Environmental Education Network |
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GREEN is an innovative, action-oriented approach to education, based on an interdisciplinary watershed education model. GREEN's mission is to improve education through a global network that promotes watershed sustainability. It is a resource to schools and communities that wish to study their watershed and work to improve their quality of life.
GREEN works closely with business, government, community, and educational organizations across the United States and Canada, and with GREEN Country Coordinators in 135 countries around the globe to support local efforts in watershed education and sustainability.
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One GREEN student described to her father the adverse impacts of allowing his livestock direct access to the stream. He agreed to buy fencing material if she would help him build a fence. They proceeded to build the fence adjacent to the stream and followed up by planting trees and shrubs to establish a riparian corridor. |
GREEN publishes a newsletter twice yearly, coordinates watershed-wide and global on-line computer conferences and mailing lists via EcoNet, connects classrooms internationally in cross cultural partnerships, develops and disseminates educational materials, and provides training to teachers, students, businesses, government, and community groups.
GREEN Watershed Education Model
In
association with various partners, GREEN is committed to improving
the field of education through the development of new methods for
watershed analysis and new models for effective
teaching.
The GREEN educational model involves the synthesis of content and process. Classroom activities revolve around two key content areas: 1) water quality monitoring, and 2) understanding changes and trends within the whole watershed.
The watershed-wide perspective is critical, since changes in the watershed inevitably have impacts on water quality. In many GREEN programs, the sharing of data and other perspectives between separate schools within a watershed is facilitated by computer networking. In all GREEN programs, students are encouraged to understand their role in a sustainable society, and to consider the options for resolving issues that they have uncovered in their studies and investigations.
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Students at North Farmington High School near Detroit detected elevated levels of bacterial contamination down river from a pipe exiting a City sewage pumping station. They presented their findings to the City Engineer, who acted quickly to repair the malfunctioning pump. |
Global Network Goals
- To promote watershed programs that are based on sound scientific analysis, values, and action.
- To support community-based education through local and regional partnership initiatives.
- To develop model educational programs aimed at enhancing or reforming teaching strategies and learning at the local level.
- To create an educational environment in which empowerment for responsible environmental behavior can occur.
- To provide leadership in the application of systems thinking research to enhance school and community-based watershed education.
- To enhance communication and cooperation through a global network that promotes collaborative ties within and between communities.
- To provide mechanisms for greater accumulation of and access to baseline environmental information on a national and global scale.
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GREEN's "Learning Communities for a Sustainable Future in the Willamette Valley" is a planning project for teachers, administrators, business leaders, governmental leaders, and other community members in Oregon's Willamette Valley, for the purpose of initiating a framework for sustainable development education strategies throughout the basin. |
A More Caring and Sustainable World
Currently, educational professionals in Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, Middle East, North America, and Oceania (representing 135 nations) are part of the GREEN network. By linking schools around the globe with instructional materials, newsletters, an international computer network, and cross cultural partnerships, GREEN involves students in an action-oriented approach to education that links cultures and helps to build a more caring and sustainable world for all inhabitants.
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A local business man working with Project del Rio, an international GREEN program that links schools along the U.S.- Mexico border, is convinced that the GREEN model is "exactly the kind of program that enables a community to participate in the preservation and restoration of its environment." |
History of GREEN
The impetus for GREEN began in the spring of 1984 with a group of concerned students at a high school located along the polluted Huron River in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Their teacher contacted Dr. William Stapp and other educators at the University of Michigan, and together they developed a comprehensive educational program called GREEN. The character of this program was shaped by the work of such renowned educational thinkers as John Dewey, Kurt Lewin, Stephen Kemmis, Jerome Bruner, and Paulo Freire.
The program quickly grew; experiences and insights gained in three years of work with schools along the Huron River set the stage for an expanded program on the Rouge River in 1987-part of an effort to improve education and the environment in the broader Detroit metropolitan area.
The educational model moved to other watersheds around the Great Lakes in the U.S. and Canada. As the program expanded nationally and then internationally, other components were added: community partnerships, computer telecommunications, cross cultural opportunities, and integration of GREEN's initiatives across all curricular areas to form a comprehensive program on watershed sustainability.