Projects – Earth Action Education
At the El Dorado Community School (ECS) we co-facilitate a Green Team with over a dozen teachers, parents, administrators and community partners. The Green Team has working groups that are dedicated to making the school more sustainable by:
- Greening the curriculum
- Developing the outdoor classroom
- Improving the school’s recycling and procurement
- Replacing toxic cleaning products with healthy alternatives
- Composting
- Improving the school’s food and nutrition services
- Harvesting water
- Reducing the carbon footprint
At the ECS we developed and implemented a science class called The Outdoor Classroom, with a focus on designing and implementing outdoor learning infrastructure like planter boxes, a hand made adobe solar thermal greenhouse and a native plant nursery. The outdoor classroom design includes a pond, seating, shade structures, water catchment, irrigation systems, a kiosk, an amphitheater, an interpretive trail and art features like a gateway/arbor, a sundial, and murals.
Our Earth Action Education at the El Dorado Community School includes a field study program for all 5th graders, their teachers and involved parents. In our field program, we take classes to a nearby wetland restoration site and engage them in team building, restoration activities like bird box construction and installation, re-vegetation and erosion control, and hiking, plant and bird identification activities, hikes and reflective journal writing and sketching.
EWI has also been contracted by the Santa Fe Public Schools district to coach the development of an environmental leadership theme for the new 7th and 8th grade teaching team.
EWI will use 4C: the Climate Change Conservation Corps as a vehicle to continue with construction of the outdoor classroom and edible schoolyard elements and to conduct a resource audit at the school in the Spring and Summer of 2009.
EWI’s work with the El Dorado Community School is made possible by support from the Youth Conservation Corps, the LANL Community Foundation, the US Fish and Wildlife Service Partners program, and the Santa Fe Public School District.
Earth Action Education at Turquoise Trail Elementary School includes field trips to the Santa Fe River to learn about restoration, beaver habitat and behaviors, and stream ecology. During our field days, we balance team building activities like trust falls and the human camera with re-vegetation for ecosystem health and macroinvertebrate analysis. Each field session also includes quiet time for personal reflection and journal writing.
Earth Works is also facilitating TT’s process of establishing a Green Team and implementation of its outdoor classroom construction and related curriculum development. EWI’s 4C Climate Corps will team up with students, staff and parent volunteers to build the outdoor classroom and conduct a school resource audit.
EWI’s work with Turquoise Trail is generously supported by grants from the LANL Community Foundation, the Youth Conservation Corps, the SB Foundation, the Lowes Toolbox for Educators fund and Bread for the Journey.
