[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 86 (Tuesday, June 25, 2002)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6015-S6018]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. SARBANES (for himself, Mr. Warner, Ms. Mikulski, and Mr. 
        Allen):
  S. 2675. A bill to amend the Elementary and Secondary Education Act 
of 1965 to establish a pilot program to make grants to eligible 
institutions to develop, demonstrate or disseminate information on 
practices, methods, or techniques relating to environmental education 
and training in the Chesapeake Bay watershed; to the Committee on 
Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.
  Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, today I am introducing legislation to 
establish an environmental education program for elementary and 
secondary school students and teachers within the Chesapeake Bay 
watershed. This measure would provide grant assistance to elementary 
and secondary schools, school districts and not-for-profit 
environmental education organizations in the six-state watershed to 
support teacher training, curriculum development, classroom education 
and meaningful Bay or stream outdoor experiences. It would also enable 
the U.S. Department of Education to become an active partner in the 
Chesapeake Bay Program. Joining me as co-sponsors of this legislation 
are my colleagues Senators Mikulski, Warner, and Allen.
  There is a growing consensus that a major commitment to education, to 
promoting an ethic of responsible stewardship and citizenship among the 
nearly 16 million people who live in the watershed, is necessary if all 
of the other efforts to ``Save the Bay'' are to succeed. The ultimate 
responsibility for the protection and restoration of Chesapeake Bay is 
dependent upon the individual and collective actions of this and future 
generations. As population growth and development continue to place 
enormous pressures on the Chesapeake Bay region's natural resource 
base, we must learn how to minimize the impacts that we are having on 
the Bay. Our future depends upon our ability to use the Bay's resources 
in a sustainable manner. This is as much a civic responsibility as 
voting. Developing an environmentally literate citizenry that has the 
skills and knowledge to make well-informed choices and to exercise the 
rights and responsibilities as members of a community is clearly one of 
the best ways to raise generations who can be contributors to a healthy 
and enduring watershed. In my judgment, this can best be accomplished 
by expanding assistance for environmental education and training 
programs in the K-12 levels.
  In addition to stewardship, there are other dimensions to expanding 
environmental education opportunities in the Chesapeake Bay region that 
are equally compelling. A number of recent studies have found that 
environmental education also enhances student achievement, critical 
thinking and basic life skills. A 1998 report by the State Education 
and Environment Roundtable, perhaps the most comprehensive study to 
date, documents how 40 schools in 12 States, including three schools in 
Maryland and four schools in Pennsylvania, achieved remarkable 
academic, attitudinal and behavioral results by using the environment 
as an integrating strategy for learning across all subject areas. 
According to the study, students performed better in science, social 
studies, math and reading. Classroom discipline problems declined and 
students demonstrated increased engagement and enthusiasm in learning 
in an environment-based context. Moreover, students' creative thinking, 
decision-making and interpersonal skills were enhanced by environment-
based learning.

[[Page S6016]]

  The report is replete with success stories, but I will just cite two 
examples from schools in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. According to the 
report, students in the 4th grade at Hollywood Elementary School in 
Maryland scored 27 percent higher on the Maryland State Performance and 
Assessment Program test than at other schools in their county and 43 
percent higher than the State as a whole after the school implemented 
the environmental based education program. The study also found 
behavior improvements and reduced discipline problems for 6th graders 
participating in the STREAMS program at Huntingdon Area Middle School 
in Pennsylvania compared to students not involved in the program. I ask 
unanimous consent that excerpts from this study regarding these two 
schools be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

          [From the State Education and Environment Rountable]

 Closing the Achievement Gap--Using the Environment as an Integrating 
                          Context for Learning

              (By Gerald A. Lieberman and Linda L. Hoody)


