and transportation. The workshop enables participants to use educational resources and materials on energy efficiency, renewable energy, and clean transportation technologies. The mission of the program is to provide education about energy conservation choices that can be made at the institutional and personal level to prevent pollution through wise energy use.
Old Colony Y $4,800
Kenneth Klier, 320 Main Street, Brockton, MA 02301
Learning Environmental Awareness and Positive Attitudes (LEAP)
Project LEAP is an environmental education program developed for at-risk youth, ages 12 to 21. This organization, partnering with Champion Charter School and Youthbuild Brockton, provides 80 students from alternative classrooms the opportunity to learn outdoor skills that encourage healthy active lifestyles and that develop a better understanding of environmental issues, such as water quality and urban open space.
Stonehill College $10,000
Dr. Roger Denome, 320 Washington Street, Easton, MA 02357
Creation of the Campus Classroom
This project makes the wild spaces on Stonehill College's campus available for educational efforts of the college and kindergarten through 12th-grade school systems in the surrounding area. Five undergraduates, working for 10 weeks in the summer research program, produce a Field Guide to Stonehill College and make it available online and in print. Ten teachers from local school districts are trained in a summer workshop focusing on the use of the guide. Teaching collaborations between these teachers and Stonehill College are developed, which in turn bring kindergarten through 12th-grade classes onto the campus for education in environmental sciences.
The Boston Harbor Association $5,000
Vivien Li, 374 Congress Street, Suite 609, Boston, MA 02210
Summer on the Harbor Education Program for Inner-City Youth
The Summer on the Harbor program provides middle- and high-school-age youth with a series of interactive activities, field trips, and hands-on science projects to teach them about the complex environment associated with the Boston Harbor and the Boston Harbor Islands. The goal of the program is to promote long-term environmental stewardship of Boston Harbor among inner-city youth. Students participate in restoration activities and projects, learn about environmental and public health issues, and explore environmental career opportunities associated with the harbor.
2001 Grants
Bristol Community College $10,000
Elizabeth Palter, 777 Elsbree Street, Fall River, MA 02720
Improving Water Quality and Protecting Wetlands
A series of 10 forums featuring expert presenters and panelists provides educational experiences in the development and implementation of sound water quality and wetland protection measures for the watershed region of southeastern Massachusetts.
Community Foundation of Southern Massachusetts $5,000
Anne Beaulieu, 227 Union Street, Suite 609, New Bedford, MA 02740
The Southeastern Environmental Education Alliance (SEEAL) Watershed Expedition
The 23-member organization strives to encourage environmental awareness and stewardship in the area, with a particular emphasis on protection of the watershed. Urban high school students and teachers work together on a five-day program that explores the environmental issues that affect the Acushnet, Slocum, and Paskemanset rivers; Aponagansett and Cedar swamps; and Turner Pond. Students use topography maps, charts, and GIS information to examine habitats to advance the protection of drinking-water supplies and to study watersheds and salt-water estuaries, as well.
Earthworks Projects, Inc. $5,000
Laura Doty, 34 Linwood Street, Roxbury, MA 02119
Schoolyard After-School Program
Earthworks strives to create a healthy, sustainable urban environment through neighborhood and school-based tree plantings and environmental education programs. Earthworks expands its after-school gardening program to three additional urban elementary schools. The schoolyard orchards curriculum used in the program meets the requirements of the state science frameworks and learning standards.
Massachusetts Youth Teenage Unemployment Reduction Network, Inc. $29,722
Barbara Duffy, 43 Crescent Street, Brockton, MA 02301
The Student Water Action Tracking (SWAT) Team
Massachusetts Youth Teenage Unemployment Reduction Network, Inc. (MY TURN) works collaboratively with a number of community-based agencies, government agencies, and educational entities to develop and implement career development programs. This project is focused specifically on assisting youth in identifying and developing their skills through career exploration and employment training. Representing a diverse, urban community, selected high school sophomores are learning about water pollution and environmental careers through their participation in projects conducted in the classroom, as well as hands-on field demonstrations. Organized into small teams, the students update and add to information about the location, routes, and final destinations of the city’s storm-drain system, conduct weekly water tests, design and place information stencils on storm drains, and develop flyers that describe their activities and distribute the flyers to neighboring communities. Supporters of the project include Brockton High School, the Champion Charter School of Brockton, Wheaton College, the Brockton Water Commission, the Brockton Department of Public Works, the Executive Office of Environmental Affairs – Taunton River Watershed Team, and the Taunton River Watershed Alliance.
Merrimack River Watershed Council $10,419
Beth Brazil, 181 Canal Street, Lawrence, MA 01842
The Pilot Teacher Training Project (PTTP)
Under the project, three workshops are held for at least 20 eighth-grade educators in Manchester, New Hampshire. The workshops prepare the teachers to implement the Merrimack River MATTERS (Manchester Actions That Totally Enhance River Systems) environmental education curriculum. (Project in Manchester, New Hampshire)
Mystic River Watershed Association, Inc. $5,000
Grace Perez, 20 Academy Street, Suite 203, Arlington, MA 02476
New Century Environmental Leadership Institute (NCELI)
The Mystic River Watershed Association formed the NCELI, along with Tufts University. The goal of the institute is to equip participating students with the tools they need to become professionals and leaders in research and policy development related to the restoration of watersheds and in environmental education. The effort develops in students a richer and more complex understanding of the responsibilities of environmental professionals and the challenges they face.
Northeast Sustainable Energy Association $5,000
Chris Mason, 50 Miles Street, Suite 3, Greenfield, MA 01301
Educator's Conference: Energy and the Environment
Under this project, a two-day educator’s conference is held for more than 42,000 educators throughout the mid-Atlantic states and New England. The conference takes place in the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania area. The program of the conference emphasizes encouragement of pollution prevention by influencing teachers’ technological choices and consumer behavior in heating, lighting, and transportation. Programs conducted during the conference also encourage teachers to engage students in quality environmental education through the use of educational resources and programs that focus on the themes of energy efficiency, renewable energy, clean transportation technologies, and consumer energy. (Project in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)
Quebec-Labrador Foundation $12,000
Candace Cochrane, 55 South Main Street, Ipswich, MA 01938
The Bays Stewardship Network
The project encourages a sense of environmental stewardship of Cobscook and Passamoquoddy bays. Under the project, 100 teachers and students in at least seven communities in Washington County, Maine and New Brunswick, Canada are expected to participate in training workshops and research projects related to environmental issues that affect the bays. (Project in Washington County, Maine)
Emily Norton, 1 School Street, Sharon, MA 02067
Environmental Education Through Field Research
This project introduces and integrates outdoor environmental education through field research or outdoor education for students in grades 3, 5, 7, and 10. Organizers of the project also develop a strategy for incorporating environmental education into the 10th-grade biology curriculum, provide training for secondary and elementary teachers, and use a variety of media to increase awareness of the local natural environment among students and members of the community.
