GreenSchools for Early Childhood

Project Learning Tree’s GreenSchools for Early Childhood program specifically meets the needs of early childhood educators and younger learners. It is designed to teach young children about their environment and how they can make a difference, while developing their skills in language, mathematics, and science.

To access the materials, visit www.plt.org/greenschools/early-childhood/ and login or create an account (it’s free!)

educator guide

GreenSchools for Early Childhood Materials

PLT’s GreenSchools for Early Childhood program includes an Educator Guide and 5 investigations. 

The Educator Guide offers ideas and activities for early childhood educators to green their centers while facilitating environmental experiences with their students through art, movement, sensory exploration, and time outdoors – all of which are inherently appealing to young children. You’ll learn about the benefits of becoming a PLT GreenSchool, how to engage parents at your center, ways to assess your students’ learning, and how to celebrate your success. 

Five Investigations will involve your students in helping to green your center while developing their skills in language, mathematics, science, and more.

 

GreenSchools Investigations 

early childhood imageExplore what individual and collective actions you and your students can take to improve the health, safety, and environmental quality of your school or early childhood center around 5 topic areas. You’ll discover how reducing your school’s environmental footprint is not only good for your health, your children’s health, and the health of the environment, but also can save your school money. 

Energy: Investigate how much energy your center uses, the main sources of that energy, and ways to implement energy-saving strategies.

Environmental Quality: Investigate areas where improvements can be made in indoor and outdoor air quality, for example, in your center’s carbon dioxide and temperature levels, how cleaning products can impact your air quality, and what practices need to be followed regarding the use of hazardous materials.

School Site: Investigate natural habitats, wildlife, trees, grounds maintenance practices, and ways to make improvements to your center’s site.

Waste and Recycling: Investigate how much waste your center generates and where it goes, as well as recycling and composting efforts.

Water: Investigate the source, cost, and quality of your school’s water supply, and ways to enhance current water conservation practices.

Each GreenSchools for Early Childhood investigation includes:

  • Background information for educators and a checklist of supplies needed
  • Early Childhood Engagement activities to involve your learners in the investigation
  • Early Learner Worksheets
  • Action project ideas, including a My Action Plan worksheet for children ages 4 to 8
  • A Green Your Home handout to extend the learning and help families learn how they can improve their home environment.

Access the materials

To access the materials, visit www.plt.org/greenschools/early-childhood/ and register or log in.

If you are looking for more Early Childhood activities, be sure to check out PLT’s Environmental Experiences for Early Childhood. This guide is now also available electronically as part of PLT’s new online course for Early Childhood.

Burst into Spring with Project BudBurst and PLT!

pbb logoSpring is an amazing season for engaging students in making observations about the environmental changes happening all around them. New bird species appear, flowers begin to bloom, and trees that were once bereft of leaves are all at once covered in flowers and bright green leaves. 

Project Learning Tree has an array of hands-on activities you can use to get students outside and making seasonal observations. As an enhancement to these activities, a new partnership with Project BudBurst enables students to connect their seasonal observations about plants to those being made all across the country, while contributing to an ongoing citizen science project that began in 2007. 

First Leaf, First Bud, First Flower

Project BudBurst is a network of people across the country that monitors plants as the seasons change. The program engages the public in making careful observations of the phenophases, such as first leafing, first flower, and first fruit ripening of a diversity of local trees, shrubs, flowers, and grasses. That data is in turn used by scientists across the country to make inferences about changing climate trends, plant range information, as well as many other natural connections.

Springtime is the perfect time to engage your students in outdoor activities while helping them see how their observations can contribute to a larger body of research. In addition to collecting scientifically useful data, students will understand the impacts of changing climates on plants and their phenology, and engage in and understand the scientific process.

Engaging in the Scientific Process

Project Budburst

PLT activities can help get your students interested in being part of the scientific process by making observations of plants and sharing their data with others through Project BudBurst. It’s an easy addition to the PLT GreenSchools School Site Investigation, as well as many activities in PLT’s PreK-8 Environmental Education Activity Guide, especially Activity 65: Bursting Buds, Activity 64: Looking At Leaves, and later in the year, Activity 78: Signs of Fall. 

