Environmental Education

Mission: To inspire appreciation and respect for the natural world, increase awareness of environmental issues and encourage sustaining the Earth's ecosystems. The center is located on a 234-acre site in Stevenson with an abundance of natural resources including gardens, streams and nature trails. The facility houses a classroom, live and interactive exhibits, a hands-on museum, children's corner and gift shop. Throughout the year, the center offers outdoor education for students, public programs, a 10-week summer camp, teacher education and classroom outreach programs.

Congress approves funds for two county projectsLegislation funding two Anne Arundel County projects has passed both houses of Congress and has been forwarded to the president for approval. They are a $4.3 million demolition of the 19 radio towers at the Naval Station on Greenbury Point in Annapolis and a $5.3 million construction of an emergency services center at Fort Meade to house its police station, fire station and ambulance service.The Navy has created a conservation area since closing the Greenbury Point station in 1995.

REMEMBER THE last math course you took? I do. It's why I write for a living.But I've always regretted letting math put me off pursuing an interest in science.There was a better way. I've just finished reading about it in a remarkable report on improving students' learning across the curriculum while revolutionizing environmental education.Consider, for example, what might be called the "log cabin method" of teaching math, developed by Clay County High School in eastern Kentucky.The school is one of 40 in 12 states, including Maryland, that are rooting the traditional curriculum, from social studies to physics, in the context of their natural surroundings and heritage.

In one of its first steps to improve life in Baltimore, the local arm of billionaire George Soros' philanthropy has awarded almost $500,000 in fellowships to 10 area residents.The Open Society Institute-Baltimore has awarded "community fellowships" -- each worth $48,750 -- for the recipients to improve inner-city life in ways such as raising voices in song, raising vegetables or raising the consciousness of juvenile offenders.The 18-month fellowships, announced yesterday, are a key part of Soros' plan to spend $25 million in five years to help the poor in Baltimore.

BEFORE YOU GET past the front door, you know it's not going to be a standard school day -- it almost never is here at Hollywood Elementary School in St. Mary's County.Danny O'Connor, chief custodian, leaves off polishing the entryway floor and bids you step outside and listen. The plaintive calling of wild geese on high floats like an obbligato to the December north wind.It's hard to believe the sounds are coming from O'Connor, who says he learned it from Tommy Deagle, who learned it from a blind Cree Indian.

A local environmental committee is asking the community to help select a person or group that has made the county a better place to live to receive the second annual Jan Hollmann Award.The award is intended for someone who "has made a significant contribution to environmental education," said L. Eugene Cronin, a member of the committee and former chairman of the Severn River Commission.Hollmann was one of Anne Arundel County's foremost environmental activists before her death from cancer in 1990.

CROCHERON -- On a clear day, you can see the Western Shore from the finger of land called Bishops Head. The buildings across the Chesapeake rise gently on the horizon.But, like the rest of civilization, it's merely a distant shadow here in the Dorchester County marsh. This is a wild place, a place for ducks, herons, fish -- and students.The wildlife lives here, and the students can visit, thanks to the Karen Noonan Center for Environmental Education, which officially opens today.The center, a converted hunting lodge that sleeps 24, is the newest educational facility of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.

As a North County High School science teacher, Valerie C. Wesner raises hundreds of fish and the environmental consciousness of her students every year.Her work has won her the second annual Jan Hollmann Environmental Education Award.The award is named for one of Anne Arundel County's foremost environmental activists, who died in 1990. The honor recognizes significant, long-term contributions in environmental education.Wesner said though she knew North County science department chairman Frank Utley had nominated her, she was surprised when told Monday that she had won."

Former state Sen. Gerald W. Winegrad, hailed as the environmental conscience of the legislature, doesn't need any more plaques for his walls, but he'll make room for the one he'll pick up today.It's the first award in memory of conservationist Jan Hollmann and will be given annually to someone who "has made an exceptional contribution in the field of environmental education in Anne Arundel County," said Severn River Commission chairman A. L. Waldron."Environmental education is one of the most important aspects of long-term environmental protection," said Mr. Winegrad, who spent 16 years in the legislature and left last year.

Having lived in New Hampshire for 15 of my adult years, it is my supposition that the New Englander's reputation for being unfriendly and withdrawn is based on the reality of getting through winter. So much time was spent surviving, before snow plows and furnaces and four-wheel drive, and winter was so long, that there just wasn't much time to work on friendships.Here in Maryland we don't have the problem in the same degree -- particularly this winter -- so people actually schedule things to occur in the middle of winter.

