It has been a whirlwind 6 weeks since the last newsletter—electing board members, presenting and tabling at the DESE Interface Conference, attending the Green Schools Conference in Portland, OR, submitting our Americorps VISTA application, and viewing amazing documentaries at the True/False Film Festival in beautiful Columbia, MO. I keep thinking about a conversation I had with a friend at True/False about the kids who get most of their meals at school. If their schools close due to the coronavirus, they will be in real trouble. And we have a lot of Missouri children in that boat. I know that many people are working hard right now to put virus response systems in place for vulnerable members of our society. I don’t know any specifics about the plans for emergency food assistance to school children on the Free and Reduced Lunch Plan program. If any of you have info to share on that, I’d love to share it through the MEEA network. I’m hopeful that we can all use our networks to create a collective, compassionate, creative response as coronavirus moves through our state.
Six weeks ago there wasn’t much talk of the coronavirus and we were just electing new board members. We are just getting the new folks onboarded now, and will have our first board meeting together at the end of the month. With this election, we double the number of at-large board members for a full board of 11 members. This is great, because we are growing. From tabling at the Litzinger Road Ecology Center’s conference and going to Interface, our membership grew 10% in just the last couple months. We now have 665 MEEA members in our network! The Board Member bios will go up on the website in April, but in the meantime, here is the 2020-2021 roster. What a great group from all over our big, beautiful state! Thank you, MEEA Board, for all you do to help us support environmental and sustainability education.
And thank you to Emily Connor from Audubon Riverlands, who submitted this month’s article and lesson resources. Riverlands was a recipient of the MEEA mini-grant award in 2018, and Emily shares a little about the program that the funds supported. I’m so happy MEEA was able to help these innovative educators get their Mammal Investigations program up and running! If you’re interested in applying for a MEEA mini-grant, check out our grants page at meea.org/grants. We have a budget for six $250 grants this year.
Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy this month’s newsletter!
Lesli Moylan, Executive Director
Connecting Youth to their Local Ecosystems: Mammal Investigations
by Emily Connor Environmental Educator, Audubon Center at Riverlands
Photo Credit: Audubon Center at Riverlands
Mammal Investigations "Crime Scene". Students determine what has happened in different scenes using clues like tracks.
The St. Louis region is a special place to grow up as a kid. This region has a wide diversity of habitats, each one unique. Located along the Mississippi River, many animals find their homes here. Mammals are widely distributed throughout the region and some have adapted to thrive in rural areas and urban settings. Whether you live in STL City, North County, or way out in the western suburbs, you have probably had experiences with some of Missouri’s mammals. Because mammals or evidence of them in our region is readily available, students can use this group of animals as a conduit to connect with nature every single day.
In 2018, the Audubon Center at Riverlands received an education grant from Missouri Environmental Education Association (MEEA) that allowed for the creation of a new program, Mammal Investigations. This program has allowed Audubon’s education staff to encourage youth in the STL region to develop a better understanding of the natural world through connections to their region and their own backyards. Using bio facts like mammal scat, skulls, tracks and pelts, students might discover what a red fox feels like for the very first time. Through this program, students also discover that animals leave evidence of where they have been or what they are doing in nature. Students can then use that information to interpret the interactions animals have in their natural environments and then apply it in their own backyard or a local park.
RiverVision students view various mammal skulls and observe differences in their teeth.
With this grant, this new curriculum also further engages students in education programs including the RiverVision Leadership Project, which is targeted specifically to serve under-resourced, minority schools. Additionally, this program has been utilized in Flight Crew, an Audubon summer job corps offered to teens in North County. Flight Crew members studied then facilitated Mammal Investigations to 3rd through 5th grade students at Little Creek Summer Camp. Through these opportunities, this program has not only reached under-resourced communities and communities of color, but is also being taught by members of that community to the next generation. This unique peer-to-peer teaching opportunity with Flight Crew members at Little Creek Summer Camp can begin to help break down comfort barriers that many may have with nature, and offers exposure to many different careers.
Flight Crew Member, Jamiah Cole, teaches Little Creek Summer Camp Campers about mammal tracks.
This new curriculum has helped the education staff at the Audubon Center accomplish their goal of encouraging students who are underrepresented in environmental fields to utilize natural resources found in their own communities to explore careers within conservation and wildlife biology. These experiences will help students make personal connections to the environment and inspire exploration of the natural world.
