Spring 1998 Table of Contents

• The Theory of Multiple Intelligences
• How Does Project Learning Tree Support Systemic Reform?
• PLT and Early Childhood Education
• PLT and Urban Environmental Education
• A Guide to the PLT Website
• In Search of the Perfect Tree Cookie
• Resources
• National Update

The Theory of Multiple Intelligences

A different kind of smart-that's the hottest topic of discussion in classrooms across the country today. With the currently accepted theory of multiple intelligences, educators no longer focus on "how smart students are" but on "how students are smart."

The theory of multiple intelligences, developed by Howard Gardner and his associates, holds that every individual possesses several different and independent capacities for solving problems and creating products. Gardner has named these capacities "intelligences" and has scientifically identified eight of them which are grouped into three categories.

The language-related intelligences, verbal/linguistic and musical/rhythmic, reflect the structures of individual languages. These two intelligences are "object free," meaning that thoughts are represented through sound-based communication and symbolic representations of those sounds.

The second category, personal relationships, consists of interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligences. These are the people-centered intelligences. They reflect the personal vision of self, expectations of others, accepted norms of thinking and acting, and the cultural pressures that shape behavior.

The third category is object-related intelligences. These include bodily/kinesthetic, visual/spatial, and logical/mathematical. The designation of object-related means that the basic concepts and procedures are rooted in physical manipulation of concrete objects that results in a defined product. These intelligences are subject to the "rules of the game" for using the objects to solve a problem or make a product.

The newest intelligence to be identified is naturalist intelligence. Gardner describes this as an ability to differentiate the patterns and characteristics among natural objects in the environment, recognize flora and fauna, make distinctions in the natural world, and observe and classify plants. Charles Darwin is often cited as an example of a person who possesses a naturalist intelligence.

As with other instructional strategies, Project Learning Tree has already incorporated many of the key aspects of multiple intelligences theory into its activities.

One of the simplest ways to include multiple intelligences with your students is to ask them to "represent" the data they have collected during a PLT activity, such as "Water Wonders," using one of the eight intelligences. Each group can be invited to use the intelligence with which they are most comfortable or you can assign an intelligence to each group. By doing this, you encourage them to really let their personalities shine! We have found that groups will dance, sing, draw pictures, make models, create graphs, or do calisthenics to report their findings from PLT activities.

While all of this information about Multiple Intelligence Theory may seem overwhelming, the main idea we would like for you to get from this article is that PLT activities already incorporate a great deal of this theory. Just by doing the activities, you are modeling some aspects of Multiple Intelligence Theory in your classrooms and with some small modifications, you can model all aspects of it. And, if you are a PLT workshop facilitator, it also is important that you think about how combinations of activities will address all of the intelligences when planning your workshops.

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) accountability^1. 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, veryone benefits from the outstanding quality of the PLT activities that reflect all of the common components of systemic reform previously listed.

The pedagogical approach of PLT activities is largely constructivist. This approach 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-8 Activity 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 the PLT training workshops, teachers learn how easy it is to incorporate PLT activities into their existing curriculum and are encouraged to adapt the activities 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. For example, in the activity "Every Drop Counts," students monitor their daily water use at school, analyze how water is wasted, and design and implement a water 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 roles of teachers in facilitating learning and incorporating real world applications. Administrators can also get involved in implementing student designed action projects.

PLT lessons for secondary students delve more deeply into complex environmental issues. The secondary activity, "Take Action" guides students to research information about their local forests and examines a success story of what one class did to reclaim a state park. Then they 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 analysis of the educational effectiveness of PLT, conducted by an independent research arm 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.

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

PLT and Early Childhood Education

Perhaps Robert Fulgrum said it best, "All I really needed to know about how to live and how to be, I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sand pile at Sunday School..."

What are preoperational (2-6 years of age) children capable of learning and how much of what is learned at an early age impacts patterns of thought later in life? These questions are driving much of the current research under which traditional schools are structured. Now, preschool programs are becoming the norm rather than the exception and Head Start programs are flourishing.

The establishment of critical periods for learning and memory are not well understood. The growth of the brain is complete by about the age of eight. However, most neural networks for cognitive functions develop prenatally and are present several months after birth, suggesting the capability for at least rudimentary function at some level.

Most interpretations of classical Piaget theory have attached a rather strict chronology to the steps of childhood development. They will argue that preschoolers do not have the capacity to develop meaning rom abstract symbols. However, most preschool children who enter kindergarten know numbers and letters and by the time they leave kindergarten most are reading at some level.

