Festivals / Fairs

Apollo High School - St Cloud

High school students observed, tested and evaluated objective data to determine the quality of three local waterways in the St. Cloud area. Results were shared with elementary students as well as St. Cloud State University.
Contact: Erich Ziegler

Five Hawks Elementary - Prior Lake

Jeffers Foundation made its first grant to the Five Hawks Elementary School in Prior Lake, MN. The school had been planning a water festival and came up short of cash to pull everything together. Jeffers offered to cover the shortfall and the Big Splash Water Festival became a reality. It represents in a very real way what Jeffers Foundation wishes to accomplish, education of elementary age children in sound principles of environmental stewardship. Water festivals are a great vehicle for bringing important environmental concepts home to kids and for productive partnerships.
Contact: Tim Bell, Principal Five Hawks Website

Harding High School - St. Paul

Earth Club students sponsored a year-long watershed education program culminating in a canoe trip through the St. Paul chain of lakes and a Water Festival held at Phalen Park on May 19, 2007.
Contact: Jill Danner, Earth Club Advisor

Orono Intermediate School - Long Lake

Students explored woodlands at Baker Park and gathered scientific data, wrote journal entries, read stories about woodlands and created artwork related to their discoveries. All projects were then displayed at their Heart of the Earth Festival held in May of 2007.
Contact: Jo-Anne Kirkman

Pilgrim Lane Elementary - Plymouth

Pilgrim Lane Elementary hosted an Environmental Quality Fair on March 7, 2007 with over 30 exhibitors. Prior to the fair, teachers and a naturalist from Three Rivers Park District developed environmental education lessons appropriate for each grade level. Students participated in field trips to the district nature center, and effort is being made to promote waste reduction and water quality programs in Plymouth.
Contact: Randy Moberg

River Keepers - Moorhead/Fargo

As part of the Red River Project, the Red River Water Festival was held in Moorhead during March of 2007, with over 1,600 fourth grade students from surrounding schools attending. The festival is a hands-on, fun-filled learning opportunity designed to increase student awareness and knowledge of water.
Contact: Bob Backman, Executive Director

Sioux Trail Elementary - Burnsville

Sioux Trail Elementary Environmental Club sponsored a year long "Outdoor Celebration" designed to help students appreciate the many activities available in the winter months. Students built bird feeders to observe the winter birds, constructed coffee can survival kits, participated in snowshoeing, ice fishing and several other winter activities.
Contact: Patricia Mosey

City of Plymouth - Plymouth

The city of Plymouth holds an annual Environmental Quality Fair at a different elementary school each year, which has been very successful in helping to promote environmental knowledge for both students and families. The city has collaborated with the Robbinsdale and Wayzata school districts to assure the success of this program. A Power Point presentation is available on "How to Start a Program."
Contact: Margie Vigoren, EE Coordinator

St. David's Child Development

The St. David's Fall Festival is a community-wide event designed to increase environmental awareness and appreciation of School Forest, Wetland and Watershed. The program involves over 300 Pre-school – Grade 5 students.
Contact: Terri Hokanson, Director

East Bethel/Cedar Creek Community Schools

East Bethel and Cedar Creek have developed and implemented a "Four Seasons of Water" project for Grades 3-6. Students participate in water-related activities throughout the year. A Water Festival is held in the fall and a Water Fair in the spring.
Contact: Pamela Beecham / Abbie Case

Food Waste Reduction / Recycling Programs

Eagle Bluff Environmental Learning Center - Lanesboro

Eagle Bluff has published a Food Waste in Schools Elimination Handbook entitled "Get FoodWise". It is a "how to" guide for implementing a program in any school or site.
Contact: Sara Sturgis, Education Director

Prior Lake Schools

PLSAS has implemented a food waste recycling program in all schools in the district utilizing services of a hog farmer to dispose of food waste. Each classroom/office has paper, glass, aluminum, and plastic recycling containers. In the elementary schools, the students run the recycling programs.
Contact: EE Coordinator's Webpage

Garlough Environmental Magnet School

Garlough is a K-4 school with the goal of becoming a "model" green school with classroom and cafeteria composting, plus school-wide programs to recycle, reduce, and reuse. Plans are to expand to other schools in the district during the 2008-2009 school year.
Contact: Susan Powell, Principal

H.B. Stowe Elementary

For over 13 years, Stowe has been a leader in Minnesota in food waste reduction. Their cafeteria uses only reusable food containers, utensils and napkins. They also operate a worm bin composting program in conjunction with their food waste reduction program. Funded by a 2008-2009 Jeffers Foundation Grant, they are working to develop a K-5 curriculum following the hierarchy of cognitive development presented in Bloom's New Taxonomy.
Contact: Terry Cottingham, Principal

Curriculum Projects

Pine City Elementary - Pine City

Jeffers Funds were used for a year-long follow-up and review of the science curriculum that culminating in a staff workshop in August 2007. The goal was to educate and stimulate teachers in ways that will ultimately broaden the science and environmental education of students.
Contact: Candice M. Ames