South Shore Natural Science Center $8,142
Susan Cronin, Jacobs Lane, Norwell, MA 02061
Willow Brook Farm Preserve: A Community Resource
The science center, along with the town of Pembroke, develop an environmental program at the Willow Brook Farm Preserve that provides professional development workshops and activities for teachers. More than 400 third- and fourth-grade students also are expected to participate, along with their parents or chaperones.
Southeastern Regional Planning and Economic Development (SRPEDD) $4,784
Stephen Smith, 88 Broadway, Taunton, MA 02780
Youth Involved in Community Planning Partnership with Taunton Boys and Girls Club
Through an after-school program for students ages 10 through 13, SRPEDD, along with the Boys and Girls Club of Taunton, offer a series of hands-on learning experiences focused on land use planning. Examples from the students’ own community are used in the program.
Steven Perdios, 555 Washington Street, Quincy, MA 02169
Earth Week 2002 in Quincy, Massachusetts
The city of Quincy hosts an Earth Week to educate the community and students about the environmental and health issues that affect their city. Each of three schools hosts one of the three major events planned for the week. Some of the activities include: a Whale Day that focuses on protection of ocean life and forests, a Yard Day that focuses on disposal of hazardous wastes and protection of the environment in the home yard, and a day on which a cleanup of the islands in Boston Harbor and a review of the history of those islands are the principal activities.
Triton Regional School District $5,000
Janet Ritchey, 112 Elm Street, Byfield, MA 01922
Newbury Elementary School Environmental Education Project Outdoor Classroom
An outdoor classroom is developed at Newbury Elementary School to provide learners an opportunity to undertake an inquiry approach to acquire knowledge and skills that allows them to develop lifelong appreciation of the environment. A pumpkin patch, a butterfly garden, and a birdhouse area are planned for the outdoor classroom, and a composting program is established.
Westport River Watershed Alliance (WRWA) $5,000
Gay Gillespie, 1151 Main Road, Westport, MA 02790-0703
Watershed Education Program (WEP): Grade 5 Dune Grass Restoration Field Study
WRWA focuses on promoting environmental integrity, advocating stewardship of the watershed’s natural resources, and educating the public about the interrelationships among water, soils, plants, animals, and people. WRWA has developed the WEP and worked with the Westport schools to incorporate the curriculum into the school system. WRWA is expanding the WEP curriculum to include a field study program for students in grade 5 that provides hands-on, field-oriented, and applied learning opportunities outside the classroom. More than 150 students, 20 parents, and 6 teachers are expected to participate in the expansion.
2000 Grants
Boston Public Schools-New Mission High School $4,600
Susie Wu, 67 Alleghancy Street, Roxbury, MA 02120
Water Quality at Home
In partnership with the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority, 9th- and 10th-grade students from New Mission High School test water samples from their homes and adjoining areas. The students focus on the effects of environmental factors on water chemistry and biology.
Lower Cape Communications $5,000
Bob Seay, 14 Center Street, Provincetown, MA 02657
Cape Cod Environmental Round Table
WOMR 92.1 FM, a non-commercial educational radio station, established an environmental round table segment in 1997 to help expand public awareness of important environmental issues. Guest speakers and topics reflect environmental issues of high interest on Cape Cod. It is estimated that more than 2,500 listeners tune into the program.
Lori Henry, 391 Brook Road, Milton, MA 02186
Neponset River Watershed Curriculum Project
In partnership with the Westport River Watershed Alliance (WRWA), the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority, and the state's Executive Office of Environmental Affairs, Glover Elementary School creates a long-term interdisciplinary watershed curriculum on the Neponset River watershed. The school purchases watershed kits and receives teacher training from WRWA. Partners make presentations to the students and help guide field trips. Participants in the program include 18 teachers and approximately 415 students in kindergarten through grade 5.
Brenda Rich, 95 Berkley Street, Boston, MA 02116
E3-Environmental Education Experiences
Using existing hands-on environmental education curricula and methods, (such as Project Wild and Conserving Soil, a curriculum guide) 60 teams, each consisting of one Girl Scout adult volunteer and one teen peer leader, are trained in a variety of environmental topics and activities. Each team is expected to carry out at least one environmental education event in their community. Approximately 1,000 Girl Scouts are educated through the activities.
Springfield Library and Museums $4,850
Dave Stier, 220 State Street, Springfield, MA 01103
River Education Awareness Program (REAP)
The River Education Awareness Program (REAP) allows urban teens (8th through 12th grade) to actively participate in evaluating the historic Mill River in Springfield, Massachusetts. Students conduct water quality tests, survey the river's surroundings, and sample for indicator invertebrates. Through the many partners of the library, teachers receive training in how to incorporate ecosystems issues into their schedules and meet state frameworks. REAP reaches 2,000 students in grades 8 through 12.
Swampscott Public Schools $4,018
Mary Bester-Colby, 207 Forest Avenue, Swampscott, MA 01907
Adopt-a-Salmon
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service provides teachers and facilitators a full day of training on ecological principles and watershed and ecosystem management. A 30-gallon salmon tank is set up in 5th grade classrooms. Students raise salmon and learn about water quality and fish development. Fish are released when they are ready. Students also visit a Fish and Wildlife Service salmon hatchery. The program reaches approximately 150 elementary students, 10 elementary school teachers, and 10 members of the community.
Alternatives for Community and Environment $10,000
Warren Goldstein-Gelb, 2343 Washington Street, Roxbury, MA 02119
The Air We Share: From Classroom to Community in Roxbury
The Roxbury Environmental Empowerment Project (REEP) focuses on the issues of poor indoor and outdoor air quality as a primary public health concern among school-age young people and adults in Roxbury. REEP targets youth and informal leaders in public housing, neighborhood associations, and small businesses.
EarthWorks Projects, Inc. $5,000
Maurice Loiselle, 46 Chestnut Street, 3rd Floor, Jamaica Plain, MA 02130
Outdoor Classroom's Adopt a Tree and High School Mentors Program
This project increases the use of the Schoolyard Orchard Outdoor Classrooms for hands-on environmental education by training 10 or more volunteers who live in the communities in which the schools are located. The project also trains five high school students as classroom specialists for their schools and three to five teachers in the use of the orchards.
Island Alliance $25,000
Kathy Abbott, 408 Atlantic Avenue, Boston, MA 02210
Interdisciplinary Environmental Middle School Curriculum Based on Islands in Boston Harbor
The project's middle school curriculum is designed to meet the needs of students in Boston and other minority neighborhoods in Massachusetts. It also delivers instruction and learning materials to teachers on site. The curriculum is based on the geological, historical, cultural, social, economic, political, and marine and terrestrial ecology resources of the islands of Boston Harbor.
