Sidewalk Salt and the Effects on Lakes and Rivers

Sidewalk salt: It’ll keep you on your feet, but too much is bad for lakes and rivers

Submitted by Lori Carlson on November 29, 2010 - 6:00am, Prior Lake American

By Dan Miller, Guest Commentary

Where does sidewalk salt go after it melts the ice and snow on our driveways and sidewalks?
This salty water flows into our storm ponds, wetlands, rivers and lakes. And high concentrations of sidewalk salt (sodium chloride) in our water negatively affect wildlife habitat and water quality, including the water we drink.
This winter, we can protect our water resources by trying these snow season tips:
* Use shovels, snow blowers and ice scrapers to remove snow and ice.
* Use de-icers like sidewalk salt sparingly and clean up any extra.
* Save the leftover sidewalk salt to use again after another snowfall.
* Buy environmentally friendly de-icers, which are better for our water, pets and landscapes.

* Treat the pavement before a snowfall with liquid salt brine (23-percent salt mixed with water).

* If you notice excess salt on a parking lot or sidewalk near you, talk to the property owner about safer alternatives.
Our lakes and rivers may freeze over this winter, but we still need to remember that what we put on our driveways and sidewalks will eventually end up in the nearest lake or river. Clean driveways and sidewalks mean clean water.
Dan Miller is coordinator for the Scott Clean Water Education Program. Contact Dan at (952)492-5424 or dmiller@co.scott.mn.us.

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RECYCLE YOUR HOLIDAYS

(credit: CBS)

From sgendreau

It’s that time of year again, bring out your holiday lights and detangle the wadded mess! But what do you do with the strings that no longer light up?  Don’t throw them out, RECYCLE YOUR HOLIDAYS^TM!

Home Energy Squad from Xcel Energy and Centerpoint Energy and ACE Hardware invite you to drop off your holiday lights at participating Ace Hardware locations. Collection bins will also be located at WCCO TV, so feel free to drop them off when you make your trip to the 2010 Target Holidazzle Parade.

In partnership with the Recycling Association of Minnesota, RECYCLE YOUR HOLIDAYS^TM is a recycling program that disassembles every single part of your used light strings without it going into the landfills.  Plus, your donations will provide employment, training and job opportunities through Project for Pride in Living and Adult Training and Habilitation Center.

List of participating Ace Hardware locations.

RECYCLE YOUR HOLIDAYS^TM Presented by:

Student Input Needed for DNR Parks and Trails

We’re now launching the first Students Speak Out project on Citizens League’s own software platform – CitiZing! Youth and adults like you are coming together to inform the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (the DNR) about your experiences with Minnesota’s Parks and Trails as well as your ideas about how to spend the legacy funds (new tax dollars MN’s voted to specifically be targeted toward parks and trails in the 2008 election).

This will be a 5 week discussion, with one poll and discussion per week. The first discussion (up right now) will last 2 weeks. After all the discussions, a plan for spending the funds will be drawn up based on what we learn from you. You’ll have a chance to review and comment on the results, and then they’ll be submitted to the Minnesota Legislature!

Here’s how you get started (6 steps: about 15 minutes of your time):

1.       Sign-up for CitiZing and customize your page.

2.       Join the SSO DNR Project for teens: http://www.citizing.org/projects/ssodnr : Adults please join here http://www.citizing.org/projects/parkslegacy

3.       Click on “Introduce yourself” and share one thing you love about Minnesota Parks and Trails.

4.       Take the weekly quick poll: What milestones and markers will we (the DNR) reach in 3-5 years that show we're on the right path with the legacy funds?

5.       Elaborate on your weekly quick poll answer in the weekly discussion.

6.       Visit the SSO Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/studentsspeakout   If you haven’t already, please “like” it. Facebook is a great way to stay informed as new polls and discussions come up.

Lastly, please help us spread the word. Please forward this email to your friends and family.

Recycling Glass is Where it's At!

Look here for reasons and reminders on why recycling glass is important!

