Enviroedexchange.org

“Longitudinal Monitoring of Recreation Fee Program” - This paper highlights findings that describe public perceptions about the fee program over a six-year period. Surveys of residents in Washington and Oregon were conducted in 1999, 2001, and 2003. The key issues are: shifts in public attitudes about fees, perceptions about the balance between taxes and fees, equity and implementation concerns, and revenue uses. For more information about this study contact Jim Absher at 951-680-1559 or jabsher@fs.fed.us.

TWO NEW WEB-BASED ENCYCLOPEDIA COME TO LIFE
Inspired by the vision of renowned biologist E.O. Wilson, the Encyclopedia of Life project aims to develop a scholarly and comprehensive website which documents the 1.8 million species of known flora and fauna on our planet and classify the millions of new species yet to be named (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NwfGA4cxJQ). In association with the EOL team and its collaborators — Harvard University, Smithsonian Institution, Field Museum, Marine Biological Laboratory (Woods Hole), Biodiversity Heritage Library consortium, Missouri Botanical Garden, and the MacArthur and Sloan Foundations — ILI will be conducting a variety of audience studies and supporting the development of the site through front end and formative evaluations.

The Encyclopedia of Earth strives to “promote and enhance ecology education for students of all ages and for the general public.” With over 10,000 page views per day, the Encyclopedia of Earth has established itself as the premier authoritative source of online information on the environment.

“The New Environmentalists: How to Make the Green Movement Less White,” by Van Jones makes a strong case for why persons of color need to be concerned and involved with environmental issues. At the same time it examines the forces that have created what until recently has been primarily an upper middle class white movement. Van Jones declares that Black is the New Green.

From NSTA Reports, January 2008, Vol. 19 No. 5
U.S. students continue to lag behind their peers in science, according to the Programme for International Student Assessment. Nearly a quarter of 15-year-old US students did not demonstrate competencies at the baseline level. NSTA Executive Director Gerry Wheeler points out that the results are not surprising, given that “science is not being strongly emphasized in U.S. classrooms, and science educators need more resources to deliver sound lessons to students.” In fact, U.S. scores have been dropping steadily for years, from 14th worldwide in 2000 to 19th in 2003, 21st in 2006, and 22nd this year.

The Cost of Bottled Water (from http://money.howstuffworks.com/bling-water.htm)

Bottled water has become so popular that 41 billion gallons are consumed every year around the world. Many people consider it safe and convenient. Over the past few years, however, many bottled water companies labeling their product as "purified" or "natural spring water" have confessed to filling their products with simple tap water. In July 2007, for instance, Pepsi admitted to filling bottles of Aquafina with public water, even though the packaging suggests the water comes from natural springs [source: Environmental Working Group]. Recent studies have concluded that bottled water is no safer than tap water, and the costs of producing the drink and its effect on the environment have caused some alarm [source: National Geographic News].

To understand how expensive regular bottled water is, let's compare it with gasoline. With the price of oil rising, we typically think of gasoline as very expensive. On the other hand, some of us will barely blink an eye at picking up a few bottles of water from the same gas station. Here are the numbers:

A gallon of gas costs around $3. If we assume a one-liter bottle of water from the store costs about $2.50, a gallon of the same bottled water should cost about $10. Water, life's most necessary substance, costs about three times more than gasoline when it comes in a plastic bottle. If you wanted to fill up a car's 15-gallon tank with gasoline, it would cost you about $45. If you wanted to fill up that same 15-gallon tank with bottled water, it would cost you $150 [source: National Geographic News].

Tap water, on the other hand, costs a fraction of the price of bottled water. The same $2 you spend on a liter of bottled water will get you about 1,000 gallons of tap water [source: EPA].

According to a study published in July by Japanese scientists, a kilogram of beef generates the equivalent of 36.4 kilograms of carbon dioxide, more than the equivalent of driving for three hours while leaving all the lights on back home.

Congressman John Sarbanes (D-MD) and Senator Jack Reed (D-RI) introduced legislation that strengthens and expands environmental education in America's classrooms and reconnects children with nature. These bills, each titled the No Child Left Inside Act of 2007, were introduced in the House (H.R.3036) and the Senate (S.1981).

You can make a difference by writing a letter to your Congressperson, print it and fax it to their Washington, DC office. This method of communication apparently has an exponentially higher impact compared to sending emails.

