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EPA ADMINISTRATOR ATTENDS EDUCATION EVENT AT PRESIDIO

Release Date: 8/28/2001
Contact Information: Leo Kay, Press Office, 415/744-2201

     Whitman hands out nearly $400,000 to support similar efforts throughout the West

     SAN FRANCISCO   U.S. EPA Administrator Christie Whitman visited San Francisco today to showcase an environmental education partnership with the Presidio-based Food, Land and People, and also to announce $398,418 in funding to go toward environmental education projects throughout California, Arizona, Hawaii and Nevada.

     "The educators we're funding today will help us raise the next generation of environmentally aware American citizens who will be ready to turn their knowledge into action," Whitman said.  "No program or policy can do more for the future of our environment than a hands-on lesson in responsibility, and EPA and this administration are here to help."

     During today's ceremony, Whitman presented a $25,000 grant to Food, Land & People to use toward environmental and agricultural education.  The non-profit's curriculum Resources for Learning is now being used by nearly 12,000 teachers across the country, reaching more than 300,000 students annually.

     "Food, Land & People's 'Resources for Learning' effectively teaches students of all grade levels about the importance of the environment and agriculture in their daily lives," said Mark Linder, president of Food, Land & People.  "We look forward to working with our various public and private partners to expand environmental education throughout our nation, and our entire planet."

     Following the classroom demonstration and brief remarks, representatives from the National Park Service and the Presidio Trust took Whitman on a tour of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, which included a stopover at the newly completed Crissy Field Wetlands area.                    
                         
     Following is complete list of environmental education grants Whitman announced today:

                           CALIFORNIA

$79,177   California Coastal Commission (San Francisco) "Boating Clean and Green Campaign, Phase III" This campaign will educate boaters and marina and boatyard operators about the environmental and economic impacts of boating pollution.   Through the posting of signs at fuel docks, the distribution of boater kits and face-to-face boater education, and the continued implementation of the "Dockwalkers" training program, the campaign will teach boaters what can be done to prevent pollution.

$100,000   Adopt-A-Watershed (Hayfork) Southeast Leadership Institute During an eight-day summer session, the institute will offer professional development activities for previously under-represented educators.  A spring retreat will provide in-depth training in technology, partnership development and evaluation to 20 leadership teams, who in turn will train an additional 2,400 teachers via on-site workshops, reach more than 61,000 students in the first year and establish an advisory committee in each community.

      $20,670   San Jose State University Foundation "Incorporation of Marine Ecosystem Research into Public Education" This is a two-part program in partnership with high school science teachers and their students.  First, the teachers will attend a 30-hour summer workshop run by the Moss Landing Marine Laboratory where they will learn background and preparatory materials, laboratory exercises, follow-up exercises and evaluation procedures for each marine science topic. Second, graduate students will bring materials and orchestrate laboratory activities in the teachers' classrooms.

$4,283   Arcata Elementary School "Students and Communities, A Model for Monitoring Stream Health" Students will measure, analyze and evaluate effects of land use, primarily timber harvest and urban development, on the stream health of Beith Creek bordering the school.  Information collected by the school and local organizations will provide decision makers such as the City of Arcata, California Department of Fish and Game and of Forestry and Fire with scientific data to help future management decisions and restoration activities in the watershed.

$5,000   California Institute of Biodiversity (Walnut Creek) "Cal Alive! Exploring Biodiversity Teacher Professional Development" This program will increase teachers' knowledge of California habitats using the Cal Alive! CD-ROM series, which features 53 of California's habitat types.  This professional development program will consist of a two-day training workshop for Modesto City school teachers that will integrate major areas of natural science, offering evidence of the value of biological diversity and the effects of human intervention on the environment.

$2,700   California Native Plant Society (Benicia) "Wetlands Environmental Education Program at the Benicia State Recreation Area" This program will offer a free, docent-led program at the Benicia State Recreation Area at Southhampton Marsh, a local wetlands area.  All Benicia students grades 2 through 5 will have the opportunity to learn about Native American uses of the wetlands, native plants and wetland ecology.