               HOLLYWOOD ELEMENTARY: A LIVING LABORATORY

       Adults in Saint Mary's County, Maryland, a wedge of 
     farmland bordering the Chesapeake Bay, had tried for 25 years 
     to start a community recycling program; for some reason the 
     idea just never caught on. But once the fifth graders at 
     Hollywood Elementary School decided to solve the problem it 
     did not take long for them to turn their campus into a 
     neighborhood recycling center.
       It was the children's enthusiasm more than anything that 
     motivated parents and neighbors to join their efforts. Soon, 
     Hollywood's hallways bulged with giant boxes of old 
     newspapers and the school's parking lot became a regular 
     Saturday-morning stop for residents eager to dump their cans 
     and glass. Teachers helped, but students ran the show. 
     Parents offered their vans, trucks, and even horse trailers 
     to help haul the goods to the nearest recycling station in 
     the next county. Eventually Saint Mary's County itself caught 
     on, set up a few recycling transfer stations of its own and 
     hired a recycling coordinator. But it all started at 
     Hollywood.
       ``It was just as grass-roots as anything can get,'' 
     remembers Betty Brady, the teacher who initiated the project. 
     ``We were a very small school at the time, less than 300 
     students, and we became a little place where people 
     rallied.''
       Hollywood Elementary is not such a little place anymore. 
     Enrollment is up to 600 now, housed in a spacious new 
     facility designed to accommodate the real-world teaching that 
     Brady and her colleagues practice. But the campus remains a 
     rallying point for parents, educators, and other area 
     residents dedicated to the task of maximizing individual 
     learning through integrated, environment-based education.
       During the past 15 years, aided by community volunteers and 
     funded through a series of small grants from the Chesapeake 
     Bay Trust, Hollywood's students have turned their 72-acre 
     campus into a living lab--blazing a nature trail, creating a 
     butterfly garden, planting a forest habitat for migrating 
     birds, and transforming a drainage pond into a natural 
     wetland. Each project capitalized on the children's innate 
     attraction to the natural world while providing unique 
     opportunities to combine traditional subject areas in a 
     meaningful whole. The results? At Hollywood Elementary, 
     education works.
       ``As teachers, we always look at what works with and for 
     children, paying attention to what causes that learner 
     engagement that's so crucial to learning that lasts,'' 
     explained principal, Kathleen Glaser. ``We're very 
     concerned about not just teaching something so that 
     students can pass a test and then forget it a month later, 
     but teaching something that will be part of their 
     knowledge base, something they can work from to solve 
     problems and enhance their lives.''
       Glaser and her staff, as well as the parents and students 
     of Hollywood Elementary, clearly believe the school's real-
     world emphasis produces that kind of learning. And recent 
     empirical evidence confirms it. Since 1992, the state of 
     Maryland has required a year-end performance assessment for 
     all students in grades three, five, and eight. It is a 
     demanding yardstick, build around a child's ability to 
     perform integrated tasks, such as life-science experiments 
     and writing research reports. But it is a perfect tool to 
     measure the effects of integrated education on real-world 
     problem-solving.
       Following five years of steady progress, Hollywood's 
     students turned in a bellwether performance in 1997. In 
     contrast to a statewide average of 38 percent, 67 percent of 
     Hollywood's third grades achieved satisfactory assessment 
     scores. At the fifth-grade level, Hollywood hit Maryland's 
     ideal 70th percentile, with 70 percent of students performing 
     in the satisfactory zone, as contrasted to 46 percent 
     statewide.
       Glaser attributes her school's stellar performance in large 
     part to her staff of hardworking and innovative teachers, 
     including Betty Brady and Julie Tracy.
       Tracy found Glaser's supportive leadership style reason 
     enough to choose Hollywood over another job offer when she 
     finished her master's certification program in 1990. ``I 
     think it was probably the teachers and Mrs. Glaser's 
     encouragement and her openness to suggestions,'' she said. 
     ``The other school was not as open to innovative ideas.''
       For instance, while partnering with a class in Costa Rica 
     during a Smithsonian-sponsored study on migratory birds, 
     Tracy's students learned that loss of habitat was causing a 
     decrease in the birds' population. Their solution? Creating a 
     habitat on the school grounds. Teaming up with other classes, 
     they identified likely planting areas, including a stand of 
