Rural Action makes environmental education interactive with programs
Summer Howatt-Nab, Athens NEWS Special Projects Contributor
April 28, 2005
April has been a particularly busy month for Rural Action's Environmental Learning Program (ELP), due to Earth Day events and their "Art and Environment for Kids" after-school program.
ELP provides free environmental education outlets for Appalachian educators and students through inventive, interactive environmental-based activities. One such event was an all-day festival at Logan Elementary School on Earth Day, complete with six different learning stations.
"One of them was a blender bike where the kids made smoothies with their own leg power by operating the bike," said Rina Caldwell, an AmeriCorps VISTA (Volunteer in Service To America) with ELP since last summer.
ELP educators conduct program visits not only on school grounds, but in classrooms and land labs. They also meet and guide classes in environmental field trips, conducted at area state parks, camps and natural areas, or at relevant sites such as landfills and recycling centers.
An addition to ELP's list of on-site hosts is The Wire: A Community Resource Center. Rural Action's ELP is in the middle of a free after-school workshop series called "Art and Environment for Kids," held Thursday afternoons at The Wire near uptown Athens.
"Mostly what ELP does is visit classrooms all throughout Athens, Hocking and Perry counties, but we decided to keep this one central to Athens," Caldwell said.
"The Wire is a great free space," she added. "We thought it was a good place for kids, as well as an opportunity for community members to learn about The Wire. We've had parents come in that have never seen The Wire before, so that's been great."
According to the volunteer-run center's Web site, they strive to "facilitate social change by providing resources to spark creativity in Athens County, Ohio, and surrounding areas."
The resource center houses space for the kids' workshops, as well as Athens' Bike Co-op, Alternative Lending Library, and computers with Internet access.
Another form of educational interactivity ELP caters to is the celluloid kind. As Generation X becomes Generation Net, Rural Action's ELP branches out to interactive Internet learners on their Web site, with Internet curriculum resources and a database called School Links.
The School Links portion of ELP's Web site provides "fun, interactive games, activity ideas, and general information about the main topics covered in each of the learning episodes offered this spring by Rural Action's Environmental Learning Program," according to the site. ELP literally links students and educators to interactive Web sites, from the American Birding Association for young birders, to Yahooligans Animals, a site dealing with the wonders of reptiles and amphibians.
The Internet curriculum resources include a compiled list of lessons from Project Wild and award-winning Project Learning Tree, interdisciplinary environmental education programs that can be used by teachers before or after ELP works with their classes. Both environmental programs are for educators working with students in kindergarten through high school.
ELP serves teachers and students in grades one through eight at Alexander, Federal Hocking, Trimble and Vinton County districts, placing an emphasis on "outdoor experiential learning," according to ELP's site. Rural Action's ELP encourages interactive teaching methods and conducts training workshops to outline ways to integrate environmental learning in classroom curriculum.
Topics featured in ELP's curriculum include bio-diversity, energy and the environment, land use, creative writing, aquatic explorations, nature-inspired art, and solid waste and recycling. A catchy tune about the benefits of recycling, for instance, is one form of integrating music into education, possibly even increasing the likelihood of some children remembering the lesson.
A study conducted by Health Media Lab shows that combining interactive games with classroom instruction builds memory retention and good life habits. Kids who excel in hands-on learning or respond to audio-visual concepts may be more likely to retain the information--and remember it longer.
Caldwell pointed out that the "Art and Environment for Kids" workshops are hands-on, creative outlets for kids to learn about the environment, and are open to kids of all ages.
"We're still growing in numbers and hope to get even more kids involved with the program," she said.
The remaining after-school workshops at The Wire feature painting, African drumming and a session for kids to finish or create new projects in preparation for the art show on May 15.
Caldwell said she enjoys leading the workshops with Interim ELP Coordinator Diane Wiktorowski. "The African drumming workshop will be the first one where we have a guest speaker come in and lead the workshop," Caldwell said. "I'm really excited about that one."
It's hard not to get caught up in Caldwell's enthusiasm for environmental education, amplifying ELP's "hands-on, minds-on learning" and "outdoor discovery." Put yourself in a kids' shoes and imagine how much more fun hopping from outdoor learning station to station can be than reading a science text book about the various ecological topics the ELP covered interactively in one all-day outdoor festival.
"We're all about interaction," Caldwell said.
She noted that ELP's puppet show for Ohio University's Earth Day Festival is a perfect example of ELP's approach to educating young minds about the environment. "Our favorite part of the program is doing interactive activities like the puppet shows," she said. "It's really fun and entertaining, and the kids learn a lot -- not in the typical setting of learning from a book -- they're learning from the puppets," she said. "The kids have fun and come away with a lot of knowledge."
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