What is the Great Lakes Stewardship Initiative (GLSI)?
The Great Lakes Stewardship Initiative (GLSI) is an exciting effort to expand classrooms and strengthen communities while developing the next generation of environmental stewards. It was established and is funded primarily by the Great Lakes Fishery Trust, with support from the Wege Foundation. Additional funding has been provided by the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, the Community Foundation for Muskegon County, the Fremont Area Community Foundation, and the Frey Foundation.
What is the Great Lakes Fishery Trust?
The Great Lakes Fishery Trust (GLFT) provides grants to enhance, protect, and rehabilitate the Great Lakes fishery resources. The GLFT was created in April 1996 as part of a settlement with Consumers Energy and the Detroit Edison Co. to provide annual compensation for the fishery losses caused by the operation of the Ludington Pumped Storage Plant. Since 1998, the GLFT has awarded more than $50 million in grants to projects to enhance the Great Lakes fishery.
How many people have participated in the GLSI?
As of December 2011, more than 340 teachers, more than 100 schools, and more than 300 community members had participated in place-based education leading to stewardship coordinated and supported by the GLSI’s regional hubs. Through these place-based education efforts, which engage students, teachers, and schools in work related to local stewardship needs, goals for learning are achieved and communities are improved. More than 23,000* student place-based education experiences have been made possible by the GLSI. An additional 275 teachers in 60 schools have taken part in professional development focused on place-based education and stewardship.
*Students are counted once for each school year; opportunities for students to have more experiences in subsequent grade levels vary by school.
Which institutions have received GLSI grants, and where are the GLSI’s regional hubs located?
Eight institutions have received GLSI grants to establish regional hubs in Michigan:
- Community Foundation for Northeast Michigan (for the Northeast Michigan Great Lakes Stewardship Initiative)
- Eastern Michigan University (for the Southeast Michigan Stewardship Coalition)
- Grand Traverse Conservation District (for the Grand Traverse Stewardship Initiative)
- Grand Valley State University (for Groundswell)
- Michigan State University (for the GRAND Learning Network)
- Muskegon Area Intermediate School District (for the West Michigan Great Lakes Stewardship Initiative)
- University of Michigan–Flint (for Discovering PLACE)
- Western Upper Peninsula Center for Science, Mathematics and Environmental Education (for the Lake Superior Stewardship Initiative)
How does the GLSI engage schools and civic organizations?
The GLSI’s core strategies are place-based education, sustained professional development for K–12 teachers, and K–12 school-community partnerships. Grants are awarded to regional hubs that develop solid plans to bring these three components to life in their service areas. These hubs provide leadership, expertise, support for classroom teachers, and material and financial resources for the collaborative, community-based work of local organizations and K–12 students, teachers, and schools in their regions.
What is place-based education?
Place-based education (PBE), in which the local environment provides the context for teaching and learning, is one of three key components of the GLSI. PBE involves firsthand explorations of the local community that feature inquiry, discovery, and problem solving, all of which develop students’ academic skills and habits of mind. Students study real-world issues that are relevant to their own lives and to the lives of others who live nearby. We know that the GLSI is working when classes of students learn about an environmental topic or issue of importance, and work with one or more community organization to take action on it.
Does the instruction provided to students through the GLSI meet state education standards and guidelines?
Teaching and learning that takes place through the GLSI is aligned with the Michigan Merit Curriculum and Michigan’s grade level and content expectations.
How does place-based education promote academic achievement?
The use of place as a framework for teaching and learning is very compatible with student-centered, inquiry-based, cross-curricular teaching strategies that develop students’ abilities to think critically and apply subject-matter learning to real-world issues and problems. Teachers practicing robust place-based education through the GLSI and other efforts elsewhere in the nation say students are more engaged in learning, learn at deeper levels, and retain what they learn. The hands-on character of place-based education is embraced by some students who have difficulty in a traditional classroom, and also reinforces learning for those students who excel in a traditional learning environment.
What other benefits come from place-based education?
- Engagement in school and learning
One of the most universally recognized benefits of place-based education is that it engages students in school and in learning. This seems logical: learning is more relevant when it is organized around places and people students know, and when students can see how knowledge and skills in science, language arts, social studies, mathematics, and technology are needed in the daily life of the community. Further, when place-based learning opportunities allow students to deliver genuine benefit in the community, they take pride in those contributions.
- Stewardship
At a time when there is concern about young people being outdoors less, being physically inactive, and feeling alienated from their communities, the GLSI helps young people reconnect with the places where they live and become active environmental stewards.
- Mutually beneficial school-community partnerships
Place-based education is not just about where learning occurs; it draws on people in the community to share their knowledge and experience and to help connect young learners to viable on-the-ground stewardship needs. Teachers and students benefit from the knowledge in the community, and community members enhance their relationship with their local schools while helping to advance an ethic of environmental stewardship.