Lynn Public Schools Environmental School $4,995
Charles P. Wilkinson, 14 Central Avenue, Lynn, MA 01901
A Teaching Tool for the Development of Critical-Thinking and Problem-Solving Skills
This project provides interdisciplinary real-world training in ecological principles and environmental education to teams of primary and secondary teachers at the Lynn Woods Reservation, a unique 2,200-acre urban forest. Workshops provide field training based on the geology, hydrology, flora, and fauna of local ecosystems.
New England Aquarium Corporation, Education Department $5,000
William Spitzer, Ph.D., Central Wharf, Boston, MA 02110
Community Environmental Career Development
Community organizations recruit young adults, age 18 to 30, from Roxbury, Dorchester, Jamaica Plain, and Chelsea to participate in a series of eight environmental career workshops. Professionals who work in environmental careers participate as guest presenters, with the workshops organized by staff of the New England Aquarium and hosted by a number of community organizations in Roxbury, Dorchester, and Jamaica Plain.
Newton Public Schools $5,000
George Willwerth, 100 Walnut Street, Newton, MA 02460
From Cheesecake Brook to Stellwagen Bank
This project takes an integrated, thematic approach to helping students develop concern for their environment by demonstrating the neglect that has occurred in their own community and that has had an adverse effect on Cheesecake Brook, a brook that flows through property of the school. The project demonstrates how the effects of that neglect have reached the Charles River and extended as far as Stellwagen Bank.
Northeast Sustainable Energy Association $7,269
Nancy Hazard, 50 Miles Street, Greenfield, MA 01301
Teacher Workshops on Transportation
The Northeast Sustainable Energy Association enhances the skills of middle school teachers in environmental education by offering a new teacher training workshop that provides them a unique set of interdisciplinary environmental education materials called Future Wheels for a Sustainable America. The materials are designed to raise the awareness of teachers, students, and parents of environmental and health hazards associated with transportation choices. The workshops, held in EPA Region 3 (Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and Delaware) during the 1999-2000 school year, offer resources to 5,000 middle school teachers. The teachers present the lessons to approximately 3,000 students from a wide range of ethnic and economic backgrounds in urban, suburban, and rural areas.
University of Massachusetts Lowell Research Foundation $19,159
Dr. Linda Silka, 600 Suffolk Street, 2nd Floor South, Lowell, MA 01854
Regional Economic and Social Development
The River Ambassadors, 30 Southeast Asian young people previously trained in urban environmental issues, are creating six 15-minute videotape programs designed to consolidate their learning and give them increased visibility for their environmental work. The project provides a model for the development of community-based approaches that can be successful in areas that are home to immigrants new to the United States.
Alternatives for Community & Environment $5,000
Penn Loh, 2343 Washington Street, 2nd Floor, Roxbury, MA 02119
Environmental Justice Youth Educators
Alternatives for Community & Environment (ACE) recruits 8 to 12 young people from age 14 to age 21 to educate their peers and their community about the broad health effects of indoor and outdoor air pollution. ACE's program includes the Roxbury Environmental Empowerment Project, which works with the recruits to educate the predominately low-income and culturally diverse community of Roxbury through workshops, a newsletter, and training.
Clean Water Fund $4,800
Lee Ketelsen, 76 Summer Street, 6th Floor, Boston, MA 02110
Breaking the Pesticide Habit To Protect Children's Health
Pesticides are used widely and can have harmful effects on children's health. The project, Breaking the Pesticides Habit, seeks to educate parents and school and park personnel about the dangers of misusing pesticides. The Clean Water Fund works with parent-teacher organizations in Haverhill, Massachusetts to educate all parents and teachers in at least 10 schools, reaching approximately 2,000 parents with written materials and engaging about 300 in workshops. Education in the use of pesticides and safer alternatives helps parents guard the health and safety of the children.
Eagle Eye Institute, Inc. $25,000
Anthony Sanchez, 36 Hancock Street, Somerville, MA 02144
Learn About the Forest
Eagle Eye Institute (EEI) provides hands-on environmental education for 300 to 350 urban youth, 8 to 22 years old. The Learn About the Forest project is built around outdoor programs that use interactive and hands-on methods to teach skills in problem solving, group dynamics, and decision making. EEI provides disadvantaged youth with hands-on learning about the importance, health, and care of trees and the ecosystem of the urban environment in which they live. The format is a one-time, three-hour program or series of programs offered in the spring and fall. During the summer, EEI provides one- and three-day programs in a rural setting. Those programs are focused on trees and the forest. From 15 to 20 young people and their counselors participate in the programs. EEI also gives young people the opportunity to work in their own neighborhoods through recycling and planting and pruning trees.
Earth Works Projects, Inc. $5,000
Bill Taylor, 11 Green Street, Jamaica Plain, MA 02130
Urban Orchards Outdoor Classroom Expansion
This project involves teachers and youth in planting and caring for fruit and nut trees, shrubs, and vines at 15 schools. The project targets children in kindergarten through grade 2 and those in grade 5, using the schoolyard orchards to teach the students about food production and ecosystems. The goal of the program is to adapt curriculum to after-school programs. Teacher training and workshops help teachers test and use activities at existing urban orchard sites.
Jobs for Youth - Boston, Inc. $25,000
Paula Paris, 125 Tremont Street, Boston, MA 02108
Linking Environmental Education and Environmental Justice to Careers
This program provides training to increase the number of low-income communities who are employed in environmental fields. Students receive environmental training, academic preparation, Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) certification, and applied skills training in hazardous waste treatment and geographic information systems, as well as job placement services. Two training cycles are conducted, each for 20 to 25 students.
Old Colony YMCA-Taunton $5,000
Scott Clark, 71 Cohannet Street, Taunton, MA 02780
Taunton YMCA Earth Service Corps
This project forms an Earth Service Corps at the Old Colony YMCA to strengthen and diversify the youth environmental movement in Taunton and to improve environmental education strategies that target residents of low- and moderate-income housing. During its first year, the project emphasizes the development of a dedicated cadre of youth leaders. They will be encouraged to focus on improving recycling and composting efforts in the city. The grant money will support team-building activities, retreats and field trips, transportation, and purchase of project materials.
University of Massachusetts, Boston $5,000
Barbara Robinson, 100 Morrissey Boulevard, Boston, MA 02125
Watershed Education
This project focuses on designing and implementing a model in the Neponset River watershed that educates citizens and officials of communities in the watershed about pertinent environmental issues through a World Wide Web site, media coverage, and public meetings. The Web site provides information and educational materials about issues that affect the Neponset River watershed. It is expected that hundreds of volunteers will be educated through the project.