     recently planted trees that still lacked native underbrush, 
     and filled in the area with berry shrubs chosen from the 
     birds' regular menu.
       Tracy believes allowing that sort of student initiative is 
     crucial to the learning. ``If you approach a project saying, 
     `we're going to go out and plant a tree,' then it's the 
     teacher's project,'' she said. ``But if the students are 
     engaged in real scientific inquiry, and they're the decision-
     makers directing the project, then it's authentic, and 
     they're engaged in meaningful learning.''
       With its integrated, environment-based curriculum now 
     expanding, and recognition of its effectiveness spreading. 
     Hollywood Elementary has become a living portrait of the 
     mature EIC school.
       Looking back, Hollywood's recycling program, begun in the 
     late 1980s, constitutes an important benchmark in an 
     evolutionary process that started in 1982 when Glaser became 
     principal of the school. From her own experiences first as a 
     classroom teacher and later as a resource teacher, Glaser 
     brought a dual focus to her new position: to encourage 
     individual learning and support innovative teaching.
       ``I think we communicated pretty early, after I became 
     principal, that what was most important was the individual 
     learner,'' Glaser said. ``I think it's also important for 
     teachers to grow professionally, so when they found a program 
     or a resource or a good working idea we began to try some of 
     those out.''
       As Brady and her fellow teachers continued to brainstorm 
     and experiment, they made two discoveries. First, they found 
     that students learned most effectively when previously 
     disjointed subjects came together in an integrated 
     curriculum. Second, they realized that the environment 
     provided a perfect integrating context for learning.
       Brady has a simple explanation for that: ``All things are 
     connected.'' Tracy agrees. ``All the subject areas are right 
     there,'' she said. ``You don't have to try to plug anything 
     in; it all just fits in naturally when you use the 
     environment.''
       Add to that children's innate love of animals and curiosity 
     about nature, and Hollywood had found a sure-fire recipe for 
     effective education. ``We saw children really engaging with 
     the real world in a way they weren't engaging with the 
     textbooks,'' Glaser explained, ``and we saw the learning 
     really lasting.'' ``They see the big picture,'' Tracy added. 
     ``They see the goal.''
       Encouraged by their early successes and Glaser's never-
     wavering support, Hollywood's teachers began to design more 
     and more environment-based projects and to tighten the 
     teamwork so crucial to integrated learning. In some 
     instances, teachers paired up based on their differing 
     preferences: a nature nut, unfazed by bugs and dirt, and a 
     bookworm, more comfortable juggling papers and pencils.
       ``We have such a spirit here of being a community of 
     learners and leaders that people welcome someone with a 
     different strength,'' Glaser commented. ``I'd like to think 
     that one of the things we do well is to blend the teaching 
     strengths we have available, then nuture not only the 
     students, but also support each other where we need it.''
       Hollywood's distinctive approach to teaching caught the 
     national limelight in 1996, when Julie Tracy's idea that 
     second and third graders could turn a drainage pond into a 
     natural habitat earned her a 1996 presidential award for 
     excellence in teaching. In a project that combined biology, 
     botany, ecology, math, and language arts, Tracy's students 
     explored the types of aquatic plants and animals they could 
     expect to thrive in the little pond, then drafted a planting 
     plan, calculating depths and distances for optimal growth, 
     and recruited parents and local college students to help with 
     the work. Today, the former drainage basin is home to fish, 
     birds, amphibians, and even a raccoon or two.
       Not surprisingly, with Hollywood's thriving EIC emphasis 
     drawing attention throughout Maryland and beyond, people are 
     beginning to take notice. Glaser has been fielding frequent 
     calls from other schools eager to duplicate Hollywood's 
     success. She is eager to respond. ``They want to know more 
     about the nature trail or the butterfly garden, how that sort 
     of thing gets organized,'' Glaser said. ``I'm getting more 
     interested in how to help other teachers integrate some of 
     these ideas. How can we help people benefit from our years of 
     experience?''
       ``I'm seeing lots of indicators that this kind of work is 
     growing,'' Glaser said. ``Hopefully, we can be a place people 
     can visit or know about, so they can learn more about how to 
     do it.'' If American education is indeed headed toward a new 
     paradigm of integrated, environment-based instruction,