$5,000   California State University (Chico) "Streaminders Salmon and Steelhead, From Eggs to Fry in the Classroom" This project will provide a county-wide K-12th grade educational program that involves local public schools and CSU Chico in support of native fishery restoration.  The program will include in-services for 30 teachers and will provide the opportunity for students to raise salmon and steelhead eggs in the classroom.  In addition, university students help guide creek exploration field trips.  

$25,000   City of Santa Barbara "Green Gardener Certification Program" This innovative certification program offers a new educational tool to help local agencies further resource efficiency and reduced pollution in the landscapes for the South Coast of Santa Barbara County.  The program will improve health, appearance and value of landscapes for customers and site managers while providing economic incentives to program participants.  

$5,000   Community Environmental Council (Santa Barbara) "Teacher Training Workshop Series" Through this program, there will be two series of three-day training workshops for teachers that will focus on water quality, garden and composting, and natural resources and waste reduction.  These workshops will train educators to use grade-specific curricula such as Project Clean Water, Garden Detectives, Closing the Loop, A Child's Place in the Environment and others from the Community Environmental Council Environmental Education Resource Library.

$2,250   Eureka City Schools "Kids & Native Plants - Winship Junior High School" This project will bring a professional botanist and ecologist into science classrooms of Winship Junior High School, where students will grow the western azalea and the federally endangered western lily, and then plant western azalea at two state park azalea preserves.  The project will increase awareness and understanding of natural systems, the mission and management practices of the Forest Service and Park Service, and introduce students to the Endangered Species Act and rare plant management practices.  

$4,998   Humboldt State University Foundation (Arcata)
"Energy: The Power of Teaching" The program is designed to teach Humboldt County junior high and high school science teachers about energy sources, generation technologies and renewable energy.  Teachers will also learn about renewable energy generation, including a hands-on lab working with solar electric circuits and hydrogen fuel cell systems.  Solar panels and portable fuel cells will be available for loan to teachers for their classrooms.

$18,981   Monterey Bay Sanctuary Foundation (Monterey) "S.E.A. Lab Monterey Bay - Coastal and Ocean Science Education Camp" In this program, S.E.A. Lab will conduct camps for students ages 11-12, providing an educational experience on the unique habitats of the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary.  Students will stay in dorms and be bused to different locations each day.  The week's schedule will include lessons on  topics related to the local watersheds and rivers through coastal environments out to the deep sea.  
$4,800   O'Neill Sea Odyssey (Santa Cruz) Marine Sanctuary Education This program will provide hands-on environmental education for 80 youth from Santa Cruz and Santa Clara counties.  Students will begin by participating in a community service project such as beach clean-up, creek clean-up, storm drain stenciling, native plant restoration, water quality monitoring, recycling programs, riparian restoration and  adoption of a watershed.  Following this,  the core program will include instruction on navigation/math, marine science and marine ecology.

$5,000   School Environmental Education Docents (Novato) "Environmental Education Docents Program" This program will recruit and train an estimated 200 new teachers, docents and Dominican University pre- service teachers.  Spanish materials will be developed to expand the docent program to Spanish speaking parents and volunteers.  Docents will have access to free training, educational materials, technical support, classroom speakers, local field trips and community organizations' resources to support student projects.

$4,910   Tahoe-Baikal Institute (South Lake Tahoe) "Lake Tahoe as a Training Ground for Future Environmental Leaders" This five-week project, which will use the situation at Lake Tahoe as a medium for environmental problem solving, is one half of a 10-week environmental exchange that will take place in California and Siberia, Russia.  Up to 20 university-level students, graduate-level students and young professionals from the U.S., Russia and other countries will come together for the summer to practice environmental problem solving using lakes Tahoe and Baikal as training grounds.

$5,000   Think Earth Environmental Education Foundation (Moorpark) "Air Quality Teacher Training and Curriculum Distribution" This project will educate youth of the Los Angeles Unified School District about the social and environmental impacts of traffic congestion and poor air quality.  In addition, students will be taught transportation alternatives and emerging transportation technologies.  Teacher training on the newly released "Air Care" curriculum will also be provided to 8th grade science teachers in the school district.