Westport River Watershed Alliance, Inc. $5,000
Gay Gillespie, P. O. Box 1054, 1151 Main Street, Westport, MA 02790
Watershed Education Project: Estuary Curriculum
Westport River Watershed Alliance (WRWA) and Westport Community Schools have been partners for five years in developing and implementing the Watershed Education Program (WEP), an interdisciplinary environmental education curriculum that focuses on watershed ecology and related issues. Its purpose is to provide students the skills they need to understand the valuable natural resources in the region and to increase environmental awareness among students in the Westport River watershed. WEP is intended to improve and expand the curriculum significantly to include field studies and weather monitoring. WEP complements existing school curricula with a series of thematic multidisciplinary kits, teacher guides, and workshops.
Alternatives for Community and Environment, Inc. $5,000
Penn Loh, 2343 Washington Street, 2nd floor, Roxbury, MA 02119
Youth Educators for Asthma Prevention
This project is conducted in Roxbury, an impoverished city of 60,000 residents, 90 percent of whom are people of color. Roxbury has the highest rate of asthma in Massachusetts. A corps of 16 to 24 Roxbury youth, ages 14 to 21, are trained in two after-school sessions. They then design workshops, skits, handouts, and other outreach devices to share their knowledge with other youth, teachers, and adults in their community. All materials developed are compiled into a manual on asthma that is distributed to educators in Boston.
Camp Fire Council for Eastern Massachusetts $5,000
Cynthia Beaudoin, 108 Union Wharf, Boston, MA 02109-1281
WorldWise
In eastern Massachusetts, the WorldWise project, a national effort of Camp Fire Boys and Girls, has five learning objectives: The Ecosystem; Limiting Factors; Habitat and Niche; Matter and Energy Flow in Ecosystems; and Succession. Staff of 15 licensed urban after-school programs, including several in Boston and Cambridge, and of suburban programs participate in workshops and community service activities. Using a written survey, the 30 workshop participants evaluate presentations that are provided to an average of 375 children each year.
Center for Ecological Technology, Inc. $5,000
Nancy Nylen, 112 Elm Street, Pittsfield, MA 01201
Environmental Teleconference Project: River Awareness and Action
This project actively engages students at four high schools and two colleges in investigating the environmental condition of the Hoosic River. The project builds local capacity by expanding educational programming and increasing awareness on the part of the general public of issues that affect the watershed. The project broadcasts educational television programming to approximately 14,000 households and culminates in an interactive teleconference among participating schools. The project is a collaborative effort of the Center for Ecological Technology, Inc.; the Hoosic River Watershed Association; and the Northern Berkshire Community Television Corporation.
Chelsea Human Services Collaborative $5,000
Edward Maravkovitz, 300 Broadway, Chelsea, MA 02150
Environmental Issues in Chelsea: Capacity-Building for Informed Decisions and Responsible Action
Environmental Issues in Chelsea provides an educational conference focused on four recent reports about environmental concerns that affect Chelsea, a low-income city at high risk for environmental problems, including lead poisoning and conditions that cause or aggravate asthma in children. The target audience includes 100 community leaders in Chelsea, of whom 50 percent are low-income and 50 percent are Hispanic. Further, 25 percent of that audience are youth leaders, and 10 percent are public officials. An additional 1,000 people, of a similar demographic composition, are targeted through the public media. Key partners in the project are the Environmental Diversity Forum, the Bridge School of Chelsea, the Massachusetts Toxics Campaign Fund, the Chelsea Record, and the Spanish language newspaper El Mundo.
Earth Works Project, Inc. $5,000
Bill Taylor, 11 Green Street, Jamaica Plain, MA 02130
Schoolyard Orchard Outdoor Classroom
The Schoolyard Orchard Outdoor Classroom project expands Earth Works Project, Inc.'s efforts to encourage teachers and young people to plant and care for fruit and nut trees, shrubs, and vines and to teach them about food production and ecosystems. The project provides 30 hands-on activities organized according to several themes or units and field-tests and evaluates the materials as they are used by at least 12 teachers and 200 students. The project also provides a curriculum handbook for the training of 40 teachers of primarily low-income students in kindergarten through grade six in the use of schoolyard urban orchards. Approximately 800 students are involved directly in the project.
Falmouth Public Schools $5,000
Joan Muller, 340 Teaticket Highway, East Falmouth, MA 02536-6527
Adult Basic Education Focusing on Groundwater and Pollution Issues
This project improves and enriches the current science curriculum of the Adult Basic Education (ABE) program by adapting a groundwater and pollution course for ABE students and distributing the materials to other programs on Cape Cod, where concerns about groundwater pollution are particularly high because of the Superfund hazardous waste site at the Massachusetts Military Reservation. The primary goal of the project is to educate 15 adult-education instructors and 120 adult learners who, lacking high school diplomas, are marginally employed or unemployed. The learning program includes hands-on activities and reading and writing assignments. The participants also keep journals.
Holland Elementary School $1,190
Debra Benveniste, Town Hall, P. O. Box 170, Holland, MA 01521
Environmental Fair Day at Lake Siog
The Environmental Fair Day project is a day-long series of workshops: Life of the Forest Floor, Life of the Pond, Life of the Beaver Dam, Wetland Identifiers, and The Night Sky. Serving approximately 100 to 150 people, including 70 children, the workshops help participants develop awareness of indicators of both health and distress for wetland areas, ponds, and forests. Some individuals are trained to provide the workshops to other audiences. Partners in the endeavor include the Holland Park Commission, The Hitchcock Center for the Environment, the Planetarium at Amherst College, and the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife.
Massachusetts Audubon Society $60,000
Cleti Cervoni, 208 So. Great Road, Lincoln, MA 01773
Watershed Environmental Science Education Project
The Watershed Environmental Science Education Project uses environmental education as a catalyst to advance education reform on the state, local, and tribal levels. Using watersheds as a theme, the project provides professional development services to science teachers. It documents best practices and communicates them to staff of the Massachusetts Audubon Society and to environmental educators in Massachusetts, other New England states, and other parts of the United States. More than 70 middle and high school science teachers at 30 schools develop their knowledge of concepts related to watersheds and confidence in leading field-study trips to natural areas. In turn, they act as mentors for other teachers and share with more than 4,000 students exciting new ways to learn about mathematics and science through exploration of their local watershed. Staff at six Audubon wildlife sanctuaries work in partnership with the 30 schools to conduct the project.
Northeast Sustainable Energy Association $17,700
Nancy Hazard, 50 Miles Street, Greenfield, MA 01301
Journey to the Future: Elementary Education for Pollution Prevention and Sustainable Living
This project provides a set of curriculum materials focused on technologies and behaviors that create a sustainable society. The project provides an interactive educational booklet for elementary school students and a teacher guide that focuses on the everyday decisions and actions that people make as individuals. In addition, educators from New York and New Jersey attend workshops on the use of the materials. The project provides a vision of sustainable living and decision making that fosters pollution prevention. Partners in the public and private sectors, including environmental educators, work with the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association in developing and delivering the curriculum materials.
