My kids are environmental superstars! There is something very special about teaching students about decomposers in my 4th grade classroom and then watching them excited to be a part of the Green Team. They work very hard teaching other kids how to dispose of their lunches by sorting compost, recycling, and trash. They have a zeal […]
“It is becoming increasingly apparent that we shall not have the benefits of this world for much longer. The imminent and expected destruction of the life cycle of world ecology can only be prevented by a radical shift in outlook from our present naive conception of this world as a testing ground to a more […]
Over the last year, I’ve had the privilege of serving as the Co-Chair of the Environmental Literacy Task Force, a group of extraordinary environmental education leaders from around the state, convened by California Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson. This effort could not have come at a more critical and propitious time. As members of […]
On September 15, 2015, Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson released the much anticipated A Blueprint for Environmental Literacy: Educating Every California Student In, About and For the Environment at a press conference at Abraham Lincoln High School in San Francisco. The Blueprint was created over the course of a year by a 47-member Environmental […]
Welcome to a new year of learning in Room 101! Our class is filled with twenty-seven third graders and me—the one who has learned with and from my students for 30 years. As you look around the room you might notice Julius Squeezer, our 35-year-old rosy boa on the science table. Or you might head […]
A few years ago many of my friends were on the hunt for jobs. It was a pretty dismal landscape. When I graduated from college in 2010 unemployment, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), was at a high rate of 9.8%. This number has decreased and is now at 5.7, but the new issue […]
Working in the education arena can really do wonders for any misconceptions one might have about teachers having the summer off. Although school is technically out, anyone who thinks teachers don’t work year-round is sorely mistaken—as I’ve had the privilege to witness firsthand in both July and now again in August. It’s taken months […]
Is this a “Goldilocks Moment” for environmental literacy? Will Parish, our founder and president, thinks so and writes about it in his latest blog post.