Check out the PLT GreenSchools and Project BudBurst Partnership webpage at https://budburst.org/community-greenschools to access 3 free PLT activities, including Bursting Buds. Plus you’ll find plenty more resources to get your students involved in recording plant observations and learning about phenology and how changes in climate affect a plant’s lifecycle.

Once your students record their data in the Project BudBurst database, they will be able to see their data appear on an online map and compare it to other data being recorded in their community and around the country. There is no cost to participate – everything needed is freely accessible on the Project BudBurst web site including Implementation and Classroom Registration Guides, educational resources, materials, and activities for both formal and nonformal K-14 educators and their students.

Note: This partnership is a collaborative effort between Project Learning Tree, Project BudBurst, and the U.S. Forest Service who are working together to engage students in citizen science and activities that promote stewardship at their schools and beyond.

Early Childhood Online Training

early childhood students with teacherContact with nature has a positive impact on children’s learning, health, and behavior. Project Learning Tree’s (PLT) award-winning early childhood materials help you foster young children’s wonder and curiosity about the natural world as you safely take your young learners outdoors and bring nature into the classroom. 

In addition, PLT’s early childhood materials teach reading, writing, science, and many more important skills to young learners.

Now Offered Online

PLT’s new online workshop consists of 5 self-paced online coursels (each a 20–30-minute learning experience) with simulations and videos that model PLT’s early childhood activities, along with accompanying planning worksheets that provide guidance and support for you to try out PLT activities with children in your context. To access the course, visit our online store at shop.plt.org

EC TRAININGThis online workshop is specially designed to help you:

  • Engage your learners in experiencing nature, both outside and indoors.
  • Make learning and teaching fun with hands-on activities.
  • Teach core topics (especially reading, writing, science, math, and gross and fine motor skills).
  • Meet learning standards (including the National Association for the Education of Young Children Standards and the Head Start Child Outcomes Framework).
  • Easily incorporate activities into your existing lessons.
  • Meet your professional development requirements.
  • Become eligible to receive a PLT GreenWorks! grant to fund projects for your students.

What’s Included

Math and manipulativesThis professional development experience will teach you how to use PLT’s materials effectively in your own educational setting and how to access many additional resources.

The course includes:

The Environmental Experiences for Early Childhood e-guide contains over 130 experiences that engage children ages 3 to 6 in outdoor exploration and play, and downloadable music files that encourage children to sing, dance, and move. A print version of the guide and music CD are available for an additional fee. Topics include exploring nature with five senses, meeting neighborhood trees, and experiencing trees through the seasons. 

The workshop can be completed during your own time, wherever you are, as long as you have internet access. It provides useful links to online resources, state-specific resources, and 5 coursels which are 20–30-minute self-paced learning experiences that make up the larger course. In other words, a coursel is a morsel of a course! Exercises and worksheets will help you plan and facilitate group experiences with early learners, and design environmental experiences that maximize their use of 6 types of Learning Centers found in your Environmental Experiences for Early Childhoodactivity guide. 

Ready to Get Started?

Let PLT help you foster the curiosity that young children have about the natural world! 

  • To access Project Learning Tree’s online training for Early Childhood, go to shop.plt.org.
  • Find an in-person Early Childhood professional development workshop offered in your state.

New Members Join PLT’s Governing Body

Project Learning Tree’s Education Operating Committee (EOC) is a group of professionals from education, business, and environmental fields that meets twice yearly to provide expertise, leadership, and strategy direction to the American forest Foundation (AFF) and its national environmental education program Project Learning Tree (PLT). Their goal is to help further the understanding of complex environmental issues and natural resource management among educators, youth, and their families.   

