Environmental Education

As we enter the holiday season, Fellow Alicia Daniel offers a checklist for Earth-friendly toy buying.

Fellow Judith Rubin wrote this article in 2003, but it still holds today. Feel free to use the "Writing a Gift Letter" sidebar at the bottom of the article to encourage your own relatives and friends to rethink their giving habits.

For many low-income children in Connecticut, summer isn't a time filled with fun trips to the beach or chances to learn. This often leads to something called "summer slide," as they kids lose some of the gains they made while in school. Two years ago, Stamford Public Schools partnered with SoundWaters to develop a summer camp that could address this problem.

20 years ago, when Regan Brooks was in high school, a teacher gave them each an assignment — tell a story about yourself. Brooks can’t recall what she wrote about. What she really remembers is a story a classmate told. “She shared a story in front of our whole class that,” Brooks pauses, thinking of the best explanation. “Abolished all my assumptions about her. And really made me realize there’s this person there haven’t ever bothered to get to know that I wanted to get to know more.”

That’s not to say that the knowledge and skills researchers usually obtain in graduate school aren’t valuable assets too, says Brian Johnson, director of educational research and program development at the Wildlife Conservation Society in New York City. “When you find that amazing person who has that really strong science knowledge and skill set, and they can work with a variety of different audiences and are really strong communicators, those people are amazing to have in science learning institutions. I would love to hire those people,” he says.

"The cleanup is open to anybody, of any age, part of an organized group such as a Scout group or a church group, or just families or individuals, who want to help clean up their neighborhoods," said Dawn Chávez, GreenWorks Executive Director. "It's removing litter, but also leaf debris from storm drains to keep them clear to avoid flooding, to make Asheville neighborhoods clean and safe. It's also a great way to meet your neighbors."

Climate change adaptation “isn’t something government is going to be able to solve alone,” says Amber Pairis. “We need to engage people in this conversation in a meaningful way. The rubber really meets the road on the ground in your community,” she adds. “And that is where change will happen”.