West Michigan GLSI Youth Symposium draws rave reviews
Restoring stream banks, reviving schoolyard habitats, and removing invasive species — these were among the yearlong student projects that were showcased during the 2009 West Michigan Great Lakes Stewardship Youth Symposium held in May at Muskegon Community College. Heralded as one of West Michigan’s best environmental success stories of the year, the symposium drew rave reviews and was featured in a story published by the Muskegon Chronicle.
The event, coordinated by the Muskegon Area Intermediate School District Regional Mathematics and Science Center, saluted the accomplishments of middle and high school students from Fruitport, Grant, Mona Shores, Montague, Newaygo, North Muskegon, Oakridge, and Whitehall. The symposium attracted West Michigan community partners, business and civic leaders, local government officials, and state policymakers, as well as teachers, administrators, and students from public and parochial schools in Muskegon, Newaygo, Oceana, and northern Ottawa counties.
“The aim was to foster environmental stewardship in the students by working with local agencies on crucial ecological issues,” said Dave Krebs, who directs the West Michigan GLSI. “These weren’t just classroom projects. Students made very significant contributions to their community while learning important academic content.”
LSSI students dive into Lake Superior stewardship efforts
The Lake Superior Stewardship Initiative (LSSI) has been hard at work helping 14 school-community teams to use Lake Superior and its watershed as a learning tool. A $175,000 continuation grant from the GLSI will fund additional collaborative, community-based projects. A previous grant supported a variety of projects, including organic gardens, beach cleanups, interpretive signage, nature trails, water and salamander monitoring, and other stewardship activities. Joan Chadde, Education Program Coordinator for the Western Upper Peninsula Center for Science, Mathematics and Environmental Education, noted that the GLSI grant will also provide sustained professional development for teachers on designing and implementing curricula that support school-community projects, place-based education, and academic learning.
“In the past year and a half, we were able to provide schools with up to $8,000 each for their projects,” explained Shawn Oppliger, who co-directs the LSSI with Chadde. “Our GLSI grant funds the school-community projects, professional development programs for the teachers, and two stewardship advisors who work closely with teams of teachers in school buildings. We work on many fronts to help teachers develop and implement projects and associated classroom-based instruction.”
Students at Calumet-Laurium-Keweenaw Elementary School, for example, worked during the spring with community partners to create a garden “to connect students with the source of their food,” said Lloyd Wescoat, an LSSI staff member. “The garden is 100 percent organic; the students did not use pesticides and fertilizer because of potential impacts on Lake Superior, and instead created their own compost to naturally fertilize the garden.”
To date, the LSSI has reached about 1,100 students and 50 teachers in 14 school buildings in Houghton and Baraga counties.
Detroit students team with homeless to turn old tires into new hope
Turning scrap rubber into riches was all in a day’s work for 22 seventh-grade students and their teachers from Hope of Detroit Academy under a GLSI project that helped restore pride and improve public health in a southwest Detroit neighborhood.
The middle school youths collected old tires from some of Detroit’s worst dumping sites in May and partnered with Detroit’s Department of Public Works to truck the tires to Cass Community Social Services for conversion into new residential doormats. Homeless citizens taught students about the transformation process and helped decorate the finished products. The doormats were then sold and the proceeds went to benefit the homeless.
The project was part of the Southeast Michigan Stewardship Coalition’s efforts to improve K–12 education and protect the environment by having students use place-based education to study the local ecology and related issues in their communities, including Dearborn, Detroit, Lincoln Park, Pontiac, and Troy.
The students’ contribution was highlighted in a story broadcast by ABC TV affiliate WXYZ Channel 7 and lauded by civic leaders and educators alike.
“We are protecting our environment and clearing our land, while teaching an extremely valuable lesson to the children,” said Maria Salinas of the Southwest Detroit Environmental Vision program, a GLSI community partner. “The lessons they are learning today will lead to the sustainability of our environment in the future.”
The GRAND Learning Network hooks students on fish habitats
The end of April proved to be a very exciting time for Ralya Elementary School in Haslett. The school’s 375 students took turns fishing for bluegill and bass while learning about watershed preservation and local ecology.
This activity is provided by the GRAND Learning Network, a local organization that seeks to improve science education through hands-on awareness activities regarding environmental challenges. The GRAND Learning Network is a regional GLSI hub located at Michigan State University’s Department of Community, Agriculture, Recreation and Resource Studies. To support the work on stewardship, Ralya Elementary School received $2,500, part of the GRAND Learning Network’s $200,000 grant from the GLSI.
Ralya used its grant to buy fishing equipment for the students and developed a two-week unit focused on fish habitats and the impact of water quality on various species of wildlife in the Great Lakes. Steve Blattert, a teacher at Ralya, said: “It’s place-based education—it’s learning about your community by studying in your community to benefit your community.” The school’s activities were profiled by four Lansing TV stations and the Lansing State Journal.