With the start of the year, we say goodbye to 3 members who have dedicated many years to helping PLT work towards its mission, and we welcome 5 new members!
PLT's EOC

Our heartfelt thanks to Frank Gallagher Ph.D., instructor with Rutgers University, Bora Simmons Ph.D., Director of the National Project for Excellence in Environmental Education at the University of Oregon, and Brenda Weiser Ed.D., Associate Professor, Science Education at the University of Houston – Clear Lake. Thank you for your outstanding support, hard work, and commitment to PLT over many years!

Laura Downey Ph.D., Executive Director of the Kansas Association for Conservation and Environmental Education and current EOC member, has taken the reins from Frank Gallagher as a Co-Chair of the EOC and will also now serve on AFF’s Board of Trustees. Laura is a national leader in the field of environmental education and has a Ph.D. from Kansas State in Curriculum and Instruction for Math, Science, and Technology. Rafael Salgado, Executive Director of Cal-Wood Education Center in Colorado, also now serves as Co-Chair of the EOC.

In addition, we welcome 5 new members to the EOC. 

“As PLT celebrates its 40th anniversary this year, we are excited to have such a talented group of individuals join our Education Operating Committee,” said Kathy McGlauflin, Executive Director of Project Learning Tree and Senior Vice President, Education with the American Forest Foundation. “They will help PLT implement its new strategic plan designed to keep PLT at the forefront of environmental education.”

The new members are:

Nicole Ardoin, Ph.D.
Nicole is an assistant professor at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Education and the Woods Institute for the Environment. Her research includes informal and place-based education as tools to engage communities in the environment, and understanding the motivations for environmental behaviors, including local connections and nature-based tourism. 

Robert Raze, Ph.D.
Robert is a professor at St. Petersburg College, a member of Florida PLT’s State Steering Committee, and a National PLT Outstanding Educator. He works with education students and teachers to share the importance of environmental education, STEM, and new methods of learning. 

Rahul Singh
Rahul is the founder and CEO of Anant Corporation, a Washington D.C.-based digital consulting groups that connects its clients with the most advanced technology solutions. He brings an entrepreneurial spirit and technological know-how to the EOC.

National Association of State Foresters
The National Association of State Foresters has appointed two liaisons to the EOC to serve as their schedules permit. Robert Farris is the Director of the Georgia Forestry Commission and Peter Church is the Director of Forest Stewardship for the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation.

These members bring expertise in business, formal and informal education, and land management to the EOC, and will surely serve to help PLT work towards its mission. PLT has an exciting future ahead, and we look forward to working with this diverse group of new members as we grow!

Photo: Project Learning Tree’s Education Operating Committee members meet in Washington, D.C. in October 2015.

Project Learning Tree Turns 40!

40th anniversary This year, Project Learning Tree is celebrating its 40th anniversary! Back in 1976, the United States celebrated its Bicentennial and the first Earth Day had taken place a few years earlier. Many of the environmental laws and educational reforms now part of everyday life were new on the books or barely imagined. And who knew you would be reading this on a computer screen, let alone on a small handheld device?

Back in 1976, natural resource managers and educators from the then-American Forest Institute (now Foundation) and then-Western Regional Environmental Education Council (now Council for Environmental Education) developed and launched the first PLT workshops in ten states. Forty years later, educators in every U.S. state and many countries around the world are using PLT elementary and secondary materials with their students. Over 40 years, PLT has trained more than 675,000 educators through in-person workshops.

Environmental Literacy and Stewardship

Young teacher takes classroom outdoors

Environmental education is key to giving people the understanding and motivation needed to address many of our complex 21st century problems. Project Learning Tree teaches students how to think, not to what to think about complex environmental issues. But, just as the world has changed over the past four decades, so has PLT. We have built on our original vision of using the forest as a window to increase students’ understanding of their environment.

Our current PreK-8 guide, for example, helps educators meet many challenges, such as a strengthened emphasis on reading comprehension and differentiated instruction. Our Early Childhood guide gets children into the outdoors, experiencing nature at an early age. Our series of secondary modules introduce exciting, thought-provoking activities that encourage older students to explore the communities in which they live. 

