Fall 1997 Table of Contents

• 1997 Outstanding Educators
• Trash is a Treasure with PLT--Introducing the New Secondary Module on Municipal Solid Waste
• PLT's New GreenWorks! Community Action and Service Learning Program
• PLT in the City: Richmond, Virginia and Houston, Texas--Why Not You?
• How Does Project Learning Tree Support Systemic Reform?
• PLT and the World Wide Web of Life
• National PLT Director, Kathy McGlauflin, Wins a Top EE Award
• Resources
• National Update

1997 Outstanding Educators

Project Learning Tree is the success that it is because of the network of dedicated educators and volunteers who actively implement the program. Since 1994, national PLT has officially recognized the dedicated efforts of the people who bring PLT into classrooms, nature centers, universities, and scouting troops. Each year, PLT coordinators across the country select state Outstanding Educators. These educators are then considered for the national award of Outstanding Project Leaming Tree Educator. They exhibit exceptional teaching skills, commitment to the PLT curriculum, exemplary use of PLT in classroom projects, and sustained use of PLT.

This year, five Outstanding Educators were honored in May at the 1997 PLT International Coordinators' Conference in Maine. The conference benefited the educators as well as the coordinators, facilitators, and the PLT Education Operating Committee members whom they met. The educators had an opportunity to share ideas and interact with the PLT network. Conference attendees were inspired by the dedication these educators have to the PLT program. The Outstanding Educators were also awarded an all-expense-paid trip to Portland, Oregon, to participate in a week-long Summer Educators' Institute offered by the World Forestry Center.

With the commitment of these Outstanding Educators and every PLT educator, students are gaining the confidence and commitment they need to take responsible action on behalf of the environment.

Cindy Ybos
University of New Orleans
New Orleans, Louisiana
Since 1993, Cindy Ybos has conducted PLT workshops at the University of New Orleans (UNO). As a clinical instructor at UNO and a PLT facilitator, Cindy consistently and strongly promotes increased understanding of how environmental education affects adults and children of Louisiana, as well as promotes PLT.

Cindy has conducted approximately fifty educator workshops and helps train new facilitators at annual facilitator training workshops. In 1992 and 1996, she was recognized as Outstanding PLT facilitator in Louisiana. Cindy is currently serving on the Louisiana PLT state steering committee.

Becky McNeely
Iuka Elementary School
Iuka, Mississippi
As an elementary school teacher and an active PLT facilitator, Becky McNeely's commitment to environmental education is demonstrated by her desire to understand more about her environment and about ways to convey this knowledge to her students and fellow teachers. Becky continually recruits teachers to participate in PLT workshops, Mississippi Teachers Conservation Workshops, and PLT facilitator training workshops. Presently, she is working with the Superintendent of Tishomingo County School District to develop a curriculum that incorporates field trips, resource people, and PLT activities, according to skills mastered at each grade level.

Belinda Spears
Penny Road Elementary School
Raleigh, North Carolina
Belinda Spears is truly committed to sharing the love of the forest and environment with her first-grade classes. She has transformed a new school site into a model environmental education showplace using PLT as the curriculum during annual Arbor Day Celebrations. Belinda is actively involved in the development of a PLT nature trail, aquatic classroom, arboretum, and bird observation area. She recruits all new teachers in her school to go through PLT training. As an ambassador and spokesperson for the PLT program, Belinda enthusiastically spreads the message of interdisciplinary, inquiry-based teaching.

Frances Howard
De Leon Elementary School
De Leon, Texas
Fourth-grade teacher Frances Howard utilizes many PLT activities in her classroom. She is able to use PLT activities to prepare her students for the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills test, a test required by the state. "I try to incorporate the Project Learning Tree goals in my curriculum by giving my students an opportunity to become aware of our environment and some of the issues pertaining to it," she says. "By using Project Learning Tree, I am changing and forming the attitudes of my students so they can be useful members of our society and help forge new ways of thinking about and dealing with the environment and the issues that will come in the future." Recently, Frances received a proclamation from Texas Governor George W Bush, which recognizes her dedicated efforts to educating students about the environment

Ron Hellstern
South Cache Freshman Center
Logan, Utah
"Our method is inspired by PLT's banner call to action," says ninth-grade science teacher Ron Hellstern, about his curriculum. Ron's entire science course is based upon the PLT sequence of awareness, understanding, challenging, motivation, and action. Ron understands that his students just do not want to listen and learn, they want to do and learn.

