Outdoor Experiential Learning in Broward County Parks

Check out these examples that show Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in EE programs:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATNnmNakUOo  with Awesome Olsen Middle School at Anne Kolb Nature Center, and another visit by them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fr96YRHfDWg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htEf--3t25Q  with FPL and volunteers from middle and high school-aged students working their community service hours, restoring Gopher Tortoise Habitat at Deerfield Island Park.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rnxdq04_lLY from a motivated patron, showing the features of Fern Forest Nature Center, and how kid-friendly it is

Dream in Green is a South Florida based non-profit whose mission is to inspire and empower individuals, particularly K-12 students, to respond to climate change and other environmental challenges facing local and global communities. The Green Schools challenge was developed in 2006 to address that mission by utilizing K-12 schools as living laboratories to foster the next generation of environmental stewards.

The Green Schools Challenge aims to engage students, teachers and administrators in hands-on educational activities that teach them about the links between resources, sustainability and their communities. Students are encouraged to think creatively and design initiatives that foster an environmentally sustainable future and promote the ‘green’ message to the entire school, their homes and throughout their community.

We develop and provide 3 free curriculum designed specifically for each elementary, middle and high schools. Our topics focus on energy efficiency, water conservation, waste reduction, alternative transportation, green living (building & careers) and food security. The Green Schools Challenge is designed as a competition so each activity the students complete will gain them points which we highlight winners at an awards ceremony at the end of the year.

Dream in Green offers professional development trainings for teachers to help implement the program. We partner with the STEM office at Miami-Dade County Public School District (MDCPS) to align our activities with the District’s pacing guides and we provide which benchmarks they fall under. Participation in our program will also count towards a school’s efforts to apply for STEM designation through MDCPS.

Every school enrolled in the Green Schools Challenge will be eligible to apply for grants of up to $400 to support green initiatives at their school. These grants ask students and teachers to conceptualize a project, develop a proposal and budget and evaluate the effectiveness of their idea.

By participating in the Green Schools Challenge:

- Schools will reduce utility costs by becoming more energy and resources efficient.

- Students will be exposed to environmental literacy.

- Teachers will learn how to integrate environmental education into ongoing instruction.

Schools can enroll in the program by filling out an online form (https://forms.gle/d6DMBdR7XDZx7Q1Z6) or visiting our website (www.dreamingreen.org). Please contact the Program Manager, Alexandra, at alexandra@dreamingreen.org for any additional questions or information.

From Vicki Crisp:

The Florida team returned from the ee360 Leadership Clinic in Asilomar, California this summer with some completed plans and new ideas. Although our primary goal in attending was to learn more about securing stable funding in order to hire an executive director, we discovered that we had some work to do first with our strategic planning and in developing a healthy board culture. We also added new wording to the LEEF strategic plan to address diversity, equity, and inclusion.

LEEF’s board will have a retreat in mid-August and all of our takeaways from the Leadership Clinic will be shared at that time. Our California team is enthusiastic about leading the way to meaningful change and improvement when we begin working with the LEEF board.

As an environmental educator, Arbordale supports your mission to educate young children about the world around them. Whether you use books in story time events, classroom (formal or informal), in a library or book nook, or whether you have suggested reading lists, they have some great books to help.

Here are some Digital Review Copies (DRCs) so that you may read the books to assess how each book meets your needs. The links may be forwarded to other environmental educators and will work until the end of August.

Day in the Salt Marsh, A

Read DRC

If A Dolphin Were A Fish

Read DRC

Moonlight Crab Count

Read DRC

Ocean Hide and Seek

Read DRC

Octavia and Her Purple Ink Cloud

Read DRC

Sharks and Dolphins: A Compare and Contrast Book

Read DRC

Turtle Summer sea turtle nesting

Read DRC

Contact tara@arbordalepublishing.comfor the complete of list and links to all DRC copies for this special, or for more titles, visit their catalog on their website: https://www.arbordalepublishing.com/bookhome.php .

Arbordale offers a wholesale discount to gift shops. For locations without gift shops that carry our books, Arbordale books are available wherever you normally buy your books (online or at brick and mortar stores). However, we are offering a one-time special to environmental educators:

All hardcover books are $10 (about a 45% discount) on orders called into 843 971 6722 or emailed to orders@arbordalepublishing.com. We will even give free shipping on orders of 10 books or more. Orders must be received by the close of business on August 15. We just need the title of the book you would like, the shipping address, your name & contact information and a credit card.

Did you know LEEF is now sponsoring Project WET workshops in Florida? Contact us to find out more- leef.florida@gmail.com.

In the meantime, Dig into an early childhood activity with the latest episode of Water Education TV:

What Do All Living Things Need to Grow?

