Jurisdictional Breakout Reports Chesapeake Bay Education Summit December 16, 2003

1. Jurisdictional Breakout ReportsChesapeake Bay Education SummitDecember 16, 2003 District of Columbia Maryland Pennsylvania Virginia

2. District of Columbia Report from Breakout Session

3. DC: Goals • Educate key DCPS administrators about the meaningful bay experience • Forge a partnership with DCPS integrating bay education into curricula • Provide a variety of teacher-training opportunities • Correlate watershed education curriculums to the DCPS Standards for Teaching and Learning • Provide opportunities for participation in restoration projects • Develop a Schoolyard Re-greening program • Engage school-aged youth in a variety of meaningful bay experiences • Seek new sources of funding • Provide supplies and resources to teachers • Develop and maintain a database

4. DC: Program Challenges • Getting teachers out of classroom (having trouble getting substitute teachers; Stat-9 Testing—teachers need to be in classroom with students) • Morale and budget cuts • Getting more and different teachers involved • Communication through school system • Early deadlines and many complexities forgetting students out on field trips.

5. DC: Program Challenges Cont. • Need more teacher training workshops • Difficult to get teachers to commit to longer summer training sessions without stipends. • Help people recognize how EE programs address standards. • Need to show how EE programs/outdoor experiences are multi-disciplinary and address literacy (can address that by providing children’s literature or lists of lit.).

6. DC: What More Can be Done? • Solving problems and developing projects on school grounds if students can’t get out to Bay. • Using computers, other technological means to connect students to Bay. • Help students understand how what they do at home and school affects their home watershed and the Bay. • Better, more concentrated outreach to teachers to alert them of programs.

7. DC: What More Can be Done? • Get list of all science teachers and their schools • Put flyers in teachers’ mailboxes (rather than through the mail) • Work through the service learning requirements • A few schools have an agriculture and natural resources academy. Work through them. • Teachers teaching/mentoring teachers

8. DC: Tracking • Some teachers go to other countries for training (through USDA) and come back and write curriculum. EE providers should work with these teachers. • Web-based database (GMU has students who develop web pages for groups) • Put Meaningful Bay Exp. Goals on Pacing Charts

9. DC: Where do we Need Extra Help? • Someone to talk to teachers in every school • Superintendent has meeting for principals and administrators every month. Try to get on her agenda. • Explaining to teachers the link between EE and improved learning and standards • Getting Board of Education to mandate Meaningful Bay Experience.

10. DC: What do Teachers Need? • To know about programs and what they can provide. Address this by providing pamphlet that defined meaningful Bay experience and a list of provider groups and what they do. Get partners to provide write-up of what they do.

11. DC: Next Steps • High turnover means we need to reintroduce ourselves • Develop timeline to implement suggestions • Prioritize steps • Learn organizational structure of school system and talk to people at each level • Outreach to teachers and administration so they know what we’re doing • Work with other existing programs such as camp at Catoctin

12. Maryland Report of Breakout Session

13. Maryland: Goals • High performing, environmentally literate students • At least one MBE for every student in elementary, middle and high school • Prepared teachers with effective instructional programs • Create schools that implement best environmental practices

14. Maryland: Challenges • Identifying gaps as well as overlaps (e.g. Baltimore City) • Teachers don’t know about MBE/ Principals don’t know about value of MBE • Better job of marketing • Individual projects not seen as part of larger MBE • Classroom component of MBE often lacking • Expanding focus from just Federal $ to state, local and private $

15. Maryland: Strengths • There are many programs in action (Summit, MAEOE, etc.) • MD is using the seed money to help “ignite” programs in the counties • MD has infrastructure for field experiences • MD has infrastructure for student action pieces

16. Maryland: We need help with … • Non-profits: how to fill in gaps with school programs • Tracking: finding the gaps in program delivery • Improving ChesSIE, marketing ChesSIE • Teachers need peer-reviewed education materials to know what works • Marketing - Highlight what MBE would look like, including specific activity options • Searching for funding to fill gaps

17. Maryland: Next Steps • Keep continued professional development • Marketing MBE • Tracking • Quality Control • Developing political support • Matching $ with the right place

18. Maryland: Next Steps • Match schools with partners • Help groups hook up with schools • More matching state, federal, local and private $

19. Pennsylvania Report from Breakout Session

20. Pennsylvania: Goals • Use Standards of Learning to implement the meaningful Bay experience (MBE) • Train facilitators to in turn train teachers • Act 48 • Partner with organizations that have Act 48 providership

21. Pennsylvania: Goals • Teachers write implementation plan for use in classroom • Support it with small grants • Institutionalize Environmental Education track in teacher prep. Programs in Universities

22. Pennsylvania: Challenges • Get teachers to take classes out to streams • Resistance from administration (liability issues) • Some teacher resistance • Make the connection from local to “Bay” • Inverse also a challenge (remember Headwater states are part of the watershed) • $$! • Fitting MBE into an already full curriculum