Project FeederWatch - Engage with the Outdoors with an Easy Family Activity

By sharing information about which birds visit their feeders between November and April, backyard and schoolyard bird watchers can help scientists track changes in bird numbers and movements from year to year. You and your students can be part of Project FeederWatch, a citizen-science program from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Bird Studies Canada for people of all ages and skill levels. The program can help engage children in nature study and scientific investigation by encouraging careful observation and note-taking; stimulating children to ask questions about the natural world; promoting independent study; and providing opportunities for meaningful internet use and exploration.

Bird counting begins on November 13. Register at the Project FeederWatch website. The site also contains a live “bird cam,” bird photographs, information on birds and bird feeding, and tips for identifying various species.

No Child Left Inside

Unplug your kids and kick them outside!

Photo by AP Wideworld Photos

“Every child,” wrote pioneer botanist Luther Burbank, “should have mud pies, grasshoppers, tadpoles, frogs, mud turtles, elderberries, wild strawberries, acorns, chestnuts, trees to climb. Brooks to wade, woodchucks, bats, bees, butterflies, various animals to pet, hayfields, pinecones, rocks to roll, snakes, huckleberries and hornets. And any child who has been deprived of these has been deprived of the best part of education.”
In our education-obsessed culture, elite kids play piano and speak three languages by the age of four, but just about every North American kid is deprived. In one of the greatest retreats ever, children are vanishing from a critical piece of territory: their own backyards.

And there isn’t a kid on the planet who knows what a huckleberry is, other than a character in a Mark Twain book.

For the average kid only spends 30 minutes a day outside, an amount that shrinks yearly. In this brave new world of Facebook and YouTube, Twitter and Google, iPod and Wii, kids are tuned in to technology, and kindergartners start school with 5,000 hours of TV under their belts.

Typical tweens put in a 40-hour week – a virtual full-time job – watching screens: TV, laptop, cell phone, and so on. They can name dozens of corporate logos and celebrities on sight – Lady Gaga! Justin Bieber! The cast from Glee! – but they cannot name three animals that live in their neighborhood, or three plants.
A first grader can sing every lyric of “Bad Romance,” God help us, but has no idea what a chickadee sounds like.

Adults are colluding in this retreat. Our school system has chained kids to their desks, number 2 pencils glued to their hands. If a kid is outside playing sports, it’s not a pickup game in the sandlot but a league organized by overzealous parents carpooling kids endlessly from one game to the next.

And the geographic world they wander is collapsing like a black hole into their laptops; the typical kid today roams a world only one-ninth the size a child of the ‘70s did. I wandered Long Island’s rapidly decreasing pine forests in the ‘60s, biking and hiking unthinkable distances, alone and with friends, with neither a cell phone nor a dime to make a call. Because inside our houses were the adults, and who wanted to be there? Every last child was outside, in the street, in the yard, on the corner, at the 7-Eleven.

But letting kids go into a forest alone today is unthinkable, heretical. Remember that kid who was allowed to take the train in New York alone? “Child abuse!” we screamed at his parents. Even my own kids, raised by me, a naturalist, have never been allowed to go unattended into a forest. I am always there: stranger danger, ticks and West Nile have all taken their toll, even on me.

This radical retreat from the great outdoors, now called “nature-deficit disorder,” a phrase coined by journalist Richard Louv in his groundbreaking book Last Child in the Woods, is the greatest health catastrophe facing Western kids.

Ever.

Asthma rates are climbing. Attention-deficit disorders are through the roof. Obesity rates skyrocket; diabetes, linked to weight, soaring. Kids who watch too much TV don’t physically move, change the working of their brains and even eat more poorly than other children; there is a distinct inverse relationship between TV use and the amount of vegetables in one’s diet. This next generation might not live as long as their parents.

At the same time, numerous studies indicate kids are physically and mentally healthier if they spend time outdoors and in nature. They calm down when surrounded by green, which seems to ameliorate their ADD. And free play outside lets children develop social skills they can’t get from tube-watching (or from playing sports under adult supervision), and their skills are more age-appropriate as well.

Here’s the kicker: Studies indicate that learning through nature-based programs helps kids score higher on standardized tests. Want your kid to go to Harvard? Have her study outdoors.

