Project Wild & Project Learning Tree

These are two of the finest environmental education programs around. Trainers are located all over the country that can help you tailor the lessons to your neck of the woods. I had the pleasure of participating in the training for both Project Wild and Project Learning Tree (PLT) 10 years ago when I was completing my internship and the program has only gotten better since then. One of the things I love about this programs is the user friendly materials they provide educators and the activities they have designed full engage all of the multiple intelligences. These aren't just lessons, they are games and hands on experiments to fully engage students from kindergarten through high school. Here in Alaska the program is sponsored by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game and the http://www.dnr.state.ak.us/ .

PLT even offers trained teachers grant opportunities for up to $1000 to plan service projects!

Richard Louv

"An environment-based education movement--at all levels of education--will help students realize that school isn't supposed to be a polite form of incarceration, but a portal to the wider world." 

~ Richard Louv, Author of Last Child in the Woods & the Nature Priciple

 

John Dewey

John Dewy, though not credited with creating the idea of place-based ed, certainly inspired and paved the way for it.


"Democracy has to be born anew every generation, and education is its midwife."
  
"Education is a social process. Education is growth. Education is, not a preparation for life; education is life itself."

"From the standpoint of the child, the great waste in the school comes from his inability to utilize the experiences he gets outside the school in any complete and free way within the school itself; while, on the other hand, he is unable to apply in daily life what he is learning at school. That is the isolation of the school, its isolation from life. When the child gets into the schoolroom he has to put out of his mind a large part of the ideas, interests, and activities that predominate in his home and neighborhood. So the school, being unable to utilize this everyday experience, sets painfully to work, on another tack and by a variety of means, to arouse in the child an interest in school studies."

"... the great waste in school comes from the child’s inability to utilize the experiences he gets outside the school in any complete and free way within the school itself; while at the other hand, he is unable to apply in daily life what he is learning at school."


~ John Dewey

Start a Local Library

In the home or the classroom - start a Local Library. Collect books written by local authors, set in your region or illustrated by local artists. We have a bi-coastal library in our home. Books from New England and Alaska. It's a powerful thing to share your "place" with your children too. We love reading Good Night Rhode Island and talking about where Mima, Pepe, Auntie, Uncle and cousins live.