What can preschoolers be taught about the environment? "Sense of place" research has identified early adolescence as the time most critical to the development of ones ecological identity. This is a time of great exploration, which is critical to understanding ones role in the environment beyond the confines and safety of the "home." As Rachel Carson wrote "The years of early childhood are the time to prepare the soil. Once the emotions have been aroused'a sense of the beautiful, the excitement of the new, a feeling of sympathy, pity, admiration or love-then we wish for knowledge about the object of our emotional response. Once found it has lasting meaning."

The question arises, what curricula materials are appropriate for this age level? Project learning Tree (PLT) when first publishing its new materials in 1993, included activities for preoperational children. In developing these activities, many questions of cognitive ability were examined. The result is a PreK-8 Activity Guide with about twenty activities which target preschoolers and help develop a foundation for future environmental literacy.

The model used to develop these activities is simple and has been well tested. The works of many experiential learning theorists (Kolb, McCarthy, etc.) were reviewed. When working with preschoolers, it appears logical to begin any activity with a concrete experience and move towards the abstract, thus building a context for the learner with limited background information. Likewise activities should be processed actively and reflected upon later, as preschoolers are innately kinetic.

For example, the first activity in PLT "The Shape of Things," starts concretely by having students identify simple shapes in a shape necklace. These necklaces are used during a walk to make associations to shapes in nature. Finally, a reflective session asks the students to recall some of the items identified during the walk and the associated shapes. Activity 62, "To Be a Tree" starts actively and concretely, using leaves to make leaf rubbings. It then builds through the construction of a tree vest using other tree parts and finishes reflectively with a song about trees. "Getting In Touch With Trees," activity 2 is a kinetic activity that has children feeling tree parts hidden in a box. The activity concludes reflectively by making comparisons between their observations when seeing the object verses their observations when feeling the object. These activities are not only good examples of an age appropriate process, but also the type of experience preschoolers need to foster the sense of wonder, beauty, and excitement that "prepares the soil."

For more information on preschool education, contact The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), at 1-800-424-2460 or 202-232-8777.

PLT and Urban Environmental Education

Because environmental education (EE) is a process that is fundamentally the same whether it focuses on a remote state park, a suburban field, or an urban street, urban environmental education has the same objectives as "traditional" EE: to encourage awareness, knowledge, attitude formation, skill development, and participation in solving environmental problems. Urban EE is unique, however, because it happens in urban areas, with urban people, and deals with urban environmental systems and issues¹.

As we redefine "environment" to extend beyond the natural world and to include the social, cultural, and built world we see that urban areas are full of environmental education opportunities. A prime example is the environmental justice movement. The goal of environmental justice is to ensure that all people, regardless of age, gender, social class, or race are "equally" protected from environmental hazards. Environmental justice expands the notion of environment from natural ecosystems to the landscapes where people live, work, and play. And it gives educators an opportunity to connect environmental education with community activities, local leadership, and personally relevant issues.

An excellent way to get students thinking about urban environmental issues and to promote problem solving skills, is through the variety of curriculum materials, programs, and projects available through Project Learning Tree. The PLT curriculum materials offer many activities that focus on urban issues. For example, activity 55 of the PreK-8 Activity Guide, "Planning the Ideal Community," challenges students to examine their own community, discuss the available resources and services, and identify any opportunities for improvements. Another example from the PreK-8 Guide is activity 36, "Pollution Search." This activity has students look at different kinds of pollution and possible ways of cleaning up pollutants in their community. Examples at the secondary level include the module, Exploring Environmental Issues: Municipal Solid Waste that introduces students to the environmental justice movement, in the context of siting waste disposal facilities. And the newest module (available fall 1998), Exploring Environmental Issues: Focus on Risk gets students to look at environmental risks in their community and addresses issues relevant to urban environments such as electromagnetic fields, plastic waste disposal, and disinfection of drinking water.

In addition, "PLT in the City" is especially designed for urban environmental educators. This urban initiative program is founded on the notion of partnerships, where community organizations, businesses, and government agencies work together to enable urban educators to participate in PLT workshops and develop strong environmental education programs in their urban schools. Three successful "PLT in the City" programs are currently underway in Richmond, VA, New Orleans, LA, and Houston, TX.

Project Learning Tree's GreenWorks! program lends itself to urban environmental education by offering educators and their students the opportunity to make a real difference in their community. It encourages students to participate in community based partnerships by developing and implementing environmental action projects such as graffiti paint-overs, stream clean-ups, and recycling projects. By linking PLT teachers and their students with local community groups, GreenWorks! projects help educate communities in environmental issues that are important to them. In addition, GreenWorks! projects can be used to fulfill service learning requirements.

As urban issues continue to gain a stronger voice in environmental education, PLT will continue to provide training tools to help educate an ever growing urban population. In addition, the North American Association for Environmental Education (NAAEE) is developing guidelines for urban environmental education. For more information about these guidelines, contact NAAEE at 202-884-8912 or www.naaee.org.

