Hands-on interdisciplinary workshops are available for K-12 teachers. Most workshops are held at no cost to the teacher. When the District sponsors an open workshop, substitute reimbursement may be available for teachers who attend during school hours.
Workshops and training sessions can be designed for your school or school district as an in-service day or for early release training. Workshops can be tailored to interests of school based on available time. There is no expense for workshop materials, trainer's time and some of the workshop guidebooks.
- Air to Earth, Grades 5 -8
- CSI: Compost Science Investigation, Grades K-3
- Food, Land and People, Grades PreK-12
- Growing Up WILD, Grades PreK-3
- Leopold Education Project, Grades 6-12
- Make the Connection to Climate Change, Grades 6-8
- Project WET (Water Education for Teachers), Grades K-12
- Project WILD, Grades K-12
- Science and Civics, Grades 9-12
- Talkin’ Trash with Aluminum Beverage Cans, Grades 6-9
- Windows On Waste (WOW), Grades 3-6
- Workshop on Wheels, Grades K-12
Teacher Inservices are available and can be brought to the school or organized at an outside location. Inservices can be workshop offerings above or focus on a topic area such as household hazardous waste, recycling, natural resources, energy and many more. The time would involve teaching hands-on activities in one topic area to teachers.
Upcoming Workshops and Presentations
Science in Action!
This class will introduce fun, developmentally appropriate activities related to composting/decomposition, hazardous substances, litter and recycling that can be incorporated into your science curriculum. Adaptable to both preschool and school age programs. Instruction and materials supported by Cuyahoga County Solid Waste District.
Thurs. March 4, 2010
6:30p.m.-8:30p.m.
2 hrs
$10
Contact: Beverly McGlamery, Adult Education Department, Polaris Career Center
440-891-7697, bmcglame@polaris.edu
|
Click here for other Environmental Educator Workshop Offerings.
Learn the background of our Education Specialist.
Air to Earth, Grades 5 and 8
Minimum hours: 2
This resource kit created by NIKE, Inc. and Eco Educators provides ready-to-use lesson plans and supplemental hands-on materials to teach about the environment, conserving resources and sharing responsibility for sustainable communities. Students explore science, math, social studies, language, economics, visual arts and citizenship. The six lessons are based on NAAEE Project 2061's Benchmarks for science literacy and the National Science Education Standards. Free resource kit.
CSI: Compost Science Investigation, Grades K-3
Minimum hours: 1.5 hours
The Compost Science Investigation is a series of activities where student’s observe and experiment to learn about the process of composting. The five lessons can be used together or separately to compliment current classroom activities. The lessons meet science and social science indicators. The workshop can be done for a half or whole day depending if a tour is involved.
|
CSI Workshop at Rosby Resource Recovery and Farm |
| |
|
"Com-post" Workshop held at the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo |
Food, Land & People, Grades PreK-12
Minimum hours: 6 hours
FLP is an interdisciplinary, supplementary education program with 55 lessons for educators and students to better understand the interrelationships among agriculture, the environmental and the people of the world. The lessons contain enough background information, teaching aids and methodology to be taught without the need for additional support.
|
Teachers are trying out the two different activities in the guidebook. |
Growing Up WILD, Grades PreK-3
Minimum hours: 3 hours
This is the Project WILD's early childhood education activity guide. It builds on the learning styles and interests of young children to foster an interest and appreciation of wildlife and the natural world around them. A variety of activities build positive impressions of nature while aiding children's cognitive growth and development. It is correlated to the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) Standards and the Head Start Domains. $12 for the book with no additional fees for supplies and support materials.
Leopold Education Project, Grades 5-12
Minimum hours: 4
The Leopold Education Project (LEP) is an interdisciplinary, critical thinking, conservation and environmental education guidebook. LEP is designed to compliment the Sand County Almanac Essays, a famous literary work by Aldo Leopold. It contains 22 activities based on essays from Part I, the "Almanac." The activities connect students to the environment and develop responsible environmental values; thus, improving their decisions that impact the earth.
Make the Connection to Climate Change, Grades 6-8
Expand your teaching to take care of our earth. Educators will gain knowledge and learn activities that will provide insight to climate change and lead students to live more sustainable lifestyles. Activities deal with energy, carbon cycle, carbon footprint, solutions, etc... We will be using Facing the Future's Climate Change: Connections and Solutions, which provides a two-week interdisciplinary unit for middle school. This session offers information, resources and hands-on activities.