But change is blowing in the wind. Louv’s book, the first-ever environmental education bestseller, jump-started an international movement that gave birth to a web site, the Children and Nature Network. Places as disparate as nature centers and urban parks are unveiling natural playscapes: areas where kids can linger and climb rocks, play with sticks, push sand and gravel around, get muddy – do lots of delicious nothing. Nature preschools are becoming popular, too, as places where toddlers spend quality time outdoors. Even middle schools are developing nature-based curricula where the bulk of the student’s school day is given to studying the environment to integrate math, language and social studies into the real world.

In the United States, some 1,600 NGOs representing 50 million people have organized into a No Child Left Inside coalition, a spin on the Bush-era name for his education bill, lobbying Obama for statewide environmental literacy plans that include children spending quality time outdoors.

But it’s a long climb, for culture is the very air our children breathe, and culture conspires to convince kids that everything important can be found in that little box. We’ve seduced children indoors.

Now childhood itself is an endangered species. If we are going to save either the environment or our children, we have to take a surprisingly simple but very radical first step.

End the Great Green Retreat. Unplug our kids and kick them outside. To play. And hear chickadees. And find huckleberries.

Writer-naturalist Mike Weilbacher directs a nature center near Philadelphia.

Recycling Gets Spooky

by Lauren Hasler
Published on October 19th, 2009

Halloween, All Hallow’s Eve, Samhain – whatever you may call the 31st day of October, the traditions of both tricks (and treats) enchant imaginations around the world on this haunted evening.

To add to the array of creepy costumes, ominous decor and an unearthly consumption of sweet treats, we think it only fitting to provide some spine-chilling facts and tips about the wicked fun of going green on All Hallow’s Eve… and beyond.

A Harrowing Halloween

Ghosts and goblins won’t be the only things giving you nightmares:

Historians date the modern take on Halloween back to the mid-1800s, when Irish immigrants brought the tradition to the U.S. during the Great Famine. Photo: Flickr/stevechasmar

• 1.1 billion pounds of pumpkins were produced in 2008 by major pumpkin-producing states such as Illinois, California, Pennsylvania and New York. Many are used each fall for jack-o’-lanterns and pumpkin pies. Once Halloween is over, you can reuse or recycle your pumpkin.
• A 2008 National Retail Foundation survey found that 64.5 percent of people celebrate Halloween in some way. That’s a higher number than the individual recycling rates of aluminum, glass, paper and plastic bottles.
• Each Halloween, an estimated $40 per capita is spent on candy, decorations and greeting cards, all of which produce large amounts of waste.
• Leaves can account for 75 percent of the solid waste stream in the fall.
• Americans consumed 23.8 pounds of candy per capita in 2008. Most of the wrappers are made of mixed materials, making it difficult to recycle them.
• An estimated 80,000,000 Hershey’s Kisses are wrapped each day, using enough aluminum foil to cover more than 50 acres of space, the equivalent of almost 40 football fields.
• The U.S. spends almost $4 billion annually on electricity lost to “vampire power,” according to the International Energy Agency. Vampire power, also known as “phantom load,” is the electricity that electronics and appliances use while they are turned off or in standby mode.

(See more about this video and experience augmented reality at VampirePowerSucks)

Frightening Recycling

The results from skipping out on this simple step are simply spine-tingling:

• Each ton of recycled paper can save 17 trees, 380 gallons of oil, three cubic yards of landfill space, 4,000 kilowatts of energy and 7,000 gallons of water. This represents a 64 percent energy savings, a 58 percent water savings and 60 pounds less of air pollution.
• In 2007, we generated 3.01 million tons of e‐waste in the U.S. Of this amount, only 410,000 tons (or 13.6 percent) was recycled, according to the EPA. The rest was sent to landfills or incinerators.
• To produce each week’s Sunday newspapers, 500,000 trees must be cut down. Recycling a single run of the Sunday New York Times would save 75,000 trees. If all our newspaper was recycled, we could save about 250,000,000 trees each year.
• Americans use 2,500,000 plastic bottles every hour. Most of them are thrown away.
• Recycling just one ton of aluminum cans conserves the equivalent of 36 barrels of oil, or 1,665 gallons of gasoline.
• The EPA estimates that 75 percent of our waste is recyclable. However, the current national is about 33 percent. The difference? Scary.

According to tradition, pumpkins are carved to ward off evil spirits. Photo: Flickr/WxMom

Creepy Crawly Conservation

The eerie effects of waste:

• A modern glass bottle would take 4,000 years or more to decompose. That number is even higher if it’s in a landfill.
• Every year, each American throws out about 1,200 pounds of organic garbage that can be composted.
• Since 1990, the total amount of municipal solid waste going to landfills dropped by about 5 million tons from 142.3 million to 137.2 million tons in 2007.
• Every year, Americans produce enough polystyrene cups to circle the earth 436 times.
• Americans throw away enough disposable plates and cups to give the world a picnic six times a year.
• If the U.S. cut office paper use by just 10 percent, it would prevent the emission of 1.6 million tons of greenhouse gases – the equivalent of taking 280,000 cars off the road.
• Americans’ total yearly waste would fill a convoy of garbage trucks long enough to wrap around the earth six times or reach halfway to the moon.

So what’s the take-home message? When you’re roaming the dark streets on Halloween, don’t forget your garlic, flashlight and your eco-smarts. Even though the ghoulish evening is cause for celebration the world over, there’s nothing more bone-chilling than leaving your green out of the festivities on this day and throughout the rest of the year.

Outdoor Education and Play Benefit All Education

The following is taken from here. 

A new report from the National Wildlife Federation, Back to School: Back Outside, shows how outdoor education and time is connected with wide-ranging academic benefits including:

• Improved classroom behavior
• Increased student motivation and enthusiasm to learn
• Better performance in math, science, reading and social studies
• Reduced Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
• Higher scores on standardized tests (including college entrance exams)
• Help under-resourced, low-income students perform measurably better in school

This corresponds with research and studies that the Children & Nature Network has synthesized in its report, Children’s Contact with the Outdoors and Nature: A Focus on Educators and Educational Settings.
The report reviews research focused on the physical, mental, and social benefits that contact with the outdoors and nature provides to children. There is a lot of information on the relationships between children’s outdoor-related behavior and their school performance and learning. Topics covered include such important programs and attributes as:

• Recess
• School gardens
• Field trips and hands-on outdoor learning
• Natural views

Also included in the report are academic benefits from outdoor learning and play, such as:

• Academic achievement
• Higher test scores
• Increased responsibility
• Community benefit

It’s wonderful to have additional research that strengthens the case that outdoor education and time in nature benefits all education.

Click here for the full report.

How about a GREEN Halloween??

Have a Green Halloween®… at school!

If a Halloween or Harvest celebration is something you’re planning for your class, why not add a healthy and or green twist to things? Here are some easy, affordable and fun ideas that create an opportunity for learning, too.
Food

• Choose healthy or healthy-er options when available
• Look for local foods (like apples and pumpkins) – some of which may be donated
• If possible, consider products that contain organically grown ingredients
• Think whole & colorful. What can you serve or make that is made from orange, black and green foods? How about a black olive, green and orange bell pepper pizza on a whole wheat crust?
• If your school permits, toss ALL food scraps and leftovers in the yard waste/compost bin instead of in the trash.
• Don’t use disposables (cups, plates, etc.) – try to find something reusable, or ask parents to provide place settings for their kids. Make teams and see who can bring more (they get a prize). Ask kids to bring in a story about their family’s traditions, along with their place setting.
• Do not offer bottled water. Have a filter instead.
• Make sure that all drink containers are recycled.
• Plan for only enough food/drink as you need.
• Ask the students and teachers to bring canned or dried food that will later be donated to your local food bank.