Kudos to the St. Louis Puppet Theater Guild for putting on a wonderful earth-loving puppet show about "The Secret of Soil" to a packed house at the Kingshighway Branch Library on Feb. 29. And kudos to the St. Louis Regional Arts Commission for awarding a grant to the St. Louis Puppet Theater Guild so they could develop this show!
Kudos to the US Green Building Council. As of 2019, their hard work over the years has resulted in 217 million square feet of LEED certified schools!
Kudos to MU's College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources, School of Natural Resources, Mizzou Botanic Garden, and Grow Native! for sponsoring a screening and panel discussion of "Hometown Habitat", stories of communities committing to conservation landscaping to create wildlife habitat. Panelists represented MEEA, MDC, Missouri Prairie Foundation, Missouri Farm Bureau, MU Extension, Roeslein Alternative Energy, and CAFNR students. Thanks to all for spreading the word about how we can all do our part to be caretakers of the natural world!
MEEA News
PeopleTeam
Memberships - We changed to a calendar-year membership from the previous rolling annual membership. You can always receive our newsletter for free, but with your yearly dues comes access to EE certification, eligibility for mini-grants, and the satisfaction of helping inspire the next generation of environmental stewards. Get your 2020 Professional, Institutional, or School membership today!
Outreach - Jenny Grabner represented MEEA at a panel discussion and screening of selections from Hometown Habitat at MU on March 5. Lesli Moylan and Traci Jansen presented at the DESE Interface conference in late February. Lesli Moylan, Hope Gribble, and Maggie McCoy attended the US Green Schools Conference and Expo in Portland, OR in early March. MEEA is part of a huge network full of hard-working people!
Partnerships - See below.
MELAB - The next MELAB meeting will be Thursday, May 14 from 10am to 3pm at the Boone County Electric Coop's Community Room in Columbia. RSVP here. In December, more than 50 people gathered in Columbia, MO for the bi-annual MELAB meeting. This was the 1st of 4 meetings to establish a Missouri Green School partner network with regional hubs. We had strong representation from Central MO, Springfield, St. Louis, and statewide practitioners. The conversation notes have been recorded and will be sent out asap!
Purpose
Conference - Sustainability Institute for Educators in June 2020 in St. Louis will be about "Equity and Justice in A Changing Climate". The 2020 MEEA Conference will be held in Springfield the first weekend in November.
Missouri Green Schools - Enrollment open, sign up at https://meea.wufoo.com/forms/m1dbdvin0zbarhh/. We are moving forward with plans to utilize the START tool as our digital platform for MGS schools to track progress towards green goals! Based in the Whole School Sustainability Framework and easy to use, we are excited to be working with the Green Schools Alliance to catalyze more green schools work in the Midwest! More news: the VISTA application is in! Fingers crossed for good news this summer so we can continue moving forward to make the vision of green schools for all kids a reality!
MEEA Mini-Grants - The following organizations were the recipients of MEEA's 2019 $250 Mini-Grants: Friends of the Zoo, Springfield; The Green Thumb Project, Kirksville; Hannibal's Early Childhood Center, Hannibal; Mississippi River Water Trail Assn, Collinsville, IL; Missouri Prairie Foundation, Columbia; South Fork Preschool, West Plains. Congratulations!
Newsletter - If you'd like to contribute to the newsletter with an article and or lesson resources, please contact Lesli Moylan.
Resources
Accounting - MEEA is contracting the services of a Certified Professional Accountant for 2020.
Fund Development - Consider joining the Fund Development committee. Monthly videoconference meetings, lots of way to plug in big or small. Contact Lesli Moylan if interested.
VISTA Application - The full VISTA application was submitted March 11, and we should know the status of our request for four VISTA members this summer. Fingers crossed, as this is a key component of the Missouri Green Schools Expansion Project!
GovernanceTeam
Board of Directors - Election of new officers took place in February. New Board Roster and bios will be uploaded to website asap. The next quarterly board meeting will take place in Columbia, MO on Sunday, March 29. Email Lesli Moylan if you'd like to attend.