Project WET (Water Education for Teachers), Grades K-12
Minimum hours: 6
Project WET is an international, interdisciplinary, water education program with over 90 indoor and outdoor activities covering the broad range of water issues. All Project WET and WILD lessons correlate to Ohio Education indicators.
|
Teachers learn about watersheds inside and outside of the classroom. |
Project WILD, Grades K-12
Minimum hours: 6
This is a interdisciplinary conservation and environmental education program emphasizing wildlife. Over 100 activities in the guidebook. All Project WET and WILD lessons correlate to Ohio Education indicators.
|
|
On a hot fall day, teachers are testing the water, collecting macro-invertebrates
and learning about stream wildlife. |
Science and Civics, Grades 9-12
Minimum 3 hours
This is a Project WILD program and is project based. The guide helps teens and young adults make decisions so people, wildlife and the community benefit. A science and social studies teacher can team up to conduct the activities, which prepare the students to organize and implement a local environmental project.
Talkin’ Trash With ABCs, Grades 6-9
No minimum hours
Talkin' Trash With Aluminum Beverage Cans is a middle school environmental activity guidebook from the Can Manufacturing Institute. It contains ten hands-on activities that help present and future generations approach environmental and scientific dilemmas and social concerns creatively and proactively. Activities will develop critical-thinking skills while addressing science, social studies, math and language arts indicators.
|
Students demonstrate the can swat game. |
Windows On Waste (WOW), Grades 3-6
Minimum hours: 2
The Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) guidebook provides 36 activities organized in fourteen units on solid waste and environmental issues. Activities pertain to real world environmental issues that the student can participate in solving. Each activity includes background information, objectives, learner centered inquiry approaches, procedures, assessments, extensions and student worksheets. The activities meet indicators for science, math, social studies and language arts. Free guidebook.
|
|
As an icebreaker, teachers are guessing which compost critter they have on their back. |
The facilitator is explaining that trash causes problems for the environment during a
WOW workshop. |
| |
|
|
|
A landfill can be good to eat if its out of food. Here a teacher adds the methane pipe to her almost complete landfill. |
Teachers are finding green recipes instead of using chemicals to clean the house. |
Workshop on Wheels, Grades K-12
Hours vary based on field trips.
This is a workshop on the move, so teachers watch a landfill, material recovery facility, compost facility or paper factory in operation. Teachers will learn where garbage and recyclables go. A chartered bus will take teachers to field trip sites. Activities and videos are incorporated during travel to be used in classroom. Tours can include a variety of recycling businesses and green buildings.
| |
This recycling road trip traveled to a recycle center and compost site to see recycling in action. |
Other Environmental Educator Workshop Offerings
Polaris Adult Education Child Care In-service
Instructor Biography
Kathleen M. Rocco has been known as a camp counselor, riding instructor, camp director, environmental educator and mentor to children and adults for more than fifteen years. Indirect titles given in the above jobs include fire starter, storyteller, toilet cleaner, dish washer, table mover, finder of lost items, flagger, greeter, cook, peace maker, salary calculator, nurse, tree hugger and motivator. For five summer seasons and four years, Kathleen worked for YMCAs in Ohio, Michigan, New York and Delaware building children's self esteem and their knowledge about the outdoors and the environment.
Kathleen has completed a Masters of Environmental Studies through The Institute of Environmental Sciences from Miami University and a Bachelor of Science in Biology from the University of Dayton. Her favorite courses during college and graduate school were hands-on learning experiences studying ecology in the Florida Keys, Sapelo Island Georgia, Lake Erie, Smokey Mountains and Costa Rica, and a year long public service project on preserving green space along the Four Mile Creek Corridor. As a teaching intern for Sterling College's Southwest Field Program, Kathleen learned first hand about how experiential education deepens learning for adults through taste, touch, smell, sight, hearing and sweat. The group traveled for ten weeks camping and learning about Southwest ecology and culture and water and land management in Texas, Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado.
Since October of 2000, Kathleen has been the Education Specialist for the Cuyahoga County Solid Waste District, where she teaches students and the general public about recycling and environment. She has visited more than 1,309 classrooms or groups sharing an environmental message with over 69,429 students and adults. As a teacher trainer, Kathleen has conducted many teacher workshops and presentations reaching over 520 teachers. "Start Students Recycling" is her first publication for the District, while she has revised "Teaching the Loop" and "Teachin' Trash." She contributes stories to the quarterly newsletter called Trash Talk, which reaches 7,000 students in 30 schools across Cuyahoga County.
School Recycling Mini-Grant Program
