Environmental Education

The New York City Soil and Water Conservation District promotes experience-based, interdisciplinary environmental education in New York City. The District is working to integrate hands-on, field-based science education into school environmental science curricula to better prepare future stewards of the City's natural resources. In addition to working with the city school system, we promote community-based environmental education through the establishment of local environmental education centers.

The following areas serve as the foundations for our environmental education programs:

Environmental Monitoring

The District encourages students at all levels to get involved in environmental monitoring. We promote the testing of water, soil, and air quality as well as the monitoring of our forests, biodiversity and the extent of human use/abuse. We are looking to link student monitors with environmental stewards who are involved in protecting our local resources. These environmental stewards would serve as guides and mentors to students while the students would provide volunteer labor.

School Policy Based on Hands-On Experience

The District aims to work with educational policy makers to establish organizational and programmatic support for hands-on learning, to promote changes in curriculum which allow for field work and to support schools and stewards with equipment purchases for hands-on learning.

Technical Support for Teachers

The District can provide technical assistance and teaching materials through its partnerships.

Networking

The District works to facilitate networking among teachers involved in both local environmental monitoring and the Envirothon. There are also opportunities beyond the city limits: students who are involved in the Global Learning and Observation for Benefiting the Environment (GLOBE at www.globe.gov ) can network with other students worldwide.

Current District Programs:

Volunteer and Student Monitors

The District is focused on promoting environmental monitoring through training workshops for prospective monitors (teachers, students and other volunteers), free rental of monitoring equipment and the facilitation of networking among the monitors.

The District is interested in environmental monitoring of all kinds including water, soil and air quality as well as forestry, biodiversity, invasive species, and threats to natural resources. Within each of these areas there are many parameters which can be measured. For instance, water quality monitoring may include tests for dissolved oxygen, nitrogen, salinity, temperature and transparency. Parameters for monitoring are determined by what a steward is interested in learning. Depending on one's time, energy and available resources, the level of monitoring sophistication can vary from simple tests done in the field to elaborate labratory analyses.

The District frequently hosts workshops on how to monitor and use related equipment. We have equipment for simple water and soil quality testing as well as forestry monitoring. These kits are available to any interested party free of charge.

Student groups that engage in water quality monitoring may share their data on the internet with the Hudson Basin River Watch (HBRW)(http://www.hudsonbasin.org/ ). The HBRW, one of the District's partner organizations, is a Hudson River watershed group which works with over 40 schools across the watershed. The HBRW hosts the annual Clean Water Congress in Albany where students monitors come to share and present their work.

Harlem Hudson

The Harlem Hudson program is a hands-on, third-grade environmental education program based in the neighborhood of West Harlem. The program focuses on the Hudson River and participating students discover what makes the river essential to the region by studying its ecology and history as well as its relationship to the Harlem area. The environmental theme acts as a vehicle to augment reading, writing, communication, science, art and technology skills in the students.

Third grade classes from PS129 and PS161 have participated in the program for over three years. In the spring of 2006 the District plans to offer an advanced version of the program to seventh grade classes at Harlem Children's Zone. Currently the District is arranging meetings and approaching community organizations in West Harlem to find an appropriate area host to take over the program and provide further opportunities for extensions in local after-school, community and weekend programs.

Wonderful Watersheds

Wonderful Watersheds is a curriculum developed by the Wallerstein Collaborative for Urban Environmental Education with assistance from a grant by the Fund for the City of New York. The primary objective of Wonderful Watersheds is to get teachers and students outside to explore the watershed. To accomplish this, we have developed a curriculum that incorporates field trips to local natural areas so that students can learn about the Hudson River Watershed. The lesson plans are organized into three sections: Pre-Trip, Field Trip, and Post-Trip. Each section contains four detailed lessons in each category and a list of extensions to explore as well. Each lesson plan is correlated to the New York State Standards so that teachers can easily incorporate the lessons into the school curricula. Vocabulary words and journal ideas are also listed for each lesson. Free training workshops are offered to introduce teachers to the curriculum, demonstrate water quality related field-trip activities, and provide a forum for networking with educators and community organizations. Following Wonderful Watersheds training, teachers are provided with a free educator-led fieldtrip!

To inquire after or participate in any of the NYCSWCD Education Programs, please contact: