Four Issaquah School District teachers win enviro award
Published 5:44 pm Tuesday, January 12, 2010
The Pacific Education Institute (PEI) awarded four Issaquah teachers Project Learning Tree Outstanding Environment and Sustainability Educator Awards at the Dec. 7 school board meeting. The teachers were recognized for their work in environmental studies and their dedication and commitment to providing students with outdoor learning classrooms and service learning opportunities.
Sunny Hills Elementary teacher Jane Ulrich and Endeavour Elementary teachers Leslie Smith, Diane Parham, and Gabrielle Herring were recognized for their long history of working with environment and sustainability education, creating engaging hands-on environmental stewardship opportunities for their students, and for extending their classroom walls to include the outdoor world. All involved their school communities in their projects, published articles, and shared their successful lessons to support student achievement of state learning standards.
Ulrich developed a Millennium Garden of native plants and a forested path with viewing station on the Sunny Hills campus. Using scientific inquiry observing twigs in late winter, her students provided data for a national data bank. The state Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction will include the lesson on their Environment and Sustainability website and it is published in the Pacific Education Institute’s Field Investigation Guide. Meanwhile Smith, Parham, and Herring developed the bioswale outdoor classroom at Endeavour and received King County’s “Green Schools” award for the restoration project. By taking their teaching outdoors, their students get to enjoy hands-on lessons including frog lifecycles and habitat diversity, while their activities provide program and lesson models for other Washington state science teachers.
Since 2003, PEI has supported Washington state educators to deliver quality instruction in science, math, and social studies while integrating those lessons into environmental studies.