$5,000   Yolo Basin Foundation (Davis) "Service Learning in the Pacific Flyway" This project will facilitate habitat restoration and increase public awareness of native fish, wildlife and plant resources at the at the 3,700-acre Pacific Flyway Wildlife Area.  Interns and service learning groups will work to achieve project objectives with Yolo Basin Foundation and partners.  One of the tasks of the interns will be to work with and coordinate individual service learning groups that will carry out projects to enhance education of the Wildlife Area and Demonstration Wetland for visiting students.

$5,000   Water Education Foundation (Sacramento) "Water is our Future" This multi-media curriculum, based on the curriculum developed by the Water Education Foundation "California Water Story,"integrates water education into science, geography, history, math and art lessons.  The program broadly distributes the curriculum and provides numerous teacher workshops, with the objective of providing material and support to every elementary school in California.

$14,500   West Contra Costa Integrated Waste Management Authority (San Pablo) "Environmental Resource Library and Workshop Series" The authority will create a resource library and series of workshops for West Contra Costa County teachers.  The library materials will include curricula, books, videotapes, audiotapes, games and kits about subjects such as waste reduction, reuse, recycling, natural resource conservation and household hazardous waste.  Local environmental organizations will also hold workshops on solid waste management, household hazardous waste, organic gardening, urban sprawl and wetlands conservation.  

$5,000   Wilderness Youth Project (Carpinteria) "Young Eagles Environmental Education Program" This project will expand a wilderness youth life-skills and environmental education training program to teach underprivileged youth in tracking and the application of field data collection.  Youth will learn to use CyberTracker software, field computers and GPS equipment to gather field ecology data, map and plot their observations, and learn how to query their results to study the health of their local bioregion.  Students will do service work with Conception Coast Project where they will gather field data for their watershed advocacy work.

                            ARIZONA

$5,000   Flagstaff Unified School District This project will provide hands-on environmental science presentations for classrooms from curriculum including Project Learning Tree, Project WILD, and Project WET.  Presenters from the Resource Center for Environmental Education will bring their knowledge in environmental science topics, collections, specimens, slides and materials to involve children in learning about the environment.  Teachers will be given free continuing education workshops and will have access to environmental kits and materials.

$13,550   Northern Arizona University "Tribal Schools Ecological Monitoring Project"
 This project trains and supports teachers in rural k-12 schools in the application of ecological concepts through local, hands-on environmental monitoring programs, providing students with a better understanding of riparian and aquatic systems in ecologically-rich sites.  Four-day teacher workshops will focus on learning materials and protocols in the areas of atmosphere, remote sensing, land cover/biology and soils.  Students will then carry out the monitoring, analysis and reporting.

$5,000   Town of Oro Valley "Save a Plant" This project will educate the public about the need and techniques to preserve native plants and the unique surroundings of the Sonoran Desert environment. Two scheduled  field-based courses will be conducted; one for youth volunteers and community service projects and one for volunteers from other non-profit organizations.  Through this program, landowners, developers and volunteers will be brought together to preserve the unique plants of this environment.

                             HAWAII

$22,600   Hawaii Nature Center (Honolulu) "Pouhala Marsh Educational Field Test" This project will field test a wetland education program at a marsh recently purchased by the state as a bird sanctuary, the Hawai'i Nature Center on O'ahu.  This new site is home to all four federally endangered waterbirds, including the black-necked stilt. The program at this new wetland site will include an interactive introduction, hands-on activities, and take-home activity for third graders.

                             NEVADA

$5,000   Champions of the Truckee River (Reno) "Water, Water, Everywhere" This education project focuses on giving decision-makers and the community at large a basic understanding of integrated watershed management.  The audiences will learn what a watershed is, how the local watershed works and who does what within the watershed. Specific topics will include; water quality, quantity, flooding and habitat.  A series of four workshops and tours will be conducted in addition to a series of bi-monthly newspaper ads and website updates.