Nurturing Teacher-Leaders for Advancement of Place-Based Great Lakes Stewardship Education in Mid-Michigan
Grant Type: 2007 Planning Grant
Project Duration: 6/13/07–10/25/07
Grant Amount: $17,143.67
Project Description
This project to plan for place-based stewardship education in the mid-Michigan, Grand River Watershed region engaged schools and community partners from four counties surrounding Lansing (Ingham, Eaton, Clinton and Shiawassee Counties). Five school districts were involved, ranging from urban (Lansing's Cavanaugh and Post Oak Elementary Schools), to a suburban school (Holt), a highly resourced school (Haslett), a rapidly suburbanizing district (Bath), and a rural school (Laingsburg). From August through October 2007, 86 people were convened to plan place-based Great Lakes Stewardship Education. The planning included these phases: 1) a "teacher leader" group of seven teachers involved in place-based stewardship education (PBSE); 2) a "think tank" of youth and their parents who have experienced PBSE; and 3) school-community partnership planning meetings for the region.
Project Outcome
Results included the following findings:
- Students and parents from all areas value place-based stewardship education.
- Participants identified watershed assets (natural capital) and community assets (social capital). Assets included headwaters areas and even urban riparian areas that have almost “wilderness” values, unique geological features (e.g., the “Ledges,” eskers), organizations that have contributed significant energies toward watershed improvement, diverse nature centers (Woldumar, Harris, Fenner, Bengel), local science experts (MDEQ, MDNR, consultants, retirees), and many more. One challenge is the public image of our rivers as highly degraded, or, even worse, public apathy.
- School-community participants prioritized these actions: professional development through workshops and a summer institute focused specifically on our watershed, involving numerous additional community partners, preparing a web-based tool to access water data and resource people for schools to tap, and sharing the progress of our work with media and with local funding partners.
- The largest barrier is the current climate in education that requires high stakes standardized and testing benchmarks, but this is surmountable.
The final result of this project was the submission of an Implementation Grant.