23. Pennsylvania: Challenges • Tracking • Need to sell MBE better • Perceptions of Environmental Education • “Warm and fuzzy” • Opposite also true: hostility toward kids of farmers in schools

24. Pennsylvania: Strengths • Curriculum and standards • Current curriculum goes well with MBEs • Standards: Environment and Ecology, Science and Technology • Funding does exist • Strong partnerships • Mini-grants programs • Growing Greener program ($650 million over 5 years)- PA state funding • Bay education has attracted attention of state and federal legislatures

25. Pennsylvania: Strengths • Nature of EE and MBE is conducive to learning and stewardship • Formal EE makes us more aware of environmental issues • Easy to promote the MBE as an experiential experience • A lot is already being done (even though it’s not all being recorded.)

26. Pennsylvania: Strategy • Resources ($, people) • Take advantage of existing resources • Tweak, redirect, target already existing funds • Make good use of grant-funded watershed restoration projects • Gain additional funds • Look to private sector for local programs • Federal, state, non-governmental • Harness energy from community retirees

27. Pennsylvania: Strategy • Coordination • Coordinate across programs and curriculum lines • Use master facilitators for coordination • Focus on tracking

28. Pennsylvania: Strategy • Packaging: Selling the meaningful Bay experience • Cross-curricular approach • Tie MBE into existing materials/ standards • Make sure service providers are aware they need to tie programs into standards • Tie it into No Child Left Behind, PSSA (English, math, ESL, special needs students) • Emphasize that it improves student achievement

29. Virginia Report from Breakout Session

30. Virginia: Major Programs • Virginia Science Standards • Virginia Classroom Grants • On-the-Water & Field Programs • CBF, Envirothon, SWCD days • Virginia Naturally Model Schools • Professional Development programs • WET, WILD, PLT, EIC, Bay Academy • Outdoor Classrooms Project

31. Virginia: Challenges • Tracking progress - mechanism • Predictable funding stream • Stature & role of formal ed in Bay program • Training NR personnel • Maintaining existing programs • Administrative support • Program development, coordination, evaluation, marketing • Technical Support

32. Virginia: Accomplishments • Department of Education Partnership • Curricular Resources • Professional Development • Direct Support for MWEE

33. Virginia: Strategies • Tracking progress • Standardize tracking • Market to principals • More pass-through $ to school divisions for coordinated approach (v. 1 teacher 1 class) • Better menu of MBE to distribute to schools with detailed lists of where, what & when • Develop Web page for potential MBEs

34. Virginia: Strategies • Partnerships • Collaborate between existing users so schools know opportunities • Coordination with more River organizations • Roundtables with nonprofits, SWDC • Partner with VA DCR • Use Gateways to get people more involved • Develop science & education guide to bridge gap between science and educators

35. Virginia: Strategies • Funding • Present classroom programs to private businesses for funding • Market programs to schools and create demand at the local level so Congress will give more $ • Coordinate grant writing to one major organization to distribute smaller amounts of $ to smaller, rural counties • Get state support for Elementary Act Amendment

36. Virginia: Strategies • Looking Ahead • Link K-12 MBE with college • Identify mandatory college environmental course • Need wish wish of how to get & deliver MBEs • Need 5 year plan • Workgroup looks at long range end game

37. Common Themes Some common points among reports from the Chesapeake Bay Watershed States’ breakout sessions

38. Common themes: Challenges • Getting teachers out of classrooms • Teacher & personnel training • Lack of funding, budget cuts, decreased morale • Tracking and finding who needs the MBE • Lack of administrative support (principals, etc.) • Other mandates (e.g., No Child Left Behind) • Need better marketing: Negative perceptions of Environmental Education (it’s fluff)

39. Common Themes: Strengths • Environmental Education can be integrated into states’ standards of learning • Good partnerships • There are existing sources of funding that could be more fully utilized • A lot is already being done!

40. Common Themes: Strategies • Funding • Look to opportunities in private sector • Take better advantage of existing resources • Coordinate grant writing/ distribution of small grants • Develop more political support • Evaluation/ Quality Control • Feedback from teachers and youth

41. Common Themes: Strategies • Marketing • Emphasize research that shows EE improves student achievement • Integrate MBE by marrying it with: • already existing state curriculum • standards of learning • federal mandates • Math and reading • Market to administrators/ principals

42. Common Themes: Strategies • Teacher training • Have teachers who receive training in turn train other teachers • Tracking • Standardize tracking • Create a detailed list of possible meaningful Bay experiences that teachers can reference

43. Common Themes: Next Steps • Looking to the Future • Create strategic plan (5 years) • Prioritize steps • Develop timeline to implement suggestions

44. Cooperation is the key! Together we CAN implement the meaningful Bay and stream outdoor experience for every school child in the watershed by 2005