NH PLT Awarded $6,500 Grant from Lincoln Financial Foundation:Funds will support expansion of early childhood environmental education

NH PLT Awarded $6,500 Grant from Lincoln Financial Foundation:Funds will support expansion of early childhood environmental education

 5/5/11

NH Project Learning Tree is pleased to announce that it has been awarded a $6,500 grant from the Lincoln Financial Foundation. The grant will support NH Project Learning Tree’s expansion of early childhood environmental education across New Hampshire.

NH Project Learning Tree trains educators in Project Learning Tree®, the time-honored environmental education curriculum developed by the American Forest Foundation. The curriculum spans early childhood through grade 12. Over the next year, NH Project Learning Tree will conduct a “train the trainers” workshop that will focus on the early childhood curriculum. If you are interested in becoming a trained Project Learning Tree early childhood education facilitator, please contact NH Project Learning Tree at (603) 226-0160 or  .

Since its founding, Lincoln Financial Group has recognized that good corporate citizenship is intrinsic to its success. The company’s spirit of philanthropy led to the establishment of the Lincoln Financial Foundation in 1962 and has inspired a rich tradition of giving ever since. Today the company sets aside up to 2% of its pre-tax earnings to support charitable contributions in the communities where it maintain a strong business presence. In 2010, the Lincoln Financial family of companies donated more than $10 million to a wide variety of philanthropic endeavors throughout the United States. For more information, visit www.lfg.com.

“We recognize the importance of connecting children with nature,” said Byron Champlin, Lincoln Foundation’s Concord program officer. “NH Project Learning Tree has a long track record of introducing children to the natural environment and we’re excited to have the opportunity to help this organization expand its impact within the early childhood learning community.“

PLT School Receives “Go Greener” Grant!

PLT School Receives “Go Greener” Grant!

4/18/11

NH PLT partner, Bicentennial School in Nashua received a $500 “Go Greener” grant from the National Environmental Education Foundation! The school has been working hard to connect students to nature and reduce their environmental impact and now their efforts are being recognized nationally.  5th grade teacher and Green Team coordinator, Tanya Ackerman wrote up the nomination on behalf of the school.

NHPLT’s 3 year partnership with Bicentennial has been working with the entire school community to incorporate the natural world into their curriculum.  This has resulted in outdoor connections to every science unit, energy, water and waste audits, daily composting, and a school-wide effort to reduce energy consumption by “hitting the switch”!  The school also has a completely student-run recycling program to recycle paper, aluminum & plastic.  This year, Bicentennial held their 2nd annual “It’s Easy Being Green Yard Sale” to raise money to support the maintenance of their outdoor classroom space and other green efforts at the school.

What are you doing to GO GREEN?

New Outdoor Classroom Special Fund Celebrates Cowles’ Leadership

New Outdoor Classroom Special Fund Celebrates Cowles’ Leadership

3/23/11

NH Project Learning Tree is very pleased to announce the creation of a dedicated fund to celebrate the leadership of our outgoing Executive Director, Esther Cowles.   All proceeds will be used to sustain her commitment to programs that take kids outdoors to learn about the natural world.

There are many ways to measure PLT’s success.  For Esther—our founding Executive Director for 14 years—the best measure is when more kids spend time outdoors, investigating and improving their local environment.  These outdoor experiences demonstrate that PLT not only boosts teachers’ skills and knowledge, but it also gives them confidence and motivation to change the way they teach their students.

It is the Kindergarten class sorting leaves by shape and size, as they sit on stumps in the woods behind the school,

… fifth grade students learning about tree identification, wildlife habitat, and forest management at a field day that is part of PLT’s Walk in the Forest program,

… the eighth grade class studying invasive species, then removing oriental bittersweet from the border of the athletic field as part of a service learning project, or

… high school students inventorying the flora and fauna of a study plot and developing management strategies for the school forest.

Your investment in our Outdoor Classroom Special Fund celebrates Esther’s legacy of leadership and sustains her commitment to programs that take kids outdoors to learn.

To donate, you may mail a check or make a secure online contribution through Paypal using the “Support NHPLT” button to the left.  On the final screen to review and confirm your transaction, please use the “message” feature (in small print under your name) to designate your contribution to the Outdoor Classroom Special Fund.  If mailing a check, please designate your contribution in the memo line.

Diane St. Jean – 2010 Outstanding Educator of the Year

Diane St. Jean is a reading teacher at Barrington Middle School. She is passionate about bringing subjects together for her students and this fuels her commitment to environmental education and using PLT. After attending a one-day workshop in 2008, Diane participated in our yearlong program called a Forest for Every Classroom (FFEC).