Activities

• # Teens and ‘tweens can learn to make wallets, purses and bracelets from candy wrappers (search the internet for “candy wrapper purse” for ideas).
• Make Halloween art/ décor only from recycled goods or things found in nature.
• Have a Green Halloween? inspired door decorating contest.
• Teach students to make homemade face paints.
• Make leaf rubbing art.
• Make “treat & treasure” bags from recycled goods or old pillow cases.
• Make some Halloween décor or gift items for people at a retirement community or for a local farmer.
• Have your party at a local organic pumpkin farm.
• Make a Halloween-themed bean-bag toss game out of recycled boxes.
• Have a Halloween-themed obstacle course – children have to put on one piece of a costume at each station.
• For little ones – have a pumpkin pass game, or do “witches limbo.”
• Have an eco-themed costume contest.
• Make a haunted house or one of those carnival cut-outs where the kids stick their heads through (and you can take a picture) - out of only recycled materials.
• Make a treasure out of trash. Send the kids on a mission to collect litter in fall colors: orange, black, red, brown or gold. Use the pieces to make a fall collage. (Covering recycled soup cans make for great pencil holders, too!)
• Host a “zero” waste party where everything must be consumed, reused/ repurposed, composted or recycled
• Read stories on the history of Halloween and “write the future” that includes healthier and more Earth-friendly traditions.
• Make ‘jack-o-lantern’ oranges or ‘goblin’ sweet potatoes using toothpicks and raisins, cranberries, pepper strips or other items for the faces.
• Host a Green Halloween-inspired party for others (such as at a retirement home or hospital)
• Host a post-Halloween candy exchange and composting party

Goodies

• Give less “treats” than you gave last year (i.e. one instead of handfuls)
• Look at Green Halloween’s list of treats and treasures and choose what will work for your school.
• Plan ahead. If you order on line, you may save money and be able to find healthy and eco-wise choices, but be sure to allow enough time for shipping.

Décor

• Reuse classroom décor from last year.
• Commit not to buying anything new.
• Consider using mostly décor from nature – pumpkins, gourds, apples, hay, etc.
• Hit up a thrift store and see what you can find there.
• Make Halloween themed banners and other décor items from recycled, reused or repurposed materials.
• Reuse everything you’ve used this year, next year.

Waste & cleaning

• Compost all food scraps and natural décor items. Even candy (unwrapped) can be composted or put in the yard waste bin. Pizza boxes and other food contaminated paper/ cardboard items may also be composted/ included in yard waste.
• Recycle anything that can be: aluminum cans, water bottles, cups, food containers, etc.
• Use healthier cleaning supplies – vinegar and water works wonders!

Teachers may ask Won’t it cost more? No. In many cases, the cost is equivalent or less than what you’ve paid for candy, décor and other items for this event in year’s past.

Won’t the kids be upset? Green Halloween participated in numerous Halloween events last year and came face to face with thousands of children. We asked them what they would think if someone gave them one of the alternative goodies we had on our display instead of regular candy. After seeing the alternatives, not one single child of any age said they would rather have candy. Not one. Kids feel good when the adults around them model positive attitudes. If you’re excited about it – they will be too.

Is there a happy medium? Sure! Going healthy and green can happen in leaps and bounds or in baby steps. Either way, when changes are made for the better, they always count. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing. One idea is to hand out 50% candy and 50% something else. Or just give away less than you did last year. You may have lots of other ideas as well.

Like what you see? Feel inspired?
We can’t wait to see what you come up with! Let us know if you plan on taking healthy & green steps this year during your school Halloween event and we can post your event on our calendar. Also, be sure to take photos and send us your students’ stories, we’d love to feature you and your kids on our website.

…Who knew Halloween could be such a great learning tool?

Excerpt taken from http://greenhalloween.org/content.php?page=schools

Why Environmental Education at PLSAS? Reason #2...

Ever paid attention to all those commercials on TV or the radio?  What about the billboards scattered along the roadways?  What about during a stroll in the mall or a park?  Next time you're watching TV or listening to the radio or riding along on a roadtrip or walking along...pay attention.  How many commercials or signs or postings are devoted to something related to the environment? You'll discover the answer is A LOT!!  And you know what...there's going to be a lot more in our future.

In Prior Lake-Savage we are preparing our students for the future...and that future includes jobs and a life focused on the environment...sustaining it, conserving it and being aware of it.

   

Why Environmental Education at PLSAS?

Research illustrates time and time again that outdoor instruction or instruction blending environmental topics into core curricular areas creates authentic learning opportunities allowing for increased critical thinking opportunities; decreased symptoms of ADD, Autism, etc.; increased reading scores; decreased behavior discipline issues, etc.