Monkeys seem to learn the same way humans do, a new research study indicates.
"Like humans, monkeys benefit enormously from being actively involved in learning instead of having information presented to them passively," said Nate Kornell, a UCLA postdoctoral scholar in psychology and lead author of the study, which appears in the August issue of the journal Psychological Science (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070801161511.htm). "The advantage of active learning appears to be a fundamental property of memory in humans and nonhumans alike.”

Partners for Education about the Environment has long recognized the issue of a lack of a common language. We’ve even struggled to find universal definitions for such widespread terms as “environmental education.” The National Association for Interpretation, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the Institute of Learning Innnovations, and the EPA has tackled this issue and has revealed the newly launched Definitions Project website. The Definitions Project hopes to bring “together federal agencies, professional organizations, and other NGOs in a collaborative discussion that will lead to the development of common vocabulary and establish the basis for future collaborative works.”

The Campaign for Environmental Literacy hosts an interesting website that touches on some of the effects of the No Child Left Behind Act, definitions, and lots of research related to environmental literacy.

New Field Guide for Educators: No Student Left Indoors is a new book by Jane Kirkland, author and publisher of the Take A Walk® series of nature adventure books. This is a guide for K-8 grade teachers to create an interdisciplinary nature-study in any schoolyard. Stillwater Publishing, June 2007.

The Best Practices subcommittee of Partners for Education about the Environment has produced the third installment of the series Best Practices Review Summaries. “Understanding Multiple Intelligences” (PDF).

Invasive Species
Two items of interest:
Researchers are having success with controlling tamarisk in Nevada using a leaf beetle, Diorhabda elongate (PDF).

Kurt and Allison Knudsen in Elko, Nevada have successfully used goats in controlling noxious weeds, including white top, scotch thistle, and leafy spurge. They use a controlled herd of 1,000 Boer-Spanish cross goats with full-time herders, guard dogs and working dogs, in projects ranging anywhere from very tightly monitored and controlled grazing to many acres of range grazing.

After-School Programs
The Southern Nevada Discover Mojave Outdoor World Interagency program has seen most of its success by operating as an after-school program. In fact, there is a nationwide trend to replace traditional after-school experiences – arts, crafts, and recreational team sports – with more academic and life-enriching experiences.

The trend can be traced to No Child Left Behind, which allows for fewer “extras” as educators concentrate on improving student performance in math, reading, and other basics. As well, authors of the article, “A New Learning Day: After-School Programs,” the George Lucas Education Foundation) point out that:
“…after-school programs satisfy a social as well as an academic need. Three-fourths of single parents with school-age children in the United States are employed, and in more than half of U.S. households with two parents, both work, leaving millions of students unsupervised after school -- a troubling situation for adolescents, in particular, who are at higher risk for getting into trouble between 3 and 6 P.M. than during any other time of day. Although programs already serve 6.5 million children, nearly 15 million students remain unsupervised each day. ‘The demand is still far greater than the supply,’ said Jodi Grant, executive director of the Afterschool Alliance, a national advocacy and research organization in Washington, DC.”

This is a gap that could be filled by Southern Nevada providers of education about the environment. Filling this gap will require (1) meeting the needs of schools and parents, and (2) procuring funding, which will likely require gathering statistical evidence that the program will be effective.

Meeting the needs of the school system will take more than aligning an agency program with state and local standards. Creating a successful after-school program will require partnering with school administrators and teachers to identify needs and unique ways that our agencies can fulfill these needs. Typically an education about the environment program is framed in terms of science or social studies. Perhaps these programs can fill a more compelling need if we frame them as a health or wellness program, a program that will combat childhood obesity, or a program that will assist English Language Learners.

There are several local resources that can help with program assessment, including UNLV’s Center for Assessment and Evaluation. As well, PLI and NNREC are facilitating a statewide development team to create a Nevada Environmental Education and Interpretation Certification Program. One of the courses that will be offered as part of this certification program will be on incorporating assessment into EE&I experiences. The NEEI Certification program should be up and running by November 2007.

Two recent items pertaining to the “no child left inside” movement sweeping the nation: USA Today published an article on this issue in November. The article gives examples of some of the initiatives addressing the issue, including the USDA Forest Service’s pilot program “More Kids in the Woods.” As well, an innovative bill introduced in New Mexico will fund outdoor classrooms from a tax on electronic equipment. The press release describes the bill and might generate some ideas applicable for Nevada.