Parker River Clean Water Association $5,000
David C. Mountain, P. O. Box 823, Byfield, MA 01922
Schoolyard Ecology for the Parker River Basin
This project expands a program developed under a 1995 grant from EPA by the Triton Regional School District. It provides 10 elementary school teachers a five-day summer workshop and follow-up activities on the subject of watersheds. The training assists teachers in using hands-on, inquiry-based learning and is designed to increase their knowledge of organisms and environments in their communities.
Thompson Island Outward Bound $5,000
Carol Nugent, Director of Development, Education Center, P. O. Box 127, Boston, MA 02127
Summer Institute for Interdisciplinary Science-Based Learning
This program increases the use of hands-on environmental teaching strategies in the public schools of Boston. The program serves 26 public school teachers and 60 public middle school students, 85 percent of whom are people of color. Through the six-week Outward Bound Summer Institute, the teachers participate in a five-day seminar to learn pedagogy and in expeditions in Boston Harbor to learn about their marine environment. The teachers then develop curricula based on Boston Harbor that they use in summer school and in their public school classrooms.
Westport Community Schools $17,558
Lana M. Paolillo, 17 Main Road, Westport, MA 02790
Finfish Restoration Project
Under the Finfish Restoration Project, students and teachers work together to breed and raise three species of fish including scup, black sea bass, and winter flounder, in closed saltwater recirculation systems and to restock the waters in the area. The project involves 150 students in 8th grade and 100 students in 10th through 12th grades in two schools, all of whom participate in site visits between the schools, share data, and give presentations on their work. The project is a collaborative effort of Durfee High School in Fall River and Westport Middle School in Westport.
Westport River Watershed Alliance, Inc. $5,000
Gay Gillespie, 1151 Main Road, P. O. Box 3427, Westport, MA 02790
Watershed Education Program
The Watershed Education Program (WEP) provides an interdisciplinary curriculum that focuses on watershed ecology and encourages students to become stewards of their fragile environment. WEP targets approximately 90 teachers and 1,328 students in kindergarten through eighth grade. Current efforts ensure that the WEP curriculum kits are fully integrated into the classroom program by providing additional kits to schools at which entire grades previously shared a single kit and by conducting workshops that increase the confidence of teachers in their ability to lead students through the WEP activities. The Westport River Watershed and Westport Community Schools have been partners in the program for several years.
Appalachian Mountain Club $5,000
Kevin T. Knobloch, 5 Joy Street, Boston, MA 02108
The Urban Stewards Program
The Urban Stewards Program is a community-based conservation project, as well as an environmental careers training program, for urban youth in the diverse and disadvantaged community of Chelsea. Participants in the program are teaching outreach and advocacy skills through the process of planning, promoting, and implementing a neighborhood environmental service project. The project is providing youth with the necessary training to become more competitive candidates for employment in the environmental and recreational fields. It also will help young people establish a community base for the maintenance of local parks and green spaces and to provide support for environmental issues.
E.N. Rogers Middle School, Lowell $5,000
Joseph Mastrocola, 89 Appleton Street, Lowell, MA 01852
The Merrimack River: Our Ecological and Industrial Lifeline
The Merrimack River: Our Ecological and Industrial Lifeline project will focus on educating teachers, students, and the public about human health problems from environmental pollution. The E.N. Rogers Environmental School, in collaboration with several partners, will use an environmental thematic curriculum to have students: examine the effects of water quality on an urban river; collaborate over the Internet with students from Great Britain on historical comparative research; and develop critical thinking, problem solving, decision making and laboratory skills.
Harvard School of Public Health $9,000
Marshall Katler, 665 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA 02115
Environmental Health Education Project
The Environmental Health Education Project, which is an expansion of an existing Harvard School of Public Health program, aims to increase awareness of the environment and its effects on health among fifth grade public school students by sharing technical expertise with teachers and students. The project is a hands-on educational outreach program that brings high quality instruction about human health and its relation to the environment to inner-city school children.
Massachusetts Audubon Society, Arcadia Wildlife Sanctuary $5,000
Tony Symasko, 127 Combs Road, Easthampton, MA 01027
An Urban Collaborative Providing Environmental Field Trips
Through this project, the Arcadia Wildlife Sanctuary, in partnership with local organizations, provides summer environmental field trips for minority youth in Holyoke. Hispanic children between the ages of five and 12 who live in Holyoke housing development projects or are served by social agencies or nonprofit agencies are being introduced to environmental science through field trips to nearby natural areas, hands-on activities, and simple biological testing techniques.
Massachusetts Audubon Society, Broad Meadow Brook Wildlife Sanctuary $5,000
Deborah Carey, 414 Massasoit Road, Worcester, MA 01604-3346
Urban Youth: Bridging the Gap to Nature
The Urban Youth: Bridging the Gap to Nature project is educating the underserved, minority residents of Worcester through the program. Participants will be engaged in one of the following types of activities: after-school workshops for elementary students, teen parenting programs, summer programs in the parks, and preschool workshops. The emphasis is on hands-on, inquiry-based, self-directed learning, in which the minds and hearts of students are engaged.
Massachusetts Department of Fisheries, Wildlife, & Environmental Law Enforcement, Riverways Program $20,000
Maria Van Dusen, 100 Cambridge Street, Room 1901, Boston, MA 02202
Riverways Shoreline Surveys for Massachusetts Communities
The Riverways Shoreline Survey promotes the protection and restoration of rivers in Massachusetts by teaching citizens about the components of healthy rivers and encouraging active stewardship through stream adoption. Community groups will conduct shoreline surveys using Adopt-A-Stream manuals and supported by Riverways staff. Each survey will provide baseline data on nonpoint source pollution, stream flow, and riparian habitat so the groups can determine priorities for their stream section and implement their action plan with the assistance of local citizens, municipal governments, businesses, civic organizations, and Riverways staff.
Metropolitan District Commission $4,500
Karl Pastore, 20 Somerset Street, Boston, MA 02108
Environmental Education Obstacle Course
The Environmental Education Obstacle Course is offering metropolitan Boston area teachers and community group leaders an experiential program that fosters an understanding of key environmental concepts and enhances their environmental teaching skills. The project involves a 0.75 mile loop trail with four stations. Using a workbook provided, teams of teachers will perform a variety of tasks, including such things as water quality sampling and map reading, and answer a series of questions related to the environment.
