Environmental Education

Naturalist Noah Charney can’t go anywhere without noticing things. I’ve been friends with him for more than a decade, and I’ve always thought more people should benefit from his quirky enthusiasm and his knack for explaining things no one ever realized they wanted to know until he brought them up.

This summer I had the opportunity to bring Immersion Camp to my “backyard,” the South Yuba River near Nevada City, CA. For eight years, my colleagues and I have taught underwater science camps that provide river education while snorkeling on the Smith River in northern California. These Smith River camps are aimed at providing local outdoor experiential opportunities for Crescent City youth, many of whom have never been to their local river. In contrast, many Yuba river youth spend much of their summer at the river.

Anyone driving over the causeway on Friday, May 3, near low tide likely would have seen more than a dozen high school students all over the clam flats, participating in a research experiment. The hands-on science work is a precursor to the Marine Studies Pathway that will launch at the high school next year and will teach a wide ranging curricula based on marine studies.

Are you a homeowner, interested in finding ways to make your home or investment property more sustainable? Then listen to Beverly Craig (1994) discuss lessons learned from six years working on improving the water and energy performance of multifamily affordable housing with Homeowner's Rehab, a nonprofit that owns over 1,000 units of affordable housing in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Kristen Pratt is the Program Coordinator for the Chicago Conservation Corps (C3) at the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum. One of the group's most successful projects has been the Community Weatherization Action Teams (CWAT) program, which helps volunteers plan weatherization events and campaigns all over the city. Over 25,000 homes have been weatherized through the city program and with their assistance.

The environmental history of Israel is as intriguing and complex as the nation itself. Situated on a mere 8,630 square miles, bordered by the Mediterranean Sea and Persian Gulf, varying from desert to forest, Israel's natural environment presents innumerable challenges to its growing population. The country's conflicted past and present, diverse religions, and multitude of cultural influences powerfully affect the way Israelis imagine, question, and shape their environment. Zionism, from the late nineteenth onward, has tempered nearly every aspect of human existence.