WVFA Mountain State Forestry Fall 2020

P R O J E C T L E A R N I N G T R E E 22 West Virginia Forestry Association Mountain State Forestry  | Fall 2020 www.wvfa.org GreenSchools Educating the next generation about environmental issues and providing them with the skills they need to make well- informed, responsible decisions is crucial to conserving the natural world and ensuring a sustainable future for us all. Project Learning Tree ® (PLT) is a nationwide environmental education program designed for teachers and other educators, parents, and community leaders working with youth from Pre-K through grade 12. PLT teaches students how to think, not what to think about complex environmental issues, and develops critical-thinking and problem- solving skills. In all parts of the country, PLT brings together education and natural resource partners with a common purpose—helping children learn. Our local delivery model provides professional development, high- quality supplementary curriculum materials tied to state standards, and a robust service-learning program. West Virginia is no stranger to this practice. Training over 300 formal and non-formal educators annually provides materials that impact over 10,000 students annually. Growing Student Leaders PLT believes that if all students—urban, suburban, and rural—interact with and connect to the environment in their own neighborhood, this foundation leads students to feel empowered to make a difference in their communities. PLT doesn’t therefore just increase student awareness of environmental issues through classroom studies. It helps students “learn by doing.” As funding permits, Project Learning Tree, through the Sustainable Forestry Initiative’s Community Grants Program, offers grants to support student-led environmental action projects—both in schools and communities across the country. Over the years, PLT grants have helped hundreds of thousands of elementary, middle, high school, and college students plant trees, design outdoor classrooms, create gardens, remove invasive species, restore natural habitats, improve watersheds, construct interpretive hiking trails, start recycling and composting programs, implement energy conservation projects, and more! These projects help youth realize their own opportunity and responsibility for making change wherever they see the need. Giving Youth a Voice In addition, PLT’s GreenSchools program helps students create greener and healthier schools— and save their schools money! More than 4,000 schools, many of whom serve diverse and underserved populations, participate in the program that gives youth a voice, and engages students in applying STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math). Many of these schools have gone on to receive national recognition with the federal Department of Education’s Green Ribbon Award. At the heart of PLT GreenSchools is a set of investigations that provide a blueprint for students to investigate their school’s energy use, waste and recycling, water consumption, school site, and environmental quality (such as indoor air quality, school transportation, and use of chemicals). Using the results of their investigations, teams select, design, and implement action projects, and measure the improvements. The program develops youth leaders and gives students ownership of the projects they lead to green their school. West Virginia has a handful of schools that take part in the GreenSchools program. It is easy to get started and just by signing up, your school can become involved in hands-on student learning. NOTE: The following is a continuation of the Project Learning Tree article from the summer edition.