The Thoreau Society, Inc. $20,000
Tom Harris, 44 Baker Farm, Lincoln, MA 01773
The Environmental Teacher Workshop
The Environmental Teacher Workshop focuses on the capacity of teachers to teach environmental studies across disciplines and to raise the environmental consciousness of high school students to prepare them to be committed, environmentally literate adults. This project will be accomplished by means of a six-week summer workshop at the Thoreau Institute in Lincoln. During the workshop, high school teachers are learning a multidisciplinary approach to environmental studies and will have an opportunity to work with world-class Thoreau scholars, botanists, geologists, environmentalists, and other professionals to prepare lesson plans for units to be taught the following fall.
University of Massachusetts Extension Service $5,000
Robert Schrader, 215 Stockbridge Hall, Amherst, MA 01003
Model for Community Environmental Education
The Model for Community Environmental Education project is completing the "Taunton River Watershed Connections Curriculum" for students in sixth through twelfth grades. The curriculum has been in development for four years. It will serve as a model for watershed outreach in pollution prevention from the school to the local community and businesses. The project team of scientists and educators will test, evaluate, and finalize the curriculum and disseminate the final product along with resource kits through workshops for teachers in the Taunton River watershed.
Upper Cape Cod Regional Technical School $5,000
Margaret Wise, 220 Sandwich Road, Bourne, MA 02532
Summer Exploratory Program in Environmental Technologies
The Summer Exploratory Program in Environmental Technologies project is attracting students into the school's Environmental Technology Program and ultimately into environmental careers by providing seventh and eighth graders with a summer exploratory education program. As a result of this project, students increase their awareness of the environment, become more knowledgeable about careers in the environmental field, and enroll in an environmental technology career pathway.
Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head $12,555
Philippe Jordi, 20 Black Brook Road, Gay Head, MA 02535
The Aquinnah Environmental Education Project
The Aquinnah Environmental Education Project is using existing environmental curricula and case studies to develop a tribal environmental handbook. The goal of the project is to protect the Tribal lands' ecologically sensitive watershed from pollution, loss of wildlife habitat, and fisheries decline. It also includes hands-on field investigations and workshops to provide project participants with the skills they need to make informed environmental policy decisions.
Boston Private Industry Council, Inc. $119,685
Lois Ann Porter, 2 Oliver St., 7th Floor, Boston, MA 02109
Green Tech
This project is the second year of a multi-year program to prepare South Boston High School students to make the school-to-work transition through environmental careers. "Green Tech" is designed to teach these students, 73% of whom are from minority populations, that what they learn in the classroom is central to their future employment opportunities and that both training and work experience are necessary to gain access to well-paying jobs. The program will increase student awareness about environmental career opportunities through multi-disciplinary classroom instruction and internships with environmental agencies and businesses. Central to this project is the formal collaboration which exists between the Council, the high school, and the area's government agencies, nonprofit organizations, and private sector businesses. The project will reach five teachers and 1,000 students.
Center for Ecological Technology $5,000
Nancy Nylen, 112 Elm Street, Pittsfield, MA 01201
Environmental Teleconference Project
This project is a collaborative effort among schools, community organizations, and businesses to produce and broadcast interactive video teleconferences. The project deepens middle school students' understanding about local environmental issues in 10 urban and rural towns in the Central Berkshire Regional School District.
Groton-Dunstable Regional School District, Tarbell School $5,000
Nancy Turkle, 73 Pepperell Road, West Groton, MA 01472
Groton Compost Corporation
Funds from this grant will go to a project supporting 30 high school students who form the core of a community organization which learns methods and develops plans to handle institutional organic waste more efficiently. These students use their group to educate fellow students, community residents, and school and municipal authorities on the nature and economic viability of composing options for waste management.
Ipswich River Watershed Association, Inc. $4,400
Kerry Mackin, 87 Perkins Row, Topsfield, MA 01983-1999
Water Education for Conservation Commissioners
Funds from this grant will support a model program designed to educate 120 volunteer conservation commissioners in the cities and towns which comprise the Ipswich River watershed on how to protect the watershed from pollution, loss of wildlife habitat, and fisheries decline. The project will adapt existing curricula, develop a handbook, and provide a series of workshops to enhance understanding of the resources that must be protected.
Joseph P. Manning School $5,000
Lorraine S. Theroux, 130 Louder's Lane, Jamaica Plain, MA 02130
Teacher Training Environmental Workshop
This project involves curriculum development on urban gardening and soil contamination for inner-city elementary school teacher training. Following the education of 65 4th and 5th grade students, project organizers hope that they will make a positive contribution to their community by writing about and publishing one of two newsletters for the benefit of the adult audience and the press.
Massachusetts Public Interest Research Group (MASSPIRG) Education Fund, $20,000
Amy Perry, 29 Temple Place, Boston, MA 02111
The "Make It Recycled","Buy It Recycled" Project
This project targets three important "consumer" populations: the general public, the purchasing managers of public agencies and other institutions, and owners and operators of the 25 largest manufacturers in one Massachusetts solid waste management district. It includes the development, printing and distribution of education materials and workshops to increase awareness of and promote the purchase and use of products made from recycled material.
Mount Holyoke College/Environmental Studies Program $4,988
Jens Christiansen, 115 Skinner Hall, South Hadley, MA 01075
A Bi-National (U.S.-Mexico) Environmental Studies Course
This project is a collaborative effort with the International University of Mexico to develop a bilingual course syllabus and pilot environmental studies course entitled, "Life, Environment, and Society." The focus of the project is on development of supporting materials to make the course especially relevant to issues of environmental justice in developing countries in general, and Mexico in particular.
New England Board of Higher Education $112,000
William P. Fenstemacher, Ph.D., 45 Temple Place, Boston, MA 02111
A Regional EE Partnership for New England's Colleges and Universities
"A Regional EE Partnership for New England's Colleges and Universities" is designed to upgrade training and awareness for college environmental faculty and administrators about what is working and not working to better prepare students to undertake environmental careers. It also will establish an environmental science and engineering academic support network to enhance minority student preparation for environmental careers, and increase the accessibility of information on environmental education and research programs at the region's colleges and universities to government and industry. The target audience includes New England state government representatives in higher education, environmental protection, and economic development; presidents and faculty at New England's public and private colleges; and business and industry associations such as the Environmental Business Council. The project will reach 260 colleges and universities and numerous government officials and businesses in six states.
Northeast Sustainable Energy Association $9,930
23 Ames Street, Greenfield, MA 01301
Northeast Sustainable Energy Association (NESEA)
The Northeast Sustainable Energy Association (NESEA) will develop educational materials for 6th to 10th grade teachers in New Jersey and New York. The materials will be designed to develop student and teacher awareness about transportation choices and the impacts their actions and decisions have on air, land, and water pollution. NESEA's materials, which stress the use of renewable energy and energy conservation, will be disseminated prior to and during the 1996 Tour de Sol, an annual electric vehicle educational event and race.