Ron recruits teachers into the program by showing them how PLT activities can be used, modified, or expanded to fit their specific situations and audience.

Trash is a Treasure with PLT - Introducing the New Secondary Module on Municipal Solid Waste

Along with extensive background information, a glossary, a bibliography, and suggestions for supplementary resources, the module includes eight student activities. Through classroom use of the activities, teachers will be able to generate an awareness, interest, and understanding of waste management issues and options. Hands-on experiences help show the interrelationship among waste generation, natural resource use, and disposal. The activities also provide opportunities for exploring a variety of waste management strategies and solutions and help teach students the skills necessary for making informed decisions and choices regarding waste issues at both the individual and community level.

The first activity, Introduction to Municipal Solid Waste, helps students to develop a historical sense of municipal solid waste, learning how people have managed waste throughout time. Students will also investigate the solid waste management system in their school. Students will learn about the importance of generating less waste in the second activity, Source Reduction. They will analyze various products in terms of packaging, waste generated, and toxicity. Household hazardous waste products and ways to reduce the use of toxic products at home will also be introduced.

Recycling and Economics familiarizes students with recycling, as well as the various economic factors that influence waste management programs. By conducting field research, students will determine the extent of recycled and recyclable products available in their community.

The fourth activity, Composting, has students exploring the value of municipal and backyard composting while learning the important chemical reactions that occur during decomposition. By creating their own compost containers, collecting compostable waste, and creating compost, students will apply their knowledge in hands-on, practical experiments. Data pertaining to decomposition will be recorded, helping students understand the variables in the composting process.

The Waste-to-Energy activity uses a case-study approach to involve students in a democratic decision-making process. Students will discover the many factors involved when a community makes decisions about municipal solid waste facilities.

PLT's New GreenWorks! Community Action and Service Learning Program

Working in partnership to improve the environment. PLT educators and their students partner with local community groups with the goal of improving the environment. GreenWorks! partnerships help educate communities in environmental issues and involve them in environmentally focused projects. Doing a GreenWorks! project offers opportunities for people of all ages to work together to enhance their surroundings and share in the rewards of an improved environment.

How do I get involved?
If you are interested in learning more about GreenWorks! contact the national PLT office at 202-463-2462 or E-mail: caroline_alston@plt.org.

In January 1998, the GREENWORKS! ENVIRONMENTAL ACTION GUIDE will be available to PLT educators and organizations interested in doing a GreenWorks! project. Contact your state PLT Coordinator to receive a copy. GREENWORKS! ENVIRONMENTAL ACTION GUIDE offers a step-by-step process for developing, planning, and carrying out an environmental action project in your community and provides examples of actual GreenWorks! projects.

PLT in the City:
Richmond, Virginia and Houston, Texas- Why Not You?

PLT in the City-Richmond held a two-day PLT facilitator training workshop in June to launch its initiative to strengthen environmental education in urban areas. The Richmond kick-off began with a breakfast ceremony introducing the Richmond Steering Committee members present; Rolan E. Moore, Division Chair at 1. Sergeant Reynolds Community College, Paul Howe, President of the Virginia Forestry Association, Susan Greenbaum, Vice President of Communications for the Chesapeake Corporation, Darcy Omar, President of The Community Foundation, and Nelson Colbert, Science Specialist for Richmond Public Schools. Brenda Drew, Principal of Open High School, encouraged the facilitators to begin training Richmond Public School teachers as soon as possible. The kick-off ceremony ended with the planting of a pine sapling that was donated by Susan Greenbaum and the Chesapeake Corporation.