¹ Frank, Jeffrey and Michael Zamm. EE

A Guide to the PLT Web Site and it's Newest Feature-the On-Line Environmental Exchange Box

Students will have an opportunity to participate in the site by using the NEW On-Line Environmental Exchange Box. This activity will allow your students to share environmental information with other classrooms across the country, post regional information, and communicate with the featured Exchange Class. Long used by PLT educators from the PreK-8 curriculum, the Environmental Exchange Box, now on-line, will literally allow thousands of students across the nation to interact with one another.

Following are the highlights and features of the PLT Web site.

About PLT. This page serves as a general information provider about the PLT program including information about the PLT volunteer network, state coordinators, partners and collaborative efforts, and PLT's mission and goals.

PLT in Action. This section highlights the programs and people that put PLT into action. Featured is a listing of the 1994-1998 PLT Outstanding Educators, PLT's community action and service learning projects through GreenWorks!, PLT's community-based projects through PLT in the City, and a listing of PLT's awards.

Calendar of Events. Educators who are interested in taking a PLT educator or facilitator workshop, can look in the Calendar of Events. This section is updated on a monthly basis for current event information.

Curriculum. This section provides educators with an overview of PLT's curriculum including the PreK-8 guide, Spanish translations, and each of the NEW and upcoming secondary modules. Look forward to seeing PLT correlations to national standards in this section.

Branch Newsletter. This portion of the site allows educators to pick articles from the Branch table of contents, browse through articles in the newsletter format, or retrieve articles from the Archives.

Resources. Educational resources such as posters, videos, audio cassettes and CD's, and EE Internet sources are accessible here.

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.

On-Line Environmental Exchange Box. This exciting portion of the site allows classrooms to take part in the PLT activity "Environmental Exchange Box" on-line. This activity helps students recognize the ecological and cultural characteristics of different regions across the country.

The Communication Corner within the activity allows students to share information with the exchange class and other classes across the country.

In Search of the Perfect Tree Cookie

Where do you get a good tree cookie when you need one? You have the recipe down for chocolate chip cookies. Your neighborhood girl scout can satisfy your craving for thin mints. But when it comes to whipping up a batch of high fiber, multi-ringed tree cookies, most of us are not sure where to turn. The purpose of this article is to tell you how to make your own tree cookies like a pro; tree cookies that not only look good but will also hold-up in a classroom for years.

"Tree Cookies," Activity 76 in the PreK-8 PLT Activity Guide has always been a favorite at workshops. It was not long before requests for cookies were rolling in from educators. I did little more than find a tree, a saw, and had at it. Ten minutes of work produced what I thought was the finished product- a cardboard box of rough-cut tree slices. Were they pretty? No. Could you count the rings? Sort of, if you looked close.

Through the affects of time, space, and moisture, the box of tree cookies had been transformed into a box of fungus fragments. After a moment of thoughtful reflection, I recalled that yes, wood is not only renewable and recyclable but also biodegradable. Since then, time, trial, and humility have led to a much improved recipe for tree cookies. Following, are the five main steps for making tree cookies.

Tree Selection
Pine trees are my favorite for tree cookies. The annual rings are easily distinguished, the wood is soft and easy to cut and sand, and the supply is usually plentiful. The trees to cut need to be about the diameter of an aluminum soda can at the base of the tree and between two to four inches in diameter. To keep your tree cookies from all looking the same, look for trees with a variety of growth patterns growing on varied sites-suppressed trees growing slowly as well as rapidly growing trees.

Tree Harvesting
Once selected I use a large tooth pruning saw (available at hardware stores) to cut the tree at the base and trim off the branches. Then cut the main tree stem into segments three or four feet in length (up to about a two inch top) and transport them back to work on. A vital step in the tree cookie recipe is to dry the wood. If you have access to a lumber kiln at a Chip-n-Saw mill, this is a good time to do it. Just ask the yard supervisor to stick the tree cookie poles in with the lumber being dried. After three or four days in the kiln the poles should be sufficiently dry and feel much lighter. If you don't have access to such a kiln, just go to the slicing step and worry about the drying later.

Tree Cookie Slicing
The next step is to take the poles and slice them into cookies. This means sawing the wood into cookie segments between 1-2 inches thick. This is best accomplished by a motor driven saw such as a radial arm saw. However, the same pruning saw that was suggested to harvest the tree may be used to slice as well. Whatever method used, always remember SAFETY FIRST!

Tree Cookie Drying
If the wood was not dried in a kiln as previously described it is necessary to let the wood dry now. This may be done by storing the cut cookies in a dry, well ventilated surface under low humidity for three to ten days. Take care to turn them over periodically to allow both sides to dry. Placing them on a driveway on a sunny day also works well. If you need faster results, it is possible to very carefully and slowly dry them in an oven set on "warm." This should be done under close monitoring and supervision. Place the cookies on a cookie sheet (of course) or foil and allow to slowly dry for three to five hours, turning cookies over occasionally.