Northeast Sustainable Energy Association $9,930
Nancy Hazard, 23 Ames Street, Greenfield, MA 01301
Creating Transportation Education Materials for Grades 6-10
The Northeast Sustainable Energy Association (NESEA), an energy education association, proposes to develop educational materials for 6th through 10th grade teachers in New Jersey and New York. The materials are designed to develop student and teacher awareness about transportation choices and the impacts their actions and decisions have on air, land, and water pollution. NESEA's materials, which stress the use of renewable energy and energy conservation, will be disseminated before and during the 1996 Tour de Sol, an annual electric vehicle educational event and race. NESEA will use its partnerships and communication channels to distribute the materials in both states.
Pioneer Valley Girl Scout Council $5,000
Barbara Bilz, 40 Harkness Avenue, East Longmeadow, MA 01028
Inner City Wetlands Environmental Education Project
Funds from this grant will support a wetlands environmental education program for 150 Girl Scout leaders and other interested adult leaders who live in the inner city of Springfield, Massachusetts. The project includes a series of three educational workshops which focus on providing hands-on learning opportunities, skills, and knowledge necessary to teach approximately 600 girls about wetland ecology in their communities.
Triton Regional School District $4,988
Ann Ringling, 112 Elm Street, Byfield, MA 01922
The Parker River Watershed Study Program
This project will develop a model for 248 4th, 5th, and 6th grade students that moves environmental education both physically and conceptually out of the classroom and into the natural world which surrounds them. The project forms a partnership with the Massachusetts Audubon Society's Plum Island Sound Project, providing teacher training and curriculum development.
Boston Private Industry Council, Inc. $119,956
George Moriarty, Boston Private Industry Council, Inc., 2 Oliver St., 9th Floor, Boston, MA 02109
Green Tech
"Green Tech" is an environmental career school-to-work transition program for South Boston High School students, 73% of whom are from minority communities. The program is designed to teach students that what they learn in the classroom and through work experience is fundamental to future employment opportunities. The program will increase student awareness about environmental career opportunities through classroom instruction and on-site experiences such as internships and summer jobs in environmental agencies, businesses, and nonprofit organizations.
Environmental Careers Organization (ECO) $80,000
Lori Colombo, Environmental Careers Organization, Inc., 286 Congress Street, Third Floor, Boston, MA 02210-1009
Environmental Studies: 2000 Project
The "Environmental Studies: 2000 Project" is a national program to assist those designing university environmental studies programs to prepare for environmental workforce needs and to assist students in preparing for environmental careers. The goal of the program will be to disseminate the results of an ECO study which assesses the needs of environmental employers to the environmental studies departments and minority academic institutions through workshops at national conferences. Activities will include developing environmental career strategies and creating lasting partnerships between educators and employers.
Lloyd Center for Environmental Studies $5,000
Alan Harris, 430 Potomska Road, P. O. Box 87037, South Dartmouth, MA 02748
Docent Program
The "Docent Program" will train volunteers to lead school children in explorations of their local environments. There will be ten workshop sessions, including coastal field studies, wildlife in the school yard, and marine organisms. The workshops will provide volunteers with the ability and access to materials necessary to lead students in hands-on investigation. The program will reach a diverse audience of adult volunteers and children from across New Bedford, promoting and enhancing environmental education in the area.
Manomet Observatory $58,880
Janis Burton, Manomet Observatory, 81 Stage Point Rd., Plymouth, MA 02345
Save Our Migratory Birds
"Save Our Migratory Birds" will emphasize the global nature of environmental and natural resource issues by teaching middle school students in the U.S., Mexico, Canada, and Argentina how to protect local habitats used by migratory birds. This "think globally, act locally" project includes a partnership between non-profit conservation and education organizations in all four countries.
Massachusetts Audubon Society/Arcadia Wildlife Sanctuary $5,000
Anthony Symasko III, 127 Combs Rd., Easthampton, MA 01027
Summer Environmental Field Trip
The Arcadia Nature Center and Wildlife Sanctuary, a local arm of the Audubon Society, will expand its six-week summer environmental field trip program to eight weeks and continue serving 350 Holyoke Hispanic children, ages five to eleven, in their increasing awareness of their natural environments. The expansion of the program will allow for emphasis on adult workshops, the hiring of an additional part-time professional educator, the training of assistants in the use of observation and sampling equipment, and additional hours for children to participate at the sites and at community meeting halls after the field trips.
Massachusetts Audubon Society/Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary $5,000
Christine Brothers, P. O. Box 236, South Wellfleet, MA 02663
Project Pond
Through classroom sessions, field trips, and summer interpretation, "Project Pond" will educate 240 tenth grade biology students in the natural history and management of the Outer Cape's kettle ponds. The program will expose the students to scientific research, natural resource management, and work experience in environmental management. The participants then will use these skills and knowledge to educate town residents and visitors who use the ponds.
Patriots' Trail Girl Scout Council $7,965
Brenda Rich, 95 Berkeley St., Boston, MA 02116
Trails to Action
"Trails to Action," a weekend workshop, will provide approximately 150 Girl Scout troop leaders with environmental materials and curricula which will enable them to bring environmental education to the scouts, volunteer staff, board members, and committee members. The goal of the project is to have the leaders and the girls display environmental awareness in all aspects of their lives and make environmentally-conscious decisions.
Reading Public Schools $4,990
Leo P. Kenney, 62 Oakland Rd., Reading, MA 01867
Vernal Pool Education Project
Through its "Vernal Pool Education Project," the Reading Public Schools seek to improve environmental education in Massachusetts by involving high school students and their teachers in the identification, study, and certification of vernal pools in their communities. Through a series of workshops, students and teachers from approximately 60 high schools in Middlesex County will become involved in data gathering, study and certification of vernal pools. The workshops will use an investigative, hands-on approach using color-infrared aerial photographs to identify and plot vernal pools on U.S. Geological Survey maps, eventually leading to applications for vernal pool certification. The goal of the project is to promote partnerships with agencies such as the Department of Environmental Protection Wetland Conservancy Program and the Essex County Greenbelt Association.
Westport River Watershed Alliance $5,000
Gay Gillespie, 1151 Main Rd., P. O. Box 3427, Westport, MA 02790
Watershed Education Project (WEP)
The Westport River Watershed Alliance's "Watershed Education Project (WEP)," will expand its environmental program by using hands-on, grade-specific curriculum kits, expanding teacher workshops, and developing Family Nights wherein students will share with parents and friends the activities resulting from the WEP kits. This program seeks to incorporate communities within the Westport River's watershed, like Fall River and Freetown, Massachusetts and Tiverton and Little Compton, Rhode Island, which were previously not included in the project. The expansion of WEP will increase the students' and public's awareness of the environmental health of the watershed.