Since the kick-off training in June, the Richmond PLT in the City program has conducted a second successful facilitator workshop, conducted six educator workshops that trained a total of 100 teachers, and secured a $2,000 grant from the Virginia Division of Forestry to support the program.

PLT's Richmond initiative demonstrates the effectiveness of a community working together to make a difference in the future of urban America. Congratulations Richmond, Virginia!

PLT in the City Welcomes Houston, Texas
PLT in the City has expanded its reach to educators and students in Houston, in partnership with the Texas-based Royal Bushman Association (RBA). RBA is a nonprofit educational organization dedicated to preserving "mankind's most enduring alliance, his partnership with nature." RBA's environmental education projects foster and promote continuing education, quality of family, and natural resource preservation in rural and urban Texas. Working together, PLT in the City-Houston and RBA will focus attention on meeting the needs of Houston city schools.

A two-day PLT facilitator training workshop was held September 12th and 13th at Blackshear Elementary School/ Outdoors Heritage Learning Center. Texas PIT Coordinator Lanny Dreesen, Texas Facilitator Richard Gray, NACD/ Envirothon representative Brenda Weiser, and national PLT Programs Manager Caroline Alston organized the workshop.

Workshop participants included classroom teachers from the Houston Independent School District, Community Parks staff, Houston Zoo staff, and Outdoors Heritage Learning Center staff. This very successful two-day program focused on PLT activities that are most adaptable to application in urban areas. The PLT in the City - Houston urban initiative represents a collective body of motivated, enthusiastic and committed individuals.

The next step for PLT in the City-Houston is to form a City Steering Committee and select a Community Organizer. Their goal is to have both in place before the new year. Congratulations and welcome aboard, Houston, Texas!

Why Not You?
Project Learning Tree wants to continue to strengthen our support of urban environmental education by reaching out to educators and students across urban America. In an effort to expand our reach, the national PLT staff will survey the entire PLT network of coordinators to identify other PLT in the City programs already in place and target communities for funding to officially launch urban initiative programs throughout the country. PLT in the City creates opportunities for urban youth to gain an appreciation for the environment around them.

If you would like to find out how you can get involved in supporting a larger effort for PLT in Your City, contact your state PLT Coordinator or the national PLT office at 202-463-2462 or E-mail caroline_alston@plt.org.

How Does Project Learning Tree Support Systemic Reform?

Throughout the 1990's, environmental educators have been challenged to meet the needs of systemic reform. To meet this challenge the Project Learning Tree (PLT) staff conducted four writing workshops in different regions of the United States. These workshops were instrumental in capturing each region's interpretation of systemic reform in the context of environmental education.

Over the last decade, proponents of systemic education reform have focused their efforts on the following basic elements: (1) new approaches to teaching and learning; (2) site-based governance; (3) shifting roles of teachers and administrators; and (4) accountability¹. Environmental educators in each of the regions helped weave these basic elements into the PLT PreK-12 curriculum. Regardless of whether you are a classroom or outdoor educator, everyone benefits from the outstanding quality of the PLT activities that reflect all of the common components of systemic reform listed above.

The pedagogical approach of PLT activities is largely constructivist and supports educators efforts to embrace new methods of teaching and learning. Each activity is designed to engage students in active learning and to promote conceptual understanding. PLT activities challenge students to apply critical thinking skills as they share their preconceptions, investigate environmental concepts and attempt personal action projects based on knowledge they have gained. The PLT PreK-8Activity Guide is ideal for teachers whose school embraces site-based governance. Teachers who are granted flexibility in the classroom find the thematic storylines within the PLT Activity Guide to provide valuable continuity between content areas. Also, through training workshops, teachers learn how easy it is to incorporate PLT activities into their existing curriculum and adapt them to their local environment. Because the Activity Guide is so user-friendly, educators have greater confidence in designing their instructional program and implementing their lessons.