For details on the research visit Children and Nature Network or click here

Don't Trash the Phone Book

Did you know a 1992 Minnesota law bans the disposal of telephone directories in trash?  Did you know 100% of telephone directories are recyclable?  Directories today are printed on paper that is either recycled or made from leftover woodchips from the lumber industry so no new trees are necessary to make directory paper.  Publishers have also turned to soy-based inks and have repaginated and redesigned their phone book layouts to minimize paper usage. 

Don't want a phone book delivered to you any more?  Minnesota has a brand new site providing the option for MN residents to opt out of receiving the phone book.  Check it out here

Thank you Sailer's Greenhouse!!!!

A BIG THANK YOU to Sailer's Greenhouse for the donation of 15 flats of native perennials for our outdoor classrooms across the District! 

Please support their business!  They have the most beautiful mums right now.

Check out Sailor's here

Here are some Kids Company students planting Big Bluestem, Sideoat Grama and Indian Grass in the Jeffers Pond prairie.

Why should you recycle?

Feeling overwhelmed and hopeless about the state our of natural resources? Recycle.
Realizing how much you spend on waste removal each month? Recycle.
Observing trash along the roadside? Recycle.

Here's a top 5 for why you should RECYCLE....

• Saves Natural Resources - By making products from recycled materials instead of virgin materials, we conserve land and reduce the need to drill for oil and dig for minerals.
• Saves Energy - It usually takes less energy to make recycled products; recycled aluminum, for example, takes 95% less energy than new aluminum from bauxite ore.
• Saves Clean Air and Water - In most cases, making products from recycled materials creates less air pollution and water pollution than making products from virgin materials.
• Saves Landfill Space - When the materials that you recycle go into new products, they don't go into landfills or incinerators, so landfill space is conserved.
• Saves Money and Creates Jobs - The recycling process creates far more jobs than landfills or incinerators, and recycling can frequently be the least expensive waste management method for cities and towns.

Bringing Real Events into the Classroom

What better way to make learning authentic then by bringing real-life events into the classroom.  The National Environmental Education Foundation EE Week project has compiles a list of resources and curricula on the BP oil spill that are tied to educational standards from the EPA, NOAA, Smithsonian and National Geographic. 

Catch the link here

Just the Facts

The importance of teaching outdoors or about the environment isn't just one of those 'trendy' new curriculum packages.  Research shows over and over again how outdoor instruction lends itself to more authentic learning experiences, decreased student behavior issues, and increased test scores in math, language, social studies, and yep, of course, science.  Of course there are many, many, many more reasons.  For a comprehensive showcase of research in multiple media formats, check out the Children and Nature Network site.  You can find it here. 

Sharing Environmental Education Knowledge (SEEK)

SEEK (Sharing Environmental Education Knowledge) is the self-proclaimed 'home of Minnesota's environmental education (EE) resources'.  The site has a directory of over 1200 EE resources, web links, a calendar of events (including family events and professional development) and so much more. The site also includes links to documents such as 'A GreenPrint for Minnesota', 'Environmental Literacy Scope and Sequence', and 'Minnesota Report Cards on Environmental Literacy'...all guiding documents for our PLSAS EE program. 

Take a moment to explore the website. You'll be amazed with the discoveries.   SEEK Webpage

No excuses.

We are living in an amazing time right now. Some might say that it is a time of uncertainty, others might say it is a time of change while others might say that it is a time of hope, but the thing is…no matter how it is described, one thing is certain…we live in a time where anything is possible.

Our society, our world, is changing at lightening speed. Think of your lives now as compared to your parents or even grandparents when they were your age. Did you know that 60% of the jobs that the kindergarteners of today will hold have not even been thought of or created yet? Did you know that as we speak, work is underway to create even smaller telephones and smaller computers to work at even faster speeds. The time-space continuum that we live in today is shrinking allowing us to have instant access of information for any topic at any time. Because of this, we have no excuses. We have no excuses to not make choices that lend themselves to make a positive difference…we have no excuses to not lend a helping hand to our neighbors… We have no excuses to not take advantage of anything that comes our way to create a better society…

Just over five years ago, our school district took advantage of an incredible opportunity in the hopes of creating a better society…for you, for me, and for our future. At that time, a non-profit organization, the Jeffers Foundation, approached our school district inquiring as to whether we would be interested in starting an environmental education program.

