#environmental learning

Community Roadside Partnership Engages Youth

MN Nature recently partnered with Little Bohemia Neighborhood community to transform a mile-plus bike path into a lovely green space with trees, shrubs and perennials. MNDoT and the City of St Paul and St Paul Forestry are all major partners. In July MN Nature partnered with the Pollution Control Agency to use the newly renovated portion of the project (phase 1 of 3) as part of the PCA and Wolf…

Overload Alert/ The Daily Post

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/overload-alert/#like-89961

“Everybody gets so much information all day long that they lose their common sense.” — Gertrude Stein Do you agree?

  I don’t think it has anything to do with common sense how we each take in so much information. I believe some of it has to do with our heritage. Maybe where we live, big cities or rural areas. What opportunities…

"Sustainable development requires much broader public awareness and understanding of the natural resource and economic challenges facing the world in the 21st century. [Education institutions] are significant, but largely overlooked leverage point in the transition to a sustainable world." - Toward Zero Carbon, Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill

Environmental learning programs foster STEM focused curriculum, but enable creative approaches promoting expanded learning opportunities (outside of textbooks).

Greene Intermediate Center

Has been in the process of transitioning to an agriscience based magnet school for about a year now.  As the South Bend Community School Corporation distills this methodology, the potential to create a network of environmental learning programs throughout the school system is great.  This network would reduce the burden of programming and take the benefits to a much larger level, allowing for a much broader implementation of the curriculum.  

Because this type of curriculum benefits both students and their parents, dramatic improvements to both energy efficiency and environmental/ecologic health.  In terms of energy, being more efficient is the cheapest and fastest energy savings we have.  This can be effectively taught at the elementary school level, ensuring massive energy savings long term, both residentially and commercially.  The same impact on environmental systems can be realized.  In just Greene Intermediate's case, the school sits positioned on a drainage ditch that connects directly to the Kankakee River, which then connects to the Mississippi River and the watershed of the Gulf of Mexico.  The amelioration efforts on the property to that drainage ditch can truly have global connections.

This past week student's Cornucopia journals, environmental art projects, and a selection of our unique environmental education lessons where on display at Juan Cabrillo Elementary School's Open House.  Below are a few photos from the open house display.  

Art in Nature - Ms. Jordan and Ms. Mehring's Kindergarten/1st Grade students painted butterflies and learned about symmetry, the life cycle of a butterfly, and structural color.

Colorful Butterflies Made From Coffee Filters with Ms. Weinstock's 1st Grade Class

  Ms. Scheer and Ms. Thorne's 2nd grade students pounded flowers from Cornucopia's Potpourri Patch onto watercolor paper creating stunning works of art. 

The Day in the Life of an Earthworm, creative writing by Ms. Rowland's 4th and 5th grade students. 

Ms. Levy's third grade students had a lesson unit on The Ecological Footprint.  Each student made their own set of footprints out of rocks and pebbles. 

Ms. Matthews 4th and 5th grade students studied math in nature throughout the year.  A few of the topics included measuring and mapping the garden, counting tree stumps while learning about ratios, and lines of symmetry in nature.

The Cornucopia Foundation thanks all of the teachers and staff at Juan Cabrillo Elementary School for opening up their campus and allowing us to showcase the wonderful achievements of that their students accomplished while at the Environmental Learning Center.  

The final few weeks of classes at the ELC will be spent tending to our garden and enjoying a spring harvest of beets, strawberries, carrots, and garlic. 

For more information, please visit us online at: www.cornucopiafoundation.net

This past week Students from Juan Cabrillo Elementary School and Malibu Middle School visited us at our Environmental Learning Center to observe and interact with Nature.  Here at the ELC, Nature is teacher and Spring is a wonderful time to experience flowers blooming, seeds sprouting, butterflies, bees, and hummingbirds in motion, and the tranquil view of the pacific ocean under the warmth of our Sun. 

Pictured above are tomato seedlings that were grown from seeds in our greenhouse by Ms. Thorne and Ms. Sheer's 2nd grade classes.  Students transfered the seedlings into the vegetable garden, they also planted birdhouse gourd seeds in the pumpkin patch garden.  When students return in the fall they will harvest and decorate the gourds and hang in the garden for birds to enjoy.  

Our 2nd graders also enjoyed quiet time by the creek and in the native garden where they observed and sketched in their journals. 

Malibu Middle School teacher Charles Kertesz brought three of his 8th grade physics classes to the ELC this past week.  Students enjoyed a brief introduction lecture on Heliophysics before exploring resources from NASA and discussing ways to help solve our human problems through studying Natures design.  Solar power and magnetism being a few of the examples.  

This coming week students will be enjoying time at the ELC while learning more about biomimicry through studying butterflies, their lifecycle, and structural color. 

For more information, please visit us online at: www.cornucopiafoundation.net