At the end of 2020, Karen Cowe, Ten Strands’ CEO, and Linda Livers, Ten Strands’ consultant, interviewed three staff members of the Park Day School in Oakland, California: Angela Taylor, head of school; Jennifer Cooper, facilities manager; and Josie Shapiro, director of admissions. This interview was originally published as a case study on the National […]
Creative writing, poetry, and placemaking are all ways to connect complex scientific ideas and to explore relationships to the environment. Writing, and the various ways in which humans share ideas and stories, is also part of a longer tradition of storytelling. For thousands of years, humans have expanded the confines of language to define and […]
I am writing about the Current Context: A Focus on the Environment series, an environment-based current events classroom resource, at an exciting time. The series began in 2017, and all 18 issues were published during Trump’s presidency, when there was a clear disconnect between the science and observation regarding climate change and what the president […]
Greetings from Humboldt County! We are located 300 miles north of San Francisco and serve nearly 18,000 students across 4,000 square miles of beautiful redwoods, isolated beaches, and the Northern Coast Ranges. Our isolated rural county is a land of scenic beauty that encompasses many unique cultural and geographic communities. The Humboldt County Office of […]
Prologue: Costa Rica Early morning walks to meet the preschool microbús are my earliest memories of engaging the natural world. The sun was usually bright, but the pavement was wet from the predawn rain that routinely showered our suburb in San José, Costa Rica. My grandmother and I looked forward to poking the open dormilonas […]
Take a moment to go outside and inhale a whopping breath of air. Do you take in a breath of fresh air or do you in fact take in a breath of fresh pollution? The answer to this question lies in where you are taking in this precious air. As science educators, we have a […]
When I entered the Tree Rooms for the first day of the San Mateo County Office of Education’s (SMCOE) San Mateo Environmental Learning Collaborative (SMELC) institute in summer 2017, I knew some of what to expect. I knew I would be taking a break from my responsibilities as a summer camp manager with the HEAL […]
This interview between California Association of Science Educators (CASE) and Karen Cowe, Ten Strands CEO and California Environmental Literacy Initiative project director, originally appeared on the CASE website and was republished with permission. Tell us about Ten Strands and the work of the California Environmental Literacy Initiative. Ten Strands was founded eight years ago by […]