Diane developed an interdisciplinary unit called Discovering and Valuing the Forest through Story and Experience during the FFEC program. She uses this unit to introduce her students to the Haley Forest on the school property, its ecology, and its past and present uses. She includes a lesson on nonhuman threats to the forest and uses literary texts that reflect human connections to forests.

 

This fall, Diane began the school year with her students exploring the school forest during a forest field day. All students participated and for some, it was their first time in the woods. Diane’s students will continue to study the Haley forest in different seasons over the course of the school year. At the end of the unit, students will take what they have learned and use technology to create public service announcements on forest threats, including invasive forest pests. Diane even plans to hold a “What’s Bugging the Forest?” film festival to exhibit all of the PSA’s that the students create.

Clearly, Diane is an outstanding educator. She is not afraid to step out of her own comfort zone and embrace the challenge of connecting middle school students with the outdoors. Her enthusiasm for learning in the outdoors is contagious and her students are responding. When asked how her students are benefiting from her forest unit, Diane says…

Virtually every student in Barrington has a forest like our school’s forest just beyond their backyard. It might be owned by their family or by a neighbor, but for the most part, it is accessible. I hope that they have been inspired to continue exploring on their own. Taking the kids into the woods and having it be an incredibly positive experience sets up the likelihood of (them) returning again and again.

7th Graders in Gilmanton Explore Nearby Ecosystem

7th Graders in Gilmanton Explore Nearby Ecosystem

11/23/10

In early September, Gilmanton science teacher Mary Fougere and her 7th grade students explored nearby Cogswell Mountain over two full days.  This experience allowed students to practice the skills of field scientists and to better understand their community.  Fougere credits recent training from NH Project Learning Tree and our partners for giving her the inspiration and confidence to undertake this ambitious effort.

Click here to read the full article

Susan Cox – 2010 National PLT Outstanding Educator of the Year

Susan Cox received one of five awards as a national outstanding PLT educator. Susan uses and supports PLT at many levels. She served on the NH Project Learning Tree board of directors in the late 1990s, helps to organize and train middle and high school teachers in the Forest for Every Classroom program, trains teachers across the state through the Building Vertical Science Literacy program, advises PLT initiatives at the national level, and is one of our most reliable and sought after workshop facilitators. She is both a thinker and a doer in her work. She helps us to think strategically about how to design our work to best meet teachers’ needs and then can be relied upon to do whatever she signs up to do with great aplomb. In her role as the Conservation Education Specialist for the Northeastern Area of USDA Forest Service, State and Private Forestry in Durham, Susan covers a twenty state region. Despite this large area, she makes us at NHPLT feel like we are her only concern! With an academic background in both forestry and adult education, she has the expertise to teach high level content knowledge in natural science, model field investigation skills, and inspire teachers to bring “real science” into the classroom. She is an integral member of our PLT team and our work is better by her involvement

NH Charitable Foundation Features PLT Program in Newsletter

NH Charitable Foundation Features PLT Program in Newsletter

9/1/10

Our partnership with Bicentennial Elementary School is featured in the centerspread of the spring/summer issue of Purpose, the NH Charitable Foundation’s biannual newsletter.  The foundation is providing $25,000 in grant support for our Connecting Schools to People and Place program through the Nashua Region and the Walker Fund.

Early Childhood Conferences Feature PLT’s New Guide

Early Childhood Conferences Feature PLT’s New Guide

8/30/10

Interested in learning more about PLT’s newly released early childhood curriculum?  Attend one of these upcoming conferences!

September 25:  3rd Annual Exploring a Sense of Place in Nature Conference, Live & Learn Early Learning Center in Lee, NH.  Our new guide will be featured in a three-hour workshop.  Participants may purchase the guide for $40 at the conclusion of the workshop.  For more information, go to http://www.live-learn.org/

October 16th:  Early Learning NH 2010 Conference, Southern NH University in Hooksett NH. Visit our exhibit at this terrific conference!  For more information, go to http://www.earlylearningnh.org/.

Just as more attention is being focused on the need to connect students to nature at a younger age, Project Learning Tree® releases a new curriculum guide and music CD to engage children ages 3 to 6 in outdoor exploration and play.  Eleven field-tested, hands-on activities showcase over 130 “early childhood experiences” which integrate investigations of nature with art, literature, math, music, and movement.  Early childhood educators and caregivers can obtain a copy of PLT’s Environmental Experiences for Early Childhood curriculum by attending a PLT professional development workshop in their area.

Workshops in this new guide for early childhood educators are also scheduled and filling fast.  Click on the event listings below and register today.