The Jeffers Foundation, formed in March of 2005 for the purpose “to provide for direct primary education and the development of primary education principles, models, and curricula aimed at teaching young persons the value of wise stewardship of natural resources, the need to maintain a balance between population and the resources available to sustain and nourish it, and the means and methods which will ensure conservation and preservation of natural resources for the use and enjoyment of present and future generations.” We entered into a five year partnership with the Jeffers Foundation, and my current position, District Environmental Education Coordinator, as well as a District Naturalist position was created.

Initially focused at Five Hawks Elementary, where environmental education was alive and strong thanks in part to the 40 acres of land preserved behind the building devoted to an Outdoor Learning Classroom as well as the dedication of the staff, the first year was spent determining the direction and focus of the program. Based upon research that indicates if children do not have a connection with the environment by the time they are eleven, it is doubtful that an authentic connection will ever exist, it was agreed that the concentration for the first couple of years of our program would be at the elementary level.

But why environmental education? Remember that shrinking time-space continuum I mentioned earlier? Well, it has gotten so crazy that it is effecting our daily schedules. We are not getting outdoors enough…we are not taking the nature breaks our bodies need…the effects are beginning to have detrimental consequences on us. Such outcomes include diminished use of our senses, attention difficulties, and higher rates of physical and emotional illnesses. According to a report generated by the organization, Children and Nature, in 2008, “obesity, attention deficit disorder, impaired social skills and what can be characterized as a culture of depression are adding to the stress levels and severely impacting our youth.”

The good news though is that even in our crazy busy lives and diminished time-space continuum, we can make a choice for change that will make us better…make us healthy. Remember? No excuses. In a report issued by Steven Kellert in 2005, he noted that experience in nearby nature, is linked to shaping children’s cognitive maturation, including the developed abilities of analysis, synthesis and evaluation. In other words…getting outdoors and experiencing it can make you smarter! Think about it…what do you remember most from past classes…when you read about a topic, when you talked about a topic, or when you got your hands dirty messing around and experiencing the topic?

And there are even more studies and research to prove this…a study in California in 2005 showcased that students utilizing outdoor classrooms and other forms of nature-based experiential education were associated with significant gains in social studies, language arts, math and of course science. ..another study conducted by Kaplan and Kaplan in 1989 and again in 1995 had psychologists linking contact with nature to restored attention, the promotion of recovery from mental fatigue and enhanced mental focus. They attribute these beneficial qualities to the sense of fascination of being immersed in a whole other world and to other restorative influences of the natural world.

Other studies illustrate a positive impact on self-esteem, decreased disciplinary issues, higher levels of cooperation and civility, increased motivation, opportunities to see real life connections, and the engagement of multiple senses…all from spending time outdoors and/or learning in an environmentally focused way.

During the past five years, our program has moved into each of the K-12 schools creating an impact and direction that I’m fairly certain no one thought possible. Programs such as the food waste program where students separate food waste for collection for reuse as hog food and the recycling program at all district buildings, have helped to save tens of thousands of dollars from literally going to ‘waste’ to be reallocated to other areas of need.

The Junior Naturalist and EcoTEAM programs, found at each of the K-12 school buildings, provide leadership opportunities for students to be advocates for environmental stewardship and sustainability. These programs give our students a voice and a platform from which to be heard…what an empowering thing! Approximately 200 students and 18 staff members throughout the district are directly involved with this program…and this number grows every year.

Our connection with Community Education allows us to offer after school classes and summer camps devoted to experiencing and learning about the environment. Children as young as 3 and as old as 83 are able to get outdoors, take the brain break they need from being plugged into electronic media, and gain perspective on what is truly important.

The elementary science curriculum was reconstituted four years ago allowing for environmental education and outdoor learning lessons to be built right into the curriculum. Sites at each of the schools are being transformed into outdoor learning areas. Two of our district schools are designated School Forests with the MN DNR, and three more are in the process. Three of our schools have designated native grass prairies and two more are in the process of getting such an area. We are a unique district to be able to create such areas on site.

Teachers are taking students outdoors for real life experiential lessons. Students are able to make immediate connections and application from what they are learning in school to real life. This information is taken in, consumed, and expressed through choices that make a positive difference creating a better society.

