We are very lucky to have Ms. Lindsay Harrington and Ms. Stephanie Fox from the NJ State Department of Environmental Protection to conduct the Project Learning Tree (PLT) workshop for our junior Advanced Core Block students. Students got the first hand environmental education resources, and learned a few good hands-on model exercises, both inside and outside the classroom.
It’s January 31, 2013. The weather was still on the chilly side. Actually, the previous night, we had experienced strong, gusty wind, with rain. Many places got hit and there were over 45,000 households without power. Such a scenario lays out a perfect setting for environmental education.
When you drink a cup of tea or coffee, can you imagine some facts about water? Think about the follow: the 97% of earth is covered by water, and mostly the salty water. Only 3% of the entire water resources is fresh water. Out of all the fresh water that we can access, we pretty much consume only 2% of the water for drinking. We use water for washing and cleaning. Today we are facing new challenges, for not only water shortage but also water contamination. If we don’t protect our environment, we are going to have trouble really soon.
To conserve water resources and to protect the environment, we need to take good care of trees. Trees are different from each other, just like human being. Some grows fast while others slowly. Counting the tree rings, you can figure out how old is the tree. Inspecting the shapes and patterns of the tree rings, you can get the sense of how sunshine, water, and weather affected the growth of the trees. How interesting.
There are practically many good activities that teachers may use to get young children involved, engaged, and excited about learning of the nature. Some of the good resources on the Web are as follows:
http://www.plt.org
http://www.njforestrycenter.org
http://www.nj.gov/dep/seeds
http://projectwet.org/ (Non-profit water education program for educators and young people, grades K-
http://www.projectwild.org/ (Project WILD is a wildlife-focused conservation education program for K-12 educators and their students.)
http://www.greenschools.org
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ii2D9Bd5OoE (bowerbird courtship)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nS1tEnfkk6M (Birds of paradise)
The workshop facilitators did a marvelous job. The participating students learned very much about environmental education. They also brought the awareness of the current issue (of kids being detached from nature) when they mentioned Author Richard Louv’s talk about his new book, Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder. I was amazed to think how much the new generation kids have missed the fun being with the great nature.
Thank you, Lindsay and Stephanie.