Water Education TV is a free resource for educators, demonstrating Project WET activities to help you incorporate more hands-on water education into your curriculum. We feature a variety of activities from our interactive student activity booklets as well as our guides for educators.

https://youtu.be/nTH6JRVCtNM

by Dawn Miller-Walker (May 2019)

A couple of competitions recently held in Florida were the Florida Envirothon at the end of April and the P3 Eco-Challenge awards ceremony in May. We know there are many more environmental competitions throughout Florida - so let us here at LEEF know so we can advertise as well announce winners!

The Florida Envirothon is a hands-on environmental problem-solving competition for high school-aged students. Participating teams complete training and testing in five natural resource categories including: aquatic ecology, forestry, soil & land use, wildlife and an annual changing current environmental issue. The Envirothon works in partnership with local conservation districts, forestry associations, educators, and cooperating natural resource agencies to organize and conduct competitions on the local, regional, state, and/or provincial level. Winning teams from each state and province advance to the North American Envirothon for an opportunity to compete for recognition, scholarships, and prizes. The Envirothon program is an effective educational tool, capable of supplementing environmental education both inside and outside the classroom. Teams work collaboratively to develop their knowledge of ecology and natural resource management and to practice their environmental problem-solving skills in preparation for Envirothon competitions.

The 2019 Florida Envirothon winners were (county teams listed): 1st Overall: Volusia, 2nd Overall: Indian River, 3rd Overall Osceola, Aquatic Ecology: Hillsborough, Current Issue: Broward, Forestry: Lake, Soil & Land Use: Citrus, Wildlife: Manatee, and Oral Presentation: Duval.

Broward County Public Schools P3 Eco-Challenge recognizes and rewards traditional and charter Broward County schools, teachers, students, non-instructional and custodial staff for their efforts to learn about and implement environmentally sustainable measures and green initiatives within their schools and communities. The Broward P3 Eco-Challenge initiative is a multi-divisional and organizational effort among the Applied Learning Department of the Office of Academics, Environmental Health & Safety Department, Information & Technology Department of BCPS, and our partners, Broward County Environmental Planning and Community Resilience Division and the Environmental Conservation Organization (ECO). There are two types of P3 challenges:

P3 School Challenge – For schools that demonstrate participation in or implementation of different sustainability metrics based on a rubric composed of 6 comprehensive categories (1st place winners listed after each category):

Overall - Driftwood Middle School

School Grounds Enhancement - Crystal Lake Middle School

School Sustainability - Driftwood Middle School

Curriculum Integration - McFatter Tech High School

Community Involvement - South Plantation High School

Administrative Support - Dania Elementary School

Innovation/Special Projects - Beachside Montessori Village

Environmental Stewardship Recognition – For Broward County teachers, students, non-instructional and custodial staff who show evidence of promoting civic responsibility, environmental stewardship, and education of environmental issues through awareness and involvement, professional development/affiliation, instructional soundness/creativity, and skill building. The 1st place winners listed after each category:

Elementary School Student - Joseph Pino

Middle School Student - Khushi Desai

High School Student - Derod Deal

Elementary School Educator - Joanne Ewart

Middle School Educator - Carolyn San Angelo

High School Educator - Dr. Jody Berman

Non-instructional - Julia Chia

Custodial - Verol Frith

LEEF is collecting photos, articles, newsletters, conference programs, etc. to help document our many years serving Florida's EE community. If you have any items that will help complete our history, please email them to leef.florida@gmail.com .

SciStarter posted a graphic-designed version of the month of May from their “Year in Citizen Science” Google Calendar. You can add to the Google Calendar whenever you wish, to any month in the year, by emailing Erica Chenoweth at EricaC@SciStarter.org. Each month, Erica will release a printable version of the calendar featuring some of the events from the Google Calendar.

You can also copy events from their public Google Calendar to your own personal Google Calendar. Simply click the event you’re interested in and click “copy to my calendar.”

If you have any questions or just want to chat about science, feel free to reach out to Erica! She’s in the CitSci Convos Facebook group hosted by SciStarter, so feel free to post in there, as well, if you want to talk about ways you’re organizing events to celebrate citizen science.

Visit their blog for more information: https://blog.scistarter.com/2019/05/a-year-in-citizen-science-calendar-may/

Find a Project

eeAdvocate: An Advocacy Guide for Environmental Education Professionals & Supporters is designed to help you become a better and more confident advocate for environmental education (EE) and to bring more support and funding to the field. For EE to reach its full potential, advocacy at all levels of government—local school boards, state legislatures, state and federal agencies, and federal Congressional and Senatorial outreach—is crucial. This guide is focused primarily on advocating with your federal representatives, because these legislators are particularly important to our national work to support environmental education.

Key topics are covered in the guide- find it here: https://naaee.org/eepro/resources/eeadvocate

Climate Change -- free book for teachers:

Zabel, I. H. H., D. Duggan-Haas, and R. M. Ross (eds.), 2017, The Teacher-Friendly Guide to Climate Change. Paleontological Research Institution, Ithaca, New York, 284 pp.

PDF download: https://priweb.org/downloads/pubs/TFG-ClimateChange-Complete.pdf