She sees herself as lucky to be part of a seminal moment in her field's history. But environmental educator Bronwyn Mitchell helped make that moment happen. Nine months ago, when she became executive director of the Maryland Association for Environmental and Outdoor Education, Mitchell knew the influential nonprofit organization would be celebrating 25 years of existence in 2010. She also knew Americans have generally come around to realizing that a passion for the environment need not be the sole preserve of a few neo-hippie types.

She sees herself as lucky to be part of a seminal moment in her field's history. But environmental educator Bronwyn Mitchell helped make that moment happen. Nine months ago, when she became executive director of the Maryland Association for Environmental and Outdoor Education, Mitchell knew the influential nonprofit organization would be celebrating 25 years of existence in 2010. She also knew Americans have generally come around to realizing that a passion for the environment need not be the sole preserve of a few neo-hippie types.

The Howard County Conservancy has been named a Maryland Green Center by the Maryland Association for Environmental and Outdoor Education. The designation recognizes the conservancy as a provider of high-quality environmental education, a supporter of the association's Maryland Green School Awards Program, and a model for sustainable environmental practices in its buildings and grounds. The conservancy offers environmental programs for schoolchildren, as well as field trips, community service learning projects, activities for Scouts and summer nature camps.

LAUREL -- The environmental movement faces a conundrum: While scientists say the need for solutions and action to combat global warming will only become greater, the children who would be the next generation of activists are less likely to spend time playing outdoors becoming connected with nature. At an Earth Day hearing of a House of Representatives subcommittee in the Patuxent Wildlife Refuge, Gov. Martin O'Malley and Rep. John Sarbanes promoted plans to address the situation by improving the environmental literacy of schoolchildren.

Big Barry and Little Steve have suddenly made Anne Arundel County's school headquarters in Annapolis a lot more fun. Visitors to the administrative building gravitate to the aquarium to watch the two small terrapins glide through the water and chow down on clams. Children start one-sided conversations with the terrapins. The turtles have gotten so used to the human attention since arriving in August that they swim toward the tapping fingers on the glass. "So many children who come in have never seen a turtle," said Margaret Lacey, who has become a keen observer from her seat less than 50 feet away at the reception desk.

Environmental focus urged for Blandair Howard County could make a major statement of its commitment to environmental wellness by scrapping its design for a regional park at the Smith farm (Blandair Park), instead designating the site for a nature park and center for environmental education. Wellness is a concept, I believe, that applies to society as well as individuals and challenges us to consider many facets of our lives, including how well we are emotionally, intellectually, socially, spiritually, vocationally, multiculturally, environmentally, as well as physically.

In her new role as executive director of the Howard County Conservancy, Meg Schumacher has to oversee the organization's dual roles as a preservation-focused land trust and an environmental education organization. She also has to feed the chickens. There are also goats on Mount Pleasant Farm in Woodstock, which is the conservancy's headquarters, as well as coyotes, wild turkeys, bugs, birds, gardens, woodlands and two streams. The Gudelsky Environmental Education Center was built on the property a year ago. Schumacher, who took over the director position last month, said her first goal is to get more people to appreciate and enjoy all the aspects of the organization.

Pupils at Youth's Benefit Elementary School perused the school grounds before settling on a barren area by the Fallston school's front entrance to plant a garden. After the space was tilled, they planted native plants, such as bee balm, hydrangeas and black-eyed Susans. Next, they spread mulch. They also set up two barrels to collect rainwater that drains from the roof of the school. Just a few days after planting the garden, they saw results. "I think the children have some sort of magic powers," said Karen DeHart, a teacher in the gifted-and-talented program at Youth's Benefit.

Environmental education, teaching kids to respect nature even when no one's looking, has come a long way since the first conference on restoring Chesapeake Bay in 1983. But it has an even longer way to go if the aim is really to instill a durable environmental ethic in the generations who will be taking over the task of 21st-century bay-saving. Last month would have been a fine chance to discuss this. The 23rd annual meeting of bay watershed governors was billed as a "Chesapeake Bay Education Summit."

On a cloudy, starting-to-feel-like-fall day this week, about a dozen sixth-graders from Chesapeake Bay Middle School waded thigh-deep into the Indian Creek branch of the Severn River. Though they were wearing rubber boots, their clothes were soaked at least to their waists. And they didn't seem to mind. "I think something just swam over my foot," said Carly Bair, 11, smiling. Nearby, several students were pulling a large seine along the water, capturing tiny bay anchovies and even a crab, and placing their treasures in a plastic container filled with water.