Our service-learning programs, GreenSchools and GreenWorks!, inspire students to take personal responsibility for improving the environment at their school, at home, and in their communities. And, for educators at all grade levels and experience, we offer state-of-the-art professional development to make PLT materials rewarding and easy to use.

Education on Demand

Students plant a tree at their schoolOne of the biggest changes this century is the rise of technology. It has changed our lives forever, and our use of technology continues to grow at a galloping pace. Today, anyone with an internet connection can take classes online, and students and teachers have access to more educational content than ever before with online videos, lessons, apps, interactive live broadcasts, networking forums, and more, that can supplement their learning. The rise of social media has been particularly swift and widespread. 

PLT has embraced these tectonic shifts in technology to reach new people in virtual ways. We now offer online professional development courses for those who can’t make it to an in-person workshop. And exciting new online instructional materials for grades K-2, 3-5, and 6-8 will debut soon. Our goal with new online technologies, including networking on social media, remains the same. We want people to experience the “real” environment, and we provide the inspiration, help, and encouragement to do just that. 

While PLT strives to keep pace with change, our vision remains the same. We are committed to creating a future where the next generation values the natural world and has the knowledge and skills to sustain forests and the broader environment. During the coming year, join us on Facebook, and follow us on Twitter, as we take a look back – and a look forward. We’ll share important milestones, along with stories about our passionate educators and students who are making a difference in their world. Whether you were teaching back in ’76 or weren’t even born yet, help us celebrate being 40 years young in 2016!

Photo 1: Students at Brinkley High School in Arkansas teach elementary students about trees and their environment.
Photo 2: Students at Wylie Intermediate School in Abilene, Texas improve their environment by planting a tree on their school grounds.

New Federal Education Law Supports Environmental Education

Teachers and staff advocate for Project Learning Tree and environmental education on Capitol Hill in Washington, DCAt the end of last year, Congress passed and President Obama signed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, also known as the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). The Act replaces the No Child Left Behind Act that has been in place since 2001. ESSA provides some $40 billion a year to support K-12 education in the United States and excitingly it includes new provisions that support students learning about the environment, conservation, and field studies. 

Highlights of the Act include:

  • The basic idea that environmental literacy and conservation education should be included as a part of a well-rounded education for any student.
  • The enrichment of after school programming with environmental and conservation education, and
  • More science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education highlighting the desirability of field study and service learning both of which are solid environmental and conservation education approaches.


A Collective Effort

This all came from a longstanding effort by the 2,000 member No Child Left Inside (NCLI) coalition, the North American Association for Environmental Education (NAAEE), the STEM Coalition, and others. Over many years, Project Learning Tree and our national network played an important role in this collective effort, including making visits to members of Congress, organizing teacher fly-ins, and arranging for members of Congress to visit schools and meet teachers in their home state. A big thank you to the many PLT State Coordinators, facilitators, and PLT teachers across the country who helped make these historic gains for environmental education!

Money for Environmental Education
This is the first time a federal education bill recognizes environmental literacy programs as part of a child’s well-rounded education. Moreover, the new law makes environmental education eligible to compete for billions of dollars in federal grants to states. 

“The Every Student Succeeds Act officially recognizes that environmental education is an expected component of a child’s education and that environmental education enhances learning in science, technology, engineering, and math,” said Kathy McGlauflin, Executive Director of Project Learning Tree and Senior Vice President of the American Forest Foundation. “Because the funding is there, we are very excited and optimistic that school districts will now be able to incorporate environmental education in classrooms across the nation.”

Stay tuned! We’ll be working with NAAEE to keep you in the know about funding opportunities for PLT in your state as details become available. Sign up for our free e-newsletter.

Photo: “Signing” PLT, teachers Shannon Lewis from South Carolina (second from left) and Margot Dickey from Virginia (right) join with PLT staff, Kathy McGlauflin (second from right) and James McGirt when visiting Members of Congress on Capitol Hill in July 2011. 

PLT Awards 24 GreenWorks! Grants for Service-Learning Projects

greenworks-logoProject Learning Tree is excited to announce that we have awarded 24 GreenWorks! grants to schools and organizations across the country to involve students in community-based environmental projects. Nearly 4,000 students in 18 states will participate in the different projects.

GreenWorks! is the service-learning component of Project Learning Tree that engages educators, students, and their communities in “learning-by-doing” local environmental stewardship projects. Since 1992, PLT has distributed more than $1 million to fund more than 1,000 PLT GreenWorks! action projects in communities across the country. This year, GreenWorks! grants were funded up to $1,000 each.

Our GreenWorks! program not only provides leadership opportunities for students to become responsible environmental stewards but it also exposes them to STEM skills that prepares them to be globally competitive in the 21st Century workplace.

The GreenWorks! grants announced this week will fund elementary through high school students as they design native plant gardens, create aquaponics gardens, and educate others about environmental issues, among other projects.

For example, with GreenWorks! support:

  • In Troy, Virginia, special needs students at the Lafayette School and Treatment Center will have the opportunity to establish and maintain a Therapeutic Garden as a means to provide therapy and relaxation for all students while also providing them with healthy snack alternatives.
  • In Oregon City, OR, 7th-8th grade students will restore 1-acre of unused land into native white oaks savanna. Students will research native plants and produce thorough mapping of the area, measuring water saturation and soil conditions. The 7th-8th grade students will then teach Kindergarten and 1st grade students lessons of their studies and work together to plant and grow an oaks savanna.
  • In Liberty, Kentucky, students will construct cold frames and raised beds for a vegetable garden on the schools campus that will be used in the school’s backpack program which provides students and families in need with backpacks full of food every Friday to help them through the weekend. 

Proposals for the next round of grants will be due September 30, 2016. Application forms will be made available in the spring from www.plt.org/resources/greenworks-grants.

GreenSchools Online Course

Project Learning Tree continues to develop new online professional development opportunities for educators that are carefully designed to create effective learning experiences.

online pd

This past summer, we launched an online workshop for the PreK-8 Environmental Education Activity Guide. To date, 13 states are now offering their own version of this online course, supplemented with state-specific information and resources and, in some cases, continuing education credits. Now, thanks to support and funding from the U.S. Forest Service, the national PLT office has just completed an online training course for teachers and school staff interested in starting a GreenSchools program at their school.  

online gs pdOnline Professional Development for PLT GreenSchools

As part of the GreenSchools online course, you will: 

  • Get an introduction to PLT’s GreenSchools program
  • Learn how to effectively engage your students in conducting each of the five investigations (Energy, School Site, Waste and Recycling, Water, and Environmental Quality) in your own educational setting
  • Find out how to obtain equipment and collect data
  • Participate in interactive learning experiences that will enable you to facilitate a green schools program at your school and get the support of school administrators, staff, parents, and community members
  • Engage in planning exercises to help you be successful in implementing the program
  • Discover ways to empower your students to design and lead an action project
  • See video demonstrations of GreenSchools students and educators in action
  • Understand the benefits of PLT GreenSchools – for students and your school
  • Get tips on how to measure your students’ impact and celebrate successes

The Particulars

All of PLT’s online workshops are comprised of several coursels. A coursel is a 20-30 minute self-paced learning experience that makes up the larger course. In other words, a coursel is a morsel of a course. 

PLT’s GreenSchools online course costs $25 and takes approximately 6 hours to complete.  Once enrolled, you will have 180 days to complete the course.

You can view and download each of the PLT GreenSchools Investigations by registering for free, or purchase a print copy of the set for $29.95.  

 

New Online Lessons Ready for Pilot Testing

Project Learning Tree is in the process of creating several new online lessons designed specifically for classroom teachers in Grades K-2, 3-5, and 6-8.  Two of these new online units are ready to be pilot tested. 