Appalachian Mountain Club $5,000
Walter Graff, 5 Joy Street, Boston, MA 02108
North Country Environmental Education Network
The "North Country Environmental Education Network" is a new educational program for secondary school teachers. The project is designed to launch a resource center for the 37 secondary schools in northern New Hampshire. The project fills an existing communication gap and promotes environmental education through a newsletter and bi-annual workshops. It also ensures teachers are provided with the most current information, and creates a forum to share ideas about teaching methods.
Center for Ecological Technology, Inc. $5,000
Amanda Graham, 112 Elm Street, Pittsfield, MA 01201
Environmental Interactive Video and Teleconferences
This project involves the production and broadcast of interactive video teleconferences on environmental themes to high schools throughout Berkshire County. The project uses an innovative environmental education method, the purpose of which is to stimulate critical thinking and discussion about the impact of people on local, national, and global environmental issues.
City of Boston Fund for Parks and Recreation $5,000
Michael T. Quinn, 1010 Massachusetts Avenue, Boston, MA 02118
ENVIROCATION
This project will make the existing Boston Park Rangers' ENVIROCATION program more widespread and accessible in the Boston Public Schools. It will create five 30-minute videotape lessons and materials aimed at 4th and 5th grade students and teachers. The Boston Park Ranger will serve as the adult role model, with 14 through 17-year old youths, primarily from minority populations, serving as peer role models. The videotape program will be promoted over the school system's cable television channel and through other methods.
Connecticut River Watershed Council $5,000
Tom Miner, One Ferry Street, Easthampton, MA 01027
River Education Program
This grant funds the creation of a model river education program that reinforces an awareness and understanding of the watershed region which covers four states and 11,000 square miles. The council's methods include teacher-training workshops, written material, and community presentations to encourage public involvement and participation in the program.
Franklin County Soil & Water Conservation District $13,263
Lynn Rose, 324 Wells St., Greenfield, MA 01301
Beyond 3Rs
This project, entitled Beyond 3Rs, is a solid waste education program for grades 7 through 12 which provides students and teachers with the tools to make responsible environmental choices before, during, and after the point of purchase.
Hispanic Office of Planning and Evaluation $24,060
Tubal Padilla-Galiano, 165 Brookside Avenue, Jamaica Plain, MA 02130
Eco-Ciudadanos (Eco-Citizens)
The "Eco-Ciudadanos" (Eco-Citizens) initiative is designed for Spanish-bilingual environmental education training and curriculum development. It provides teachers with the knowledge, skills, and resources to make the environment an integral part of all their teaching. The project involves a core group of twelve teachers who will participate in sixteen intensive workshops to develop classroom activities and materials in each of four environmental subjects. The results of the project will be a resource booklet that will be disseminated to other Spanish-speaking teachers at a day-long training conference.
The Children's Museum $24,967
Marianne Galvin, 300 Congress Street, Boston, MA 02210-1034
Green Facts
"Green Facts" is a three-part environmental survey that will lead to a teaching guide to make environmental content more accessible to children through public education. The program will assess what environmental information children know, what they have been exposed to, how they have internalized that information, and the level of understanding and misconceptions they possess. Results will be made available to educators and museum professionals through national conferences, workshops, and direct mail.
Watertown Public Schools - Cunniff School $4,100
Kevin Cushman, 165 Warren Street, Watertown, MA 02472
Project CURRENT (Community Use of River Resources for Encouraging Noteworthy Teaching)
"Project CURRENT (Community Use of River Resources for Encouraging Noteworthy Teaching)" is a long-term, thematic multi-grade-level, cross-curricula project focusing on the Charles River. It involves a summer planning and professional development workshop, development of five activities (one each in science, math, social studies, language arts, and arts), a professional article on the effort, and a student-organized river resources day.
Wilbraham Middle School $5,000
Tarin Weiss, 466 Stony Hill Road, Wilbraham, MA 01095
Outdoor Learning Laboratory
This grant funds the development of an environmental education program for 6th grade science teachers, including the creation of an outdoor learning laboratory on school grounds. The project encompasses a site assessment of the trail system, documenting the biology, geology, geography, land-use history, and meteorological specifics. The framework of the program will be described through a teacher's guide, containing outlines for class activities.
Commonwealth Zoological Corp.'s Franklin Park Zoo $13,340
Boston, MA 02121
Black Scientists in the Environment Festival -- 1993
The "Black Scientists in the Environment Festival -- 1993" project provides an educational and fun environmental science program for urban, minority youth and access to role models in the environmental sciences.
Massachusetts Audubon Society $4,958
Easthampton, MA 01027
Water Quality Assessment Curriculum
This grant funds a project to design and demonstrate a hands-on, long-term, multi-disciplinary water quality assessment curriculum for 5th graders.
Massachusetts Audubon Society $5,000
Milton, MA 02186
Endangered Species/Habitat Destruction Project
The Endangered Species/Habitat Destruction Project at Blue Hills Trailside Museum introduces awareness of endangered and threatened species to 4th graders. The project involves a field trip to 4th grade classrooms with live animals. The purpose of the field trip is to discuss the factors leading to species decline and includes a day-long environmental education workshop for educators.
Massachusetts Audubon Society $5,000
Worcester, MA 01604
Blackstone River Watershed Education Project
The "Blackstone River Watershed Education Project" prepares high school educators and students to conduct intensive water quality monitoring and computer networking projects.
Quebec-Labrador Foundation $84,125
Ipswich, MA 01938
Atlantic Riverkeepers Program
This grant funds a model community-based environmental education and conservation project in northern New England and eastern Canada called the Atlantic Riverkeepers Program. The purpose of the program is to provide education, training, and other enrichment opportunities in targeted communities, including the St. John, St. Croix, and Connecticut Rivers.
Reading Memorial High School $5,000
Reading, MA 01867
Vernal Pool Curriculum Project
The "Vernal Pool Curriculum Project" involves educating high school students in Middlesex and Essex Counties in vernal pool certification, gathering of water quality data, and investigation of organisms and habitat.
Technical Education Research Center (TERC) $99,988
Cambridge, MA 02140
Smog Watch
This grant funds "Smog Watch," a project that involves a study of ground-level ozone, a key component of smog. The project will be conducted at 11 museums and science and nature centers nationwide for youths and their families. Participants will learn the causes and effects of ozone as well as individual lifestyle choices that impact the ozone problem.
West Roxbury High School $5,000
Boston, MA 02132
Environmental Quality of School Campuses
This project involves development of a science program for 9th grade English, special education, science, and conservation classes that raises student awareness of major environmental science topics that may improve the quality of school campuses and surrounding "urban wilds."