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Jurisdictional Breakout Reports Chesapeake Bay Education Summit December 16, 2003. District of Columbia Maryland Pennsylvania Virginia. District of Columbia. Report from Breakout Session. DC: Goals. Educate key DCPS administrators about the meaningful bay experience
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Jurisdictional Breakout ReportsChesapeake Bay Education SummitDecember 16, 2003 District of Columbia Maryland Pennsylvania Virginia
District of Columbia Report from Breakout Session
DC: Goals • Educate key DCPS administrators about the meaningful bay experience • Forge a partnership with DCPS integrating bay education into curricula • Provide a variety of teacher-training opportunities • Correlate watershed education curriculums to the DCPS Standards for Teaching and Learning • Provide opportunities for participation in restoration projects • Develop a Schoolyard Re-greening program • Engage school-aged youth in a variety of meaningful bay experiences • Seek new sources of funding • Provide supplies and resources to teachers • Develop and maintain a database
DC: Program Challenges • Getting teachers out of classroom (having trouble getting substitute teachers; Stat-9 Testing—teachers need to be in classroom with students) • Morale and budget cuts • Getting more and different teachers involved • Communication through school system • Early deadlines and many complexities forgetting students out on field trips.
DC: Program Challenges Cont. • Need more teacher training workshops • Difficult to get teachers to commit to longer summer training sessions without stipends. • Help people recognize how EE programs address standards. • Need to show how EE programs/outdoor experiences are multi-disciplinary and address literacy (can address that by providing children’s literature or lists of lit.).
DC: What More Can be Done? • Solving problems and developing projects on school grounds if students can’t get out to Bay. • Using computers, other technological means to connect students to Bay. • Help students understand how what they do at home and school affects their home watershed and the Bay. • Better, more concentrated outreach to teachers to alert them of programs.
DC: What More Can be Done? • Get list of all science teachers and their schools • Put flyers in teachers’ mailboxes (rather than through the mail) • Work through the service learning requirements • A few schools have an agriculture and natural resources academy. Work through them. • Teachers teaching/mentoring teachers
DC: Tracking • Some teachers go to other countries for training (through USDA) and come back and write curriculum. EE providers should work with these teachers. • Web-based database (GMU has students who develop web pages for groups) • Put Meaningful Bay Exp. Goals on Pacing Charts
DC: Where do we Need Extra Help? • Someone to talk to teachers in every school • Superintendent has meeting for principals and administrators every month. Try to get on her agenda. • Explaining to teachers the link between EE and improved learning and standards • Getting Board of Education to mandate Meaningful Bay Experience.
DC: What do Teachers Need? • To know about programs and what they can provide. Address this by providing pamphlet that defined meaningful Bay experience and a list of provider groups and what they do. Get partners to provide write-up of what they do.
DC: Next Steps • High turnover means we need to reintroduce ourselves • Develop timeline to implement suggestions • Prioritize steps • Learn organizational structure of school system and talk to people at each level • Outreach to teachers and administration so they know what we’re doing • Work with other existing programs such as camp at Catoctin
Maryland Report of Breakout Session
Maryland: Goals • High performing, environmentally literate students • At least one MBE for every student in elementary, middle and high school • Prepared teachers with effective instructional programs • Create schools that implement best environmental practices
Maryland: Challenges • Identifying gaps as well as overlaps (e.g. Baltimore City) • Teachers don’t know about MBE/ Principals don’t know about value of MBE • Better job of marketing • Individual projects not seen as part of larger MBE • Classroom component of MBE often lacking • Expanding focus from just Federal $ to state, local and private $
Maryland: Strengths • There are many programs in action (Summit, MAEOE, etc.) • MD is using the seed money to help “ignite” programs in the counties • MD has infrastructure for field experiences • MD has infrastructure for student action pieces
Maryland: We need help with … • Non-profits: how to fill in gaps with school programs • Tracking: finding the gaps in program delivery • Improving ChesSIE, marketing ChesSIE • Teachers need peer-reviewed education materials to know what works • Marketing - Highlight what MBE would look like, including specific activity options • Searching for funding to fill gaps
Maryland: Next Steps • Keep continued professional development • Marketing MBE • Tracking • Quality Control • Developing political support • Matching $ with the right place
Maryland: Next Steps • Match schools with partners • Help groups hook up with schools • More matching state, federal, local and private $
Pennsylvania Report from Breakout Session
Pennsylvania: Goals • Use Standards of Learning to implement the meaningful Bay experience (MBE) • Train facilitators to in turn train teachers • Act 48 • Partner with organizations that have Act 48 providership
Pennsylvania: Goals • Teachers write implementation plan for use in classroom • Support it with small grants • Institutionalize Environmental Education track in teacher prep. Programs in Universities
Pennsylvania: Challenges • Get teachers to take classes out to streams • Resistance from administration (liability issues) • Some teacher resistance • Make the connection from local to “Bay” • Inverse also a challenge (remember Headwater states are part of the watershed) • $$! • Fitting MBE into an already full curriculum
Pennsylvania: Challenges • Tracking • Need to sell MBE better • Perceptions of Environmental Education • “Warm and fuzzy” • Opposite also true: hostility toward kids of farmers in schools
Pennsylvania: Strengths • Curriculum and standards • Current curriculum goes well with MBEs • Standards: Environment and Ecology, Science and Technology • Funding does exist • Strong partnerships • Mini-grants programs • Growing Greener program ($650 million over 5 years)- PA state funding • Bay education has attracted attention of state and federal legislatures
Pennsylvania: Strengths • Nature of EE and MBE is conducive to learning and stewardship • Formal EE makes us more aware of environmental issues • Easy to promote the MBE as an experiential experience • A lot is already being done (even though it’s not all being recorded.)