The wide variety of activities create an intriguing array of new, sometimes never explored roles and responsibilities for students and educators alike. In the activity "Every Drop Counts, " students monitor daily water use at school, analyze how water is wasted, and design and implement a conservation plan for the school. The results of the plan are shared with their fellow students, faculty, and community. This activity empowers students to take responsibility for conserving water. The teacher's role is centered around facilitating access to information and helping students use reasoning to draw conclusions. This demonstrates the shifting role of teachers in facilitating learning and incorporating real word applications. Administrators can also get involved in implementing student designed action projects.

PLT lessons for secondary students delve into more complex environmental issues. The secondary activity, "Take Action" guides students to research information about their local forests. Students examining a success story of what one class did to reclaim a state park. They then design a project to improve a local park or forested area in their region. Once they finish their action project, they evaluate their accomplishments, the problems they encountered, and what they would change next time to be more effective. This kind of reflective assessment, which is performance-based, encourages students to be more accountable for their learning. Given this emphasis on authentic assessment, it is not surprising that a 1995 multi-age, pre-and post-test analysis of the educational effectiveness of PLT, conducted by an independent research an-n of the North American Association for Environmental Education, concluded that the educators who had led their pupils through an entire storyline unit (4 to 6 lessons in length) were universally successful in enabling their students to develop deeper conceptual understanding about the environment and shared attitudes that reflect caring and respect for the environment.

Given these impressive statistically-derived results and the few short examples offered to illustrate the ways PLT activities reflect the basic components of systemic reform, educators can be confident that the PLT Activity Guide and the secondary modules will serve as useful tools to implement systemic reform in their schools.

¹Adapted from "Whole Systems Change and Staff Development," by Michael Kirst, Professional Development Brief 1, August 1993. California Staff Development Council.

PLT and the World Wide Web of Life

About PLT. This section includes information on PLT's network, coordinators, audiences, partners, mission, and goals.

PLT in Action. This section of the site provides information on our Outstanding Educators 1994-1997, how to get involved in PLT's community action and service learning program GreenWorks!, highlights of PLT's community-based program PLT in the City, and a list of the awards that PLT has received.

Calendar of Events. This section allows web users to retrieve information about specific state and national PLT events. Information such as workshop times, dates, and locations; PLT-sponsored events; PLT at state/national conferences; and PLT Earth Day events will be easily accessible here.

Curriculum. This section provides an overview of PLT's curriculum, specific highlights of the PreK8 curriculum, secondary curriculum, and Spanish translations. Ordering information for the Spanish translations is also provided here. Look forward to seeing PLT's conceptual framework and PLT correlations to national standards in this section.

Branch Newsletter. Web users can now read our newsletter in its regular format via our site. The Fall 1997 issue of the BRANCH will only be available on-line.

Resources. This section will provide educational resource information and links to other environmental and educational sites, links to PLT partners, etc.

PLT Hot Topics. This portion of the site will be updated on a regular basis with new and exciting PLT news, both locally and nationally This section will also house information about the on-line environmental exchange box.

Environmental Exchange Box. This exciting portion of the site allows classrooms to take part in the PLT activity "Environmental Exchange Box" on-line. Three times a year PLT will highlight a different school. This school will provide PLT with Exchange Box "items" such as pictures of local trees/forests, poems, descriptions of geologic features, and/or a short video highlighting the state tree. These "items" will be scanned or added into the Web site. Other PLT trained educators interested in doing the activity can pull this school up on our web site and compare and contrast their environment to that of the highlighted school on the site. A list-serv will be set up for communicating with the featured school and other schools doing the activity.

National PLT Director, Kathy McGlauflin, Wins Top EE Award

Kathy McGlauflin's vision and dedication to environmental education spans a career that has carried her as a naturalist with the Schlitz Audubon Center in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in the early 70's to her position as national Director of Project Learning Tree in 1985. As Director of PLT, Kathy has supervised the revision of the award winning PreK-8 Environmental Activity Guide, expanded PLT's national and international network, and initiated the development of the new PLT secondary modules. Among her many achievements with PLT, Kathy has provided leadership in curriculum development and initiated PLT's rigorous evaluation process. She is a former president of NAAEE and has served on its Board of Directors since 1989. Congratulations to Kathy McGlauflin and the entire PLT network for their collective contribution to the field of environmental education.