Prior Lake/Savage Schools

EE lessons are integrated into the core science curriculum utilizing curriculum maps and framework allowing for easier implementation for K-5 staff. They are then highly encouraged to use the provided replacement lessons and optional lessons that integrate EE into other core curricula.
Contact: EE Coordinator's Webpage

Glendale Elementary School

Glendale Elementary teachers have collaborated with an EE specialist to develop curriculum guides for grades K-5 entitled "Bringing the Classroom Outdoors". Curriculum is available on Glendale website.
Contact: Sam Richardson, Principal

H.B. Stowe Elementary - Duluth

Stowe has developed an energy curriculum for grades K-5. Titled E=MC2 (Energy Education = Motivating Children’s Curiosity). This curriculum is designed to help students understand our uses of energy and sustainable practices to help conserve energy.
Contact: Terry Cottingham, Principal

North Shore Community School

North Shore Community has developed a K-6 Environmental Education curriculum which addresses multidisciplinary Minnesota academic standards, is based upon environmentally-integrated curriculum (EIC) strategies, and includes activities to be taught by teachers, environmental educators and/or community partners.
Contact: Jamie Zak, Environmental Educator

Summer Programs

Albert Lea Community Education

"Experiential Edventures Silent Water Project". Using kayaks and canoes, 5th & 6th grade students explore the waterways in the Albert Lea area. Students learn about the many ways water affects their lives and learn ways how they can help to preserve this valuable resource.
Contact: Chris Chalmer, CE Director

McGregor Community Education

McGregor Community Education has sponsored the Big Sandy Water Institute for the past several summers. They have developed an Implementation Manual using Power Point that can be used by other school districts interested in conducting an EE summer program.
Contact: Lisa Kruse, CE Director - Big Sandy Water Institute Program

Orono Community Education

Big Island Institute is a unique environmental summer day camp located on Big Island on Lake Minnetonka. Students explore the island, observe the nature phenology and are involved in an in-depth study of the land, water, animals and plants of the island. The goal of the program is to educate and inspire youth to be future stewards of our environment.
Contact: Melanie DeLuca, CE Director

Higher Ed Partners

University of Minnesota - Morris

The University sponsored a sustainability festival called Plan-It-Green (PIG). PIG targeted fifth and sixth grade students in the Morris area, involving them in hands-on activities and demonstrations in the areas of renewable energy, recycling, conservation, consumer choices, sustainability and environmental stewardship.
Contact: Tom Mahoney

St. Catherine's University

EcoSTARS (Students, Teachers and Real Science) is a collaboration between K-12 schools in the district and (St. Catherine University) following the professional development model. It provides opportunities for pre-service teachers to create and present experiential environmental lessons and get valuable classroom management experience under the guidance of experienced classroom teacher/mentors.

Prior Lake/Savage Schools

EE Program Coordinator

Prior Lake/Savage is the only school district in the state to have a full time Environmental Education Coordinator and a full time Naturalist on staff. Both positions have been funded through a five-year grant from Jeffers Foundation. Every component of their EE program is funded through grants and donations from several organizations and entities.
Contact: Cara Rieckenberg, District EE Coordinator - EE Coordinator's Webpage

All-School Festivals

School festivals are conducted in a variety of ways in multiple schools throughout the school year. Some schools focus on one-day festivals where the whole school participates under an umbrella EE related theme while other schools integrate EE learning days with other themes such as "Literacy Night" or "I Love to Read". Some schools conduct EE field days that are grade-specific led by the classroom teachers while other schools conduct cross-grade level festivals conducted by specialists.

Integrated EE Curriculum

EE lessons are integrated into the core science curriculum utilizing curriculum maps and framework allowing for easier implementation for K-5 staff. They are then highly encouraged to use the provided replacement lessons and optional lessons that integrate EE into other core curricula.

Summer Programs

Collaborating with PLSAS Community Education, four-day summer Eco-Adventure camps are offered to the students in the community and beyond. Projects WET, Wild, Learning Tree and MnAqua curriculua are used to create themed camps for elementary, middle school and Pre-K age groups.

EcoSTARS

EcoSTARS (Students, Teachers and Real Science) is a collaboration between K-12 schools in the district and (St. Catherine University) following the professional development model. It provides opportunities for pre-service teachers to create and present experiential environmental lessons and get valuable classroom management experience under the guidance of experienced classroom teacher/mentors.

Staff Development

Multiple EE staff development opportunities are offered through the district staff development office. Early release day programs, district day presentations and after school workshops are conducted on a regular basis allowing for the PLSAS staff to gain content and confidence in EE instruction.

ECOTIME - Integrating Environmental Education

A small group of PLSAS K-5 classroom teachers meet on a monthly basis to create greetings, activities, and interactive pieces for news & announcements charts that contain an element of EE instruction. Each ‘moment’ contains an objective, simple directions, background information, activities and correlations to MDE K-6 academic standards.

Outdoor Classrooms

PLSAS has made a concerted effort to designate specific areas at each K-12 school site devoted to outdoor learning such as school forests; boulder, butterfly, and native plant gardens; prairies; wetlands; and ponds.
Outdoor Classroom Curriculum