MPF Prairie Garden Grant. Deadline March 15, 2020.Gardening and other conservation groups, parks, schools, and other entities are invited to submit proposals.Expected to fund three grants with a maximum of $800 each. Those with smaller projects are encouraged to apply as well. Gardens must be available to the public and must incorporate native prairie species (not cultivars). https://www.moprairie.org/Public/What_We_Do/News/2020_Prairie_Garden_Grant_Applications.aspx
Glade Leadership Academy for Diverse Ecosystems.Deadline March 27, 2020. GLADE is an all expenses paid, immersive week of conservation education and leadership development open to students entering the 10th through 12th grades. This year’s camp dates are June 21 to June 27. Apply at https://www.greenleadershipacademy.org/?page_id=8
Wildlife Forever State-Fish
Art Project and Fish Migration Art Awards. Deadline March 31, 2020. For students grades K - 12. Students paint or draw their state
fish (the Channel Catfish Ictalurus punctatus in Missouri
- but any state fish can be selected)or a North American fish selected from the contest's list of migrating fish and
write an essay about the fish's habitat, physical characteristics
and behavior. https://www.wildlifeforever.org/home/state-fish-art/
MO DNR NO MO Trash Award. Deadline not noted on webiste, but the entry form is live and it looks like awards will be announced April 2020. Awards for schools for students in each category K-2, 3-5 and 6-8. Entries judged on creativity, adherence to contest rules and effective use of theme and logo. $200 first place award (for the school) in each category, $600 grand prize. http://nomoretrash.org/trash-can-contest
Carton2Garden Contest.Deadline April 1, 2020. Contest challenging students to repurpose milk and juice cartons for use in your school garden. Fifteen prizes will be awarded, ranging in value from $1000 to $5000. https://carton2garden.com/contest-details/spring-2019-2020-contest/
Living Standard and Center for Green Schools Storytelling Youth Scholarship.Deadline April 12, 2020. Scholarships to students who submit videos on how they are making a positive impact in their schools and communities by leading on sustainability. First place will earn $2,500 and second place will earn $1,000 to pursue post-high school education. https://livingstandard.org/living-standard-and-center-for-green-schools-storytelling-scholarship/
Earth Island Institute Brower Youth Awards. Deadline May 1, 2020. Young people ages 13-22 living in North America who have shown outstanding leadership on a project with positive environmental and social impact. $3000, a professionaly produced short film about their work, and a trip to the San Francisco Bay area. For conservation, preservation or restoration. http://www.broweryouthawards.org/apply/
Presidential
Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Training. Deadline May 1, 2020.$10,000,
Presidential citation and a paid trip for two to Washington D.
C. For a highly qualified K-6 grade math or science teacher who has demonstrated
outstanding teaching. Recipients must be employed full time by
a school or district and must have at least 5 years of teaching
experience. https://www.paemst.org
American Chemical Society ChemClub Community Activities Grants. Applications accepted April 1 to June 1, 2020. Up to $300 for chartered ChemClubs, $500 if they partner with ACS Local Sections. Examples of activities include science demonstrations at a local elementary or middle school, recycling program for your community, tutoring programs for chemistry students. http://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/funding-and-awards/grants/chemclub-community-grant.html
MO Conservation Leadership Corps.Application Deadline July 10, 2020. HS Juniors to College must have demonstrated achievement in organized conservation activities through school projects, environmental clubs, 4-H, FFA, Quail Academy, Conservation Honors, Environthon, Stream Team, Scouting, etc. No matter their chosen careers, lawyer, doctor, accountant, engineer, journalist, etc., the CLC participants are prepared to personally influence policy and actions that will contribute to the conservation of Missouri’s natural resources. http://www.confedmo.org/clc/
March 20 - Missouri Prairie Foundation's Native by Design workshop - Edwardsville, IL - https://tinyurl.com/sx9juox - Sarah Lovell, new director of the MU Center for Agroforestry is a featured speaker!
Lower School Science Teacher, Mary Institute and Saint Louis Country Day School (MICDS).
Group Experiences Manager (Full Time, Year-Round) and Spring and Summer Seasonal Opportunities, Wildwood Outdoor Education Center, Kansas City area. https://wildwoodctr.org/about-us/jobs/
Several job openings at Urban Harvest in St. Louis: Assistant Farmer, Event and Marketing Coordinator, Volunteer Coordinator as well as work study and internship opportunities. https://www.urbanharveststl.org/jobs