    • plt online lessonsEnergy in Ecosystems” for Grades 3-5, and
    • “Carbon and Climate” for Grades 6-8
Classroom teachers interested in participating in this formative evaluation should complete the brief pilot test application form at https://pltpilot.org by July 31.
 
Teachers will be asked to test the PLT lesson content with their students in the Fall, and provide feedback on the navigation for the new online units and website design. More information about the lessons and process for pilot testing will be provided in August to individuals who provide their contact information. 

Classroom teachers of Grades 3-8 will be given priority, and stipends will be available. 

If you are interested in learning more about what’s involved, and you are willing to pilot test PLT’s new online lessons with your students later this year, sign up today at https://pltpilot.org. Thank you!

PLT Professional Development Workshops Now Online!

Do you want a refresher course, or know someone who wants training in environmental education but can’t make it to an in-person workshop? Help us spread the word about PLT’s new online professional development courses!
training and curriculum materials

For 40 years, Project Learning Tree has provided teachers and other educators with high-quality professional development in environmental education and fun activities that meet current education standards for PreK-12 students. The core of our professional development program has been, and continues to be, in-person workshops.  About 20,000 educators participate in approximately 1,200 workshops offered across the country by PLT state programs every year. 

student tree cookie

The times are changing though—for educators, for school districts, and for society—and we have embarked on an exciting process to complement our in-person professional development workshops.

We are pleased to announce that PLT now also offers educators online professional development opportunities that reflect current research and model best practices. Our first online workshop is for PreK-8 educators, and more are in development. Online training to support PLT’s GreenSchools! program, and online professional development specifically for early childhood educators, will debut this Fall.

The Underlying Premise

PLT workshops are designed to help educators engage students in learning about the environment—both outside and in the classroom. Our hands-on activities make teaching and learning fun, and can be easily incorporated into existing curriculum or nonformal education programs. The activities are multi-disciplinary, teach core subjects (especially STEM, reading, writing, and social studies), and are correlated to state and national academic standards, including Common Core and the Next Generation Science Standards’ three-dimensional approach.

Our online workshops are comprised of several coursels. A coursel is a 20-30 minute self-paced learning experience that makes up the larger course. In other words, a coursel is a morsel of a course!

PLT encourages educators to use the outdoors for learning, and while our new training opportunity is online, our course is designed to help—and show—educators how to take their students outside using PLT activities.

What’s Included

activity 27PLT’s PreK-8 online workshop costs $40 and takes approximately 4 hours to complete.  It includes:

  • seven self-paced coursels
  • an e-published version of PLT’s popular PreK-8 Environmental Education Activity Guide, containing 96 activities (print version available for an additional fee)
  • video demonstrations for four PLT activities
  • interactive learning experiences to help educators plan how best to facilitate activities with their students
  • lesson planning activities and real world examples
  • simulations to demonstrate activities from a student’s perspective
  • links to online and state-specific resources 
  • certificate of completion and course evaluation

Some states (currently Colorado, Kentucky, Michigan, New Hampshire, Wisconsin, and Wyoming) have supplemented the basic online course developed by National PLT with state-specific supplemental materials – and they can also arrange continuing education credits for educators in their state who complete their state’s online course along with any other requirements specific to receiving credit. More states are expected to follow suit in the coming months.

activity 27, lesson planning

Feedback

Here are some comments we’ve received from the first individuals to complete PLT’s PreK-8 online workshop.

  • “Good online PD. Easy to use and navigate.”  — Zach C. (Colorado)
  • “I enjoyed the how to videos, and also the worksheets that let me brainstorm for implementing with my students”  — Seth M. (Michigan)
  • “I am very excited to start using this program in my classroom!”  — Sally G. (Texas)

GreenWorks! Grants

Finally, a note about PLT’s GreenWorks! grants.  Anyone who has attended a PLT workshop – either in-person or online – is eligible to apply for a PLT GreenWorks! grant to fund an environmental service-learning project for their students.  The deadline to apply is September 30th, so if you haven’t yet been trained in PLT, consider signing up for an online course!