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U.S. EPA GIVES ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION GRANTS IN CALIFORNIA

Release Date: 4/20/1995
Contact Information: Ida Tolliver, U.S. EPA, (415) 744-1581

  (San Francisco) --The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
(U.S. EPA) today announced the award of environmental education
grants totaling $129,944 to 16 groups from California.  
Recipients of the Agency's grants include school districts,
colleges and universities, museums, and non-profit organizations.

     "We are really pleased to award these grants to
organizations educating our youth," said Felicia Marcus, regional
administrator of U.S. EPA's western region.  "If we envision an
America where pollution does not threaten the air we breathe, the
water we drink, or the communities in which we live, work, and
play, we must give these future citizens the knowledge they need
about their environment to enable them to make responsible
decisions."

     The grants are awarded under the National Environmental
Education Act, and the monies will be used to support projects,
methods, and techniques related to environmental education.  Each
organization will provide matching funds for grants which will
cover a period of one to two years.  Final selections were made
after a careful review of 88 applications by an external panel
from the academic, business, and environmental communities.
                               
    The recipients are:

     Apple Valley Unified School District, Apple Valley, ($2,150)
will involve the entire student body of Yucca Loma School with
sorting, measuring or weighing, and recording the solid waste
produced by  the school's classrooms, office, and cafeteria.
Students will experiment with composting techniques and worm bins
to seek efficient solutions to reducing the quantities of waste
requiring disposal.  They will produce a documentary video of
their efforts to provide a model for other schools to replicate
the project.

      Bayview Opera House, San Francisco, ($25,000) will use the
creative medium of visual arts to teach elementary students at
three Bayview-Hunters Point neighborhood elementary schools about
environmental issues.  Artists from the Bayview Opera House will
join with the schools' faculties in a planning workshop to
determine the curriculum and establish the roles each group will
perform.  Over a six month period, the artists will present
weekly lessons cooperatively with classroom staff to provide
students with a basic knowledge of environmental issues while
enabling them to express their ideas and concerns through their
artwork.

     Citizens for a Better Environment, Los Angeles, ($22,800)
will alert parents living in south-east Los Angeles to the
potential hazard of lead poisoning by conducting four bi-lingual
community workshops for up to 200 attendees at each session and
by distributing 5000 educational flyers in door-to-door
visitations.  Follow-up interviews will be conducted with 200
parents who respond to the initial survey that they would seek
testing and treatment, if necessary, for their children.

     Conservation Science Institute, Alameda, ($5,000) will begin
to restore the natural habitat at the Alameda Naval Air Station
through the propagation and nurturing of oak seedlings by middle
school students for subsequent transplanting on the closed
military installation.  A classroom unit on the area's natural
history will be followed by a field-oriented experimental science
project on germination and growth of Coast Live Oaks.

     Friends of Cabrillo Marine Aquarium, San Pedro, ($4,600)
will offer four workshops on marine environmental issues for 80
teachers.  Workshop activities and follow-up consultations with
Aquarium staff will permit the teachers to encourage their
students to use problem solving and decision making techniques as
they relate to water pollution, endangered species, recycling,
and habitat preservation issues.

     Friends of the San Francisco Estuary, Oakland, ($5,000) will
encourage school-based or community-based water quality
monitoring and education programs in the Corte Madera Creek
watershed in Marin County.  A two-day educator's workshop for
teachers and Boy/Girl Scout leaders will teach techniques which
will allow the attendees to recruit, train, and supervise
volunteers for creek monitoring projects.

     Greater Long Beach Girl Scout Council, Long Beach, ($4,950)
will introduce 150 girl scouts and their leaders to environmental
issues relating to surface and groundwater management.  Led by
members of the Association of Women Geoscientists and using a
Girl Scout campground in the San Jacinto Mountains as their
outdoor classroom, the project will allow scouts and their
leaders to explore activities with soils and groundwater and to
experience erosion problems firsthand to learn their cause,
effect, and remediation.
                               
    Long Beach Unified School District, Long Beach, ($4,928)
will provide training for a staff member of Signal Hill
Elementary School in three local priority environmental concerns.
The teacher will in turn train the rest of the staff and provide
leadership for schoolwide activities related to the identified
themes: non-point source pollution, composting, and petroleum
refinery emissions.

     Mattole Unified School District, Petrolia, ($5,000) will
generate a partnership between the school district, the Bureau of
Land Management, and a community advisory council.   Training
provided for the community's teachers, land owners, and other
residents will allow them to define local needs and desirable
outcomes, to identify ecologically responsible actions, and to
support projects that sustain the environment.

     Oakland Museum of California, Oakland, ($13,436) will
present an interactive exhibit on "Global Warming".  The display
will be accompanied by a four-month long series of educational
programs for students, teachers, and adults in the Bay Area.  The
program will include student workshops, teacher seminars, and
public presentations.

     Sacramento Zoological Society, Sacramento, ($2,480) will
acquaint educators with the environmental education curriculum
materials developed by the California Department of Education and
practical ways to apply the materials.  Presenting two cycles of
teacher workshops, three in fall 1995 and three in spring 1996,
the society will introduce attendees to investigative approaches
to learning and problem solving techniques through exciting games
and activities for their students.  Additional presentations will
be made at regional elementary and secondary science teacher
conferences.

     San Francisco Bay Wildlife Society, Newark, ($5,000) will
establish a field trip program at the Wildlife Refuge for
educators, students, and parents.  The program will teach about
wetlands, endangered species, migratory birds, and what the
public can do to preserve these resources.  The project
anticipates serving 50 educators, 300 parents, and 1500 students
annually.

     Tides Foundation Community Focus, San Francisco, ($5,000)
will assemble a team of students and parents in a San Diego
middle school to study air quality issues and solutions for their
area.  The team will design and implement an automobile trip
reduction plan for their school community.

      Tuolumne County Superintendent of Schools Office, Sonora,
($14,600) will conduct a week-long educator's conference on
forest health management for 50 K-12 teachers from both mountain
counties (Tuolumne, Calaveras, Amador) and San Joaquin
Valley urban communities of Stockton, Lodi, and Modesto.  Topics
to be covered include plant and tree identification, forest
practices and harvesting, wildlife diversity, soils and geology,
development of recreational opportunities, and strategies for
pollution prevention.

     University of California, Santa Cruz, ($5,000) will
strengthen marine science education programs in local schools of
the tri-county Monterey Bay area through teacher training,
supporting curricular material, and school site follow-up
programs.  The activities of the project are geared to stimulate
student interest in marine science and conservation of the
environment.

     Yosemite Community College District, Modesto, ($5,000) will
match up retired scientists with 25 rural elementary school
teachers.  Following training, scientists and their partner
teachers will implement the California State Department of
education environmental curriculum, A Child's Place in the
Environment, in schools in San Joaquin, Calaveras, and Amador
Counties.


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