Partners for Education about the Environment has a subcommittee tasked with reviewing best practices in creating and delivering educational programs. To this end, this subcommittee will produce a series of Best Practices Review Summaries, with each addressing a topic in an overarching category. The current plan for the upcoming year is presented below. The first topic is Age-Appropriate Programs. (PDF)

The National Extension Diversity Center provides many resources on staff development, reaching diverse (especially Hispanic and Latino) audiences, organizational change, and definitions. Most are from the Extension perspective, but readily adaptable to other forums. Examples of what this website has to offer include:

Creating Reader-Friendly Materials
Articles and learning modules that help staff design, illustrate, and write culturally-appropriate materials.

Engaging New Audiences in Community Development
Together, a combination of people, programs, and organizations in the community development arena can generate new forms of leadership for addressing change.

From: Barba, K. et al. 2004. Designing Evaluation for Education Projects. NOAA, Office of Education and Sustainable Development. (PDF)

We have identified a critical need to evaluate our programs. In fact, a stated objective of Partners for Education about the Environment is to: “Develop monitoring and assessment tools to determine the successes of educational efforts.”

But evaluation and assessment can be intimidating things. How does one even start? Barba et al.’s “Designing Evaluation for Education Projects” provides a useful overview, background information, and a review of available tools and how to apply them.

To begin with, this manual defines assessment as a practice that “involves gathering data (either formally or informally) to be used in forming judgments” while evaluation is “the systematic collection of information about activities, characteristics, and outcomes of projects to make judgments about the project, improve effectiveness, and/or inform decisions about future programming (adapted from Patton, 1987).”

The most common evaluation occurs at the first level. For example, at the conclusion of a workshop or program we might hand out a brief questionnaire for the teacher to fill out. This is measuring an immediate response to the program by asking participants to “rate their perceptions about the quality and impact” of the learning experience.

While this is an important tool to measure satisfaction, it does not tell us what was actually learned. Did participating in this experience increase the participant’s knowledge and/or awareness? This manual reviews some of the tools available for measuring these factors. As well, several relatively simple instruments have been implemented to great effect by Daphne Sewing, Project Manager for Discover Mojave, Outdoor World programs at UNLV’s Public Lands Institute.

Arguably, some of the most important measurements occur at Levels 3 and 4. These types of evaluations are “significantly more complex than the first two levels,” in part because they have to occur after participants have had time to apply their new knowledge and skills. These types of evaluations should “focus on relevance of project, whether participants have gone back and used materials provided by the learning experience, how new knowledge has been applied, and use of new skills.”

Although Level 3 and 4 evaluations are complex and difficult, they address a very real need felt by most of us. As argued by Barba et al. in this manual, “there is constant pressure within agencies to demonstrate the efficiency and effectiveness of their programs. In order to actually conclude that a project has had its desired effect, participants have to ‘successfully’ apply the new skills and knowledge . . . . This level of long-term feedback is becoming increasingly important particularly when priorities are being set or when decisions to continue or discontinue the project are being made.”

Given the complexity of such evaluations, perhaps it makes sense to pool our resources to design and apply an evaluation instrument that can work across multiple programs, rather than have a single organization or agency tackle this on its own.

Read the results of the teacher survey (PDF) conducted by the Public Lands Institute in conjunction with the Interagency Conservation Education and Interpretation Team and Partners for Education about the Environment. The document is entitled “Clark County School District Teacher Survey: Attitudes, Perceptions, Barriers, and Desires for Field Trip Experiences.”

And, just when you thought the things were strange enough climate-wise: a manatee was spotted first swimming north up the Hudson River past Manhattan and Westchester County, then – astoundingly – in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, on August 24, 2006. This is the northernmost sighting of a manatee ever documented. The massive mammals are generally restricted to the warm waters of Florida and the Caribbean. The sighting is significant because it is further indication of drastically different water temperatures. And, of course, warmer waters fuel larger storms. Check out the full story.

A new study from Cornell University shows the significance of free play and “wild” nature activities for children under the age of 11. Read more to see details of this study, including a comparison of participation in structured EE programs versus non-mandatory nature-related activities.

Visitation to national parks has declined by about 25% in the past 25 years. In the study, this trend is viewed as a “proxy” to the public’s general interest in nature. If so, this is sobering news indeed, as other research points to the importance of experiences with nature, especially as a child; without these experiences, the research indicates, people not only feel disconnected from nature, but may also develop a fear of it (among other resources, see Beyond Ecophobia by David Sobel). The result: the potential for a lack of awareness about environmental issues and the knowledge, skills, and desire to address them.