Resources

VIRTUAL LIBRARY
Research information on exotic species, habitats, the values of biodiversity, conservation education, and much more through the Virtual Library of Ecology, Biodiversity, and the Environment. The Virtual Library allows you and your students to do searches for information on specific topics that relate to the environment via the Internet. This site is sponsored by the Center for Conservation Biology Network, which also provides a clearinghouse for information on academic programs in conservation biology for students who are researching colleges. http://conbio.rice.edu

EE-LINK
Finally, a World Wide Web site for environmental education. The mission of the site is to spread information and ideas that will help educators explore the environment and investigate current issues with students. This is a resource both for teachers and for people who support K-12 environmental education. The site offers a section pertaining to what the Internet offers environmental education, classroom resources, EE contacts, and reference materials, including grant opportunities. Look closely and you will find PLT. http://eelink.umich.edu

EDGATEWAY
If you are interest in collaborating with other environmental organizations and education reform efforts in your state or nationally, visit EdGateway. This site allows you to share information about yourself; include your organization for others to find; post and search for state and national events such as workshops and conferences; access organizational, state, and national calendars; and form and participate in discussion groups. http://www.edgateway.net

GREENWORKS! GRANTS
GreenWorks! is the community action and service learning component of Project Learning Tree. The GreenWorks! program encourages students to participate in community-based partnerships by developing and implementing environmental action projects, such as graffiti paint-overs, tree plantings, stream clean-ups, and recycling projects.

Project Learning Tree is providing small grants to eligible recipients for assisting in the planning and implementation of GreenWorks! Community Action Projects. The deadline for applications is December 15,1997.

A maximum of $200.00 per project will be available. If you have any questions concerning the grants, contact Caroline Alston at 202/463-2472 or E-mail: caroline_alston@plt.org.

Grant Criteria:
Applicant(s) must be PLT trained

1. Applicant(s) must submit a maximum four page project proposal which includes:
   • Applicant Name, Organization/ School, Address, Phone, Fax
   • State & Year of Applicant's PLT Training Workshop
   • Description of project including measurable objectives
   • Description of project partners
   • Project timeline/starting and completion dates
   • Budget, including matching funds
   • Name and mailing address of fiscal agent, if different from applicant
2. Projects should be community/ school based and have student/ youth participation
3. Applicant(s) must establish a partnership to implement the project (i.e. school/PTA, school/local business, girl scout troop/local business)
4. Applicant(s) must raise 50% project matching funds; funds may be in-kind services/time
5. Applicant(s) must submit a midterm and final report for all projects

Mail your proposal to: GreenWorks! Grants,1111 19th Street, NW #780, Washington, DC 20036 ATTN.- Caroline Alston or
Fax your proposal to: 202/463-2461

National Update

�SE HABLA ESPANOL?
Project Learning Tree has responded to the need for more bilingual education materials by developing a Spanish translation of the Student Pages and Glossary of the PreK-8 Activity Guide. In schools where students have an opportunity to receive instruction in two languages, the translation provides ready-to-use materials for bilingual educators and learners. The translation is available for $5.00 a copy, including shipping and handling. For ordering information, please contact the national PLT office at 202-463-2462 or E-mail.- yolanda_jacobs@plt.org.

CONFERENCES
Project Learning Tree will be exhibiting at the National Council for the Social Studies annual conference in Cincinnati, Ohio, on November 21 st-23rd, 1997. This year's conference, "TRANSFORMING CULTURES: PAST, PRESENT & FUTURE," explores the history of social studies and will lay the groundwork for where it is headed. Visit our booth for sample correlations of PLT activities to the National Social Studies Standards. For more information about the conference, E-mail: conference@ncss.org.

Also, look for PLT at these other national conferences in 1998:

• NACD - National Association of Conservation Districts, February lst-3rd in Nashville, Tennessee.
• CABE - California Association of Bilingual Educators, February 4th-7th in San Jose, California.