Pennsylvania: Strategy • Resources ($, people) • Take advantage of existing resources • Tweak, redirect, target already existing funds • Make good use of grant-funded watershed restoration projects • Gain additional funds • Look to private sector for local programs • Federal, state, non-governmental • Harness energy from community retirees
Pennsylvania: Strategy • Coordination • Coordinate across programs and curriculum lines • Use master facilitators for coordination • Focus on tracking
Pennsylvania: Strategy • Packaging: Selling the meaningful Bay experience • Cross-curricular approach • Tie MBE into existing materials/ standards • Make sure service providers are aware they need to tie programs into standards • Tie it into No Child Left Behind, PSSA (English, math, ESL, special needs students) • Emphasize that it improves student achievement
Virginia Report from Breakout Session
Virginia: Major Programs • Virginia Science Standards • Virginia Classroom Grants • On-the-Water & Field Programs • CBF, Envirothon, SWCD days • Virginia Naturally Model Schools • Professional Development programs • WET, WILD, PLT, EIC, Bay Academy • Outdoor Classrooms Project
Virginia: Challenges • Tracking progress - mechanism • Predictable funding stream • Stature & role of formal ed in Bay program • Training NR personnel • Maintaining existing programs • Administrative support • Program development, coordination, evaluation, marketing • Technical Support
Virginia: Accomplishments • Department of Education Partnership • Curricular Resources • Professional Development • Direct Support for MWEE
Virginia: Strategies • Tracking progress • Standardize tracking • Market to principals • More pass-through $ to school divisions for coordinated approach (v. 1 teacher 1 class) • Better menu of MBE to distribute to schools with detailed lists of where, what & when • Develop Web page for potential MBEs
Virginia: Strategies • Partnerships • Collaborate between existing users so schools know opportunities • Coordination with more River organizations • Roundtables with nonprofits, SWDC • Partner with VA DCR • Use Gateways to get people more involved • Develop science & education guide to bridge gap between science and educators
Virginia: Strategies • Funding • Present classroom programs to private businesses for funding • Market programs to schools and create demand at the local level so Congress will give more $ • Coordinate grant writing to one major organization to distribute smaller amounts of $ to smaller, rural counties • Get state support for Elementary Act Amendment
Virginia: Strategies • Looking Ahead • Link K-12 MBE with college • Identify mandatory college environmental course • Need wish wish of how to get & deliver MBEs • Need 5 year plan • Workgroup looks at long range end game
Common Themes Some common points among reports from the Chesapeake Bay Watershed States’ breakout sessions
Common themes: Challenges • Getting teachers out of classrooms • Teacher & personnel training • Lack of funding, budget cuts, decreased morale • Tracking and finding who needs the MBE • Lack of administrative support (principals, etc.) • Other mandates (e.g., No Child Left Behind) • Need better marketing: Negative perceptions of Environmental Education (it’s fluff)
Common Themes: Strengths • Environmental Education can be integrated into states’ standards of learning • Good partnerships • There are existing sources of funding that could be more fully utilized • A lot is already being done!
Common Themes: Strategies • Funding • Look to opportunities in private sector • Take better advantage of existing resources • Coordinate grant writing/ distribution of small grants • Develop more political support • Evaluation/ Quality Control • Feedback from teachers and youth
Common Themes: Strategies • Marketing • Emphasize research that shows EE improves student achievement • Integrate MBE by marrying it with: • already existing state curriculum • standards of learning • federal mandates • Math and reading • Market to administrators/ principals
Common Themes: Strategies • Teacher training • Have teachers who receive training in turn train other teachers • Tracking • Standardize tracking • Create a detailed list of possible meaningful Bay experiences that teachers can reference
Common Themes: Next Steps • Looking to the Future • Create strategic plan (5 years) • Prioritize steps • Develop timeline to implement suggestions
Cooperation is the key! Together we CAN implement the meaningful Bay and stream outdoor experience for every school child in the watershed by 2005