Our program also extends into the community. Not funded with any district dollars until the 2010-2011 school year, all programs and positions for the EE program were funded through grants and donations. Partners such as the Jeffers Foundation, our Community Education program, the Prior Lake-Savage Area Educational Foundation, the DNR, the Prior Lake Spring Lake Watershed District, the Mdewakanton Sioux Community, the city of Savage and the city of Prior Lake…as well as companies such as Dow Chemical, Toro and dozens more have helped to fund our program over the years. These organizations and the people that work within them are making a choice to invest in a better society….so they choose to invest in us…and in turn investing in you.

Our district is leading the revolution for environmental education integration. It is more than just a t-shirt slogan around here to ‘go green’…and it means so much more. There is no other district in our state that has a Coordinator position on staff. There is no other district in our state that partners with their cities to create and maintain outdoor learning areas dedicated for educational purposes…think about the McColl Pond ELC…a multi-million dollar facility showcasing choices and decisions that create a better society and we are able to use it at no cost for educational purposes. There is no other district in our state that has embedded environmental education into their staff development program like we have. There is no other district in our state that has a focus of environmental education running through the mission statement, strategic plan, and even the logo.

Schools from around MN as well as surrounding states have come to tour our facilities, examine our curriculum and interview teachers in order to replicate our program at their sites. Environmental and governmental agencies are seeking us out and providing us with funds and experiential opportunities for our students and staff. We’ve helped restore native grass areas, tapped trees for maple syruping, created animal habitat, conducting soil sampling, and so much more….all under the context of learning.

We are even working with local colleges and universities to help them alter their pre-service training and course regime in order to incorporate more outdoor learning and experiential based programs. We have created the partnership with St. Catherine University under the guise of EcoSTARS….Students, Teachers and Real Science. This program has been showcased to other state colleges and universities throughout the state and nation!

In June 2009, our district hosted the MN Association for Environmental Educators statewide workshop and conference. Hundreds of formal and informal environmental educators from around the state convened here, in Prior Lake and Savage to see first-hand what we are doing to create a better society.

The recognition and awareness of our program does not stop at the state border.

Four years ago, two of our elementary staff were chosen from hundreds of applications from around the world to travel to Alaska to partake in a training with scientists and other educators. Out of the 40 educators present, our teachers were the only elementary teachers and were only 2 of 5 educators from the United States.

In 2009, a national magazine, Backpacker, contacted me. They had heard about our program from a professor at the University of MN, Duluth and were highlighting the communities of Prior Lake and Savage as one of the top places to raise outdoor kids in the whole nation as a result of our district’s EE program.

The thing is though…all of these accolades, all of this time, energy and commitment that has been put into creating and maintaining a rich and in theory – effective program, does not mean anything unless action by you and from you happens. The action that I am talking about is the type of action that allows you to make the choice to create a positive difference…to lend a helping hand…to create a better society. And the best news is, these actions are EASY! Remember, no excuses.

Although we each have different beliefs, habits, values and experiences…it does not matter…there is one thing that unites us and that is our requisite, our basic human need, to have an earth that sustains and supports us. We cannot continue to exist unless we nourish the soil we stand on and the trees that surround us. We cannot survive if we do not take care of the air we breathe and the water we drink. For as much as government can and must do, teachers and parents model and preach, it is ultimately up to you. My hope is that you choose resourcefulness over wastefulness… reclamation over deterioration…energy wise over energy waste.

I’d like to share some thoughts from Robert Kennedy. This was taken from a speech that he delivered in 1966 to students at Berkley, California. “You live in the most privileged nation on earth. You are the most privileged citizens of that privileged nation; for you have been given the opportunity to study and learn, to take your place among the tiny minority of the world's educated men. By coming to this school you have been lifted onto a tiny, sunlit island while all around you lies an ocean of human misery, injustice, violence, and fear. You can use your enormous privilege and opportunity to seek purely private pleasure and gain. But history will judge you, and, as the years pass, you will ultimately judge yourself, on the extent to which you have used your gifts to lighten and enrich the lives of your fellow man. In your hands, not with presidents or leaders, is the future of your world and the fulfillment to the best qualities of your own spirit.”

Remember. No excuses.