Tree Cookie Sanding
Sanding a cookie that has been properly dried, may be done by hand or with a mechanical table mounted belt sander. The initial sanding should be done with course paper and then a second one with medium paper. Place the sandpaper on a flat surface and sand your cookies until you can count the annual rings easily. Suggestion: this is a dusty job; if possible do it outside under the shade of'a tree.

Tree Cookie Finishing
Now your tree cookies need some kind of finish coating to stand up to the rigors of life in the classroom. You may want to keep some cookies uncoated in order to allow students to smell the wood. For those that are going to be coated, use clear polyurethane. The polyurethane may be brushed, dipped, or sprayed, and the more the better.

Good luck!

Resources

PLT Correlations to National Science Standards
PLT is in the final stages of development of PLT correlations to the national science standards. These correlations were reviewed by educators and professionals who were involved in the development of the science standards. In addition, your state may also have developed correlations at the local level. Contact your state coordinator for copies of the state or national correlations, or download the national correlations from the PLT Web site at www.plt.org.

Where Does Your Homework Go?
Project Learning Tree has a new poster on recycling! This poster is designed to teach youth about "closing the loop" on recycling. This colorful poster describes the paper recycling process and includes a recycling glossary, a recycling crossword puzzle, and a paper making activity.Posters are available for $1.00 each. For ordering information, please contact 202-463-2462 or Email: info@affoundation.org.

Natural Learning.Creating Environments for Rediscovering Nature's Way of Teaching.¹

By: Robin C. Moore and Herb Wong
Reviewed By: Dr. Louis A. Iozzi²
In 1971, Professor Robin Moore and Dr. Herb Wong embarked on an intriguing "ten year action-research odyssey" by applying their expertise in the fields of education, design, and community development to a small piece of planet Earth that became known as the Environmental Yard-or simply the "Yard." As the authors state in the Preface of this new book, "the idea was to develop an asphalted urban schoolyard into an educational resource and community open space." In other words, instead of taking the more common approach of occasionally taking urban students "out there someplace" to study "nature," Moore and Wong asked, why not bring "nature" to the city where urban kids (and the entire community, for that matter) could have access to the natural world on an ongoing basis? Thus, these two creative individuals went about linking several academic units at the University of California at Berkeley and the children and community of the Washington School. They transformed the one-and-a-half acre school ground that was covered by a layer of asphalt, into a highly successful learning environment incorporating the plant and animal communities of the local region. In essence, they recreated what the area might have been like before it was smothered by asphalt.

From the beginning and throughout the life of the project, the authors carefully gathered data and kept detailed notes documenting the educational and social impact of the project on the children attending the school, their parents and community. This instructive and inspiring book describes in great detail how the authors introduced life to the "erstwhile asphalt desert" and how the educational process was impacted on them. The YARD was integrated into the development of the school curriculum which was based on Herb's philosophy of learning. Faculty participated fully in the evaluation of the entire project from the development of the curriculum to the actual completion of the Yard. This book is a case-study that describes what I consider to be one of the most important, creative, exciting, challenging and successful episodes in the history of environmental education.

Natural Learning is an important book that should appeal to a rather broad audience not just environmental educators. I recommend it highly for environmental educators, college professors, school administrators, curriculum specialists, in pre-service teachers, parents and just about anyone interested in "quality" and meaningful education.

1 Published by MIG Communications, 800 Hearst Avenue, Berkeley California, 94710 (USA) (510)845-0953. Cost: $29.95.
2 Dr. Iozzi is Professor of Environmental Resources and Education at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey 08903. He can be reached at the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Natural Resources at Cook College, Rutgers.

National Update

PLT at NAAEE
Project Learning Tree will be attending the North American Association for Environmental Education annual conference in Atlanta, September 4-8, 1998. This years theme "EE and the Urban Setting" will focus on environmental justice & EE, nonformal EE, community linkages, and professional development. PLT will be offering several sessions at the conference, including a preconference workshop. For more information visit the NAAEE Web site at www.naaee.org.

High School Module Update
Have you heard about PLT's new Secondary Environmental Education Modules? To date, PLT has developed four new modules for the secondary audience that focus on: environmental issues, forest ecology, municipal solid waste, and risk. The modules incorporate such subjects as economics, algebra, chemistry, and language arts. Each module addresses current issues, such as environmental justice, and incorporates issue analysis and classifying skills. All the modules have a culminating activity that allows students to take part in action and service learning projects. For more information visit www.plt.org.