[[Page S6017]]

     Hollywood is already out front and eager to lead the way.


          huntingdon area middle school: streams of knowledge

       The students at Huntingdon Area Middle School are making 
     adults in their rural Pennsylvania community sit up and take 
     notice. Their active engagement in their community is an 
     outgrowth of an innovative, homegrown EIC program called 
     STREAMS--a regional grand-prize winner of the National Middle 
     School Association's Team-teaching Award.
       STREAMS, which stands for Science Teams in Rural 
     Environments for Aquatic Management Studies, is an 
     interdisciplinary program that aims to increase students' 
     awareness of and concern for their immediate environment and 
     to engage them in the community at large. As its name 
     suggests, the program focuses on water and emphasizes active 
     learning and real-world issues.
       Student enthusiasm for the program keeps building. Every 
     year, Huntingdon students clamor to begin projects earlier 
     and earlier. ``We used to start in January,'' said Fred 
     Wilson, social studies teacher. ``Then it was in November and 
     this year some kids were ready in September.'' The 
     accelerated schedule means more work for Wilson and his 
     colleagues. But there is a certain synergy created when 
     students are so eager, he said. And that is what gives him 
     the energy to keep up.
       The genesis of the STREAMS program occurred eight years ago 
     when the sixth-grade teaching team, including Wilson, began 
     looking for a new theme to incorporate across their existing 
     interdisciplinary curriculum. They decided a program tied to 
     the water studies presented in Tim Julian's science class 
     would be ideal because they could tie it into all the 
     disciplines.
       ``We wanted to examine problems in our community--such as 
     water quality, storm-water runoff and erosion--to make the 
     subject more meaningful to our students,'' Wilson explained. 
     It was a perfect choice. With four separate watersheds 
     converging within two miles of the school, he pointed out, 
     Huntingdon already had a phenomenal outdoor lab at its 
     doorstep.
       Wilson volunteered to develop the interdisciplinary program 
     and contacted a number of organizations in his search for 
     suitable learning projects. But, while he discovered lots of 
     suggestions for activities, there was no program that could 
     be ``plugged in'' to Huntingdon's existing curriculum. By 
     1991, the first year Wilson and his teammates taught the 
     STREAMS unit, he had developed his own instructional segments 
     dealing with storm-water runoff, erosion and sedimentation, 
     water quality monitoring, household pollutants, and community 
     involvement. At the same time, Julian expanded the portion of 
     his science curriculum that dealt with water to include 
     the study of local watersheds as well as water and 
     wastewater treatment facilities.
       Students response was overwhelming, so overwhelming that 
     the following summer Wilson and his colleagues developed more 
     STREAMS topics--wetlands, groundwater, acidity, and nutrient 
     enrichment--and added more water quality studies plus two 
     additional watersheds to monitor.
       The team effort regularly crosses disciplinary lines, with 
     each teacher contributing his or her expertise toward common 
     projects. In science class, for instance, Julian teaches the 
     students about the properties of water, purification 
     processes, and wastewater treatment. Before they go out on a 
     field trip to conduct tests, they also learn how to use the 
     proper monitoring equipment. ``Our kids don't go out unless 
     they are prepped,'' Wilson said. ``That's so they can 
     succeed.''
       Rose Taylor, Huntingdon's sixth-grade language arts 
     teacher, reinforces the vocabulary students need to know in 
     their studies and works with students on STREAMS-related 
     writing assignments. Math teacher Mike Simpson helps the 
     students learn to interpret statistics, construct charts and 
     graphs, and use computer database programs to report their 
     findings. He also incorporates the data they collect into 
     problems he uses to teach important math concepts such as 
     fractions and percentages. ``Rather than use cookbook 
     problems,'' he said, ``we use real field data.''
       Wilson's part of the curriculum emphasizes the consequences 
     of land use--residential, agricultural, and mining--on the 
     water supply, as well as various types of pollution and the 
     function of wetlands. Wilson's students also learn about the 
     effects of storm-water runoff, a significant problem in the 
     Huntingdon vicinity because of over-development in what was 
     once a wetland.
       Everything comes together out in the field, where all the 
     team members get their hands dirty. Their eagerness to dig 
     right in can be traced in large measure to their lengthy 
     history as a team. ``We've teamed together so long--15 
     years--that we can be frank and open,'' Wilson explained. 
     Another secret of the STREAMS staff is a willingness to step 
     outside the bounds of their own disciplines. ``You have to be 
     willing,'' he said, ``to wear different hats.''
       Indeed, STREAMS teachers seem entirely comfortable sharing 
     their teaching responsibilities all around. All the team 
     members, for example, teach reading. Tim Julian and Mike 
     Simpson capitalize on the interrelationships between science 
     and math; both, for instance, teach students to interpret 
     charts and graphs. ``Science uses a lot of math--
     averaging, graphing, measuring speed,'' Julian pointed 
     out. ``Sometimes we work together; sometimes we handle it 
     separately.'' Julian also supports Rose Taylor's efforts 
     in language arts by having students write reports on their 
     field activities. ``I do correct their grammar,'' he said, 
     ``but I don't lower their science grade for mistakes.''
       The teachers are equally flexible about class time. ``I 
     could go into school tomorrow and say that I need a block of 
     time,'' Wilson said, ``and we'd revamp the schedule in a 
     minute.'' STREAMS team members synchronize and evaluate their 
     lesson plans and schedules in regular weekly meetings, but 
     they can also meet daily during a common planning period.
       Wilson conducts an annual formal assessment of what 
     students learned in the program. In the 1994/95 school year, 
     97 percent of STREAMS students failed a pre-test with an 
     average score of 38 percent. Two months after the program 
     concluded, the students' average score, on an unannounced 
     post-test, was 81 percent, with only a 2 percent failure 
     rate. In the 1996/97 school year, Wilson conducted the post-
     test five months after they completed the initial STREAMS 
     unit. Even after that lengthy interval, the students' 
     averaged 71 percent on the test. Those results, Wilson point 
     out, indicate that most students not only mastered the 
     content, but also retained that knowledge months after 
     completing the program.
       When Wilson and his colleagues started the STREAMS program, 
     no one dreamed how successful and far-reaching it would 
     become. Beyond the creativity and effort of the Huntingdon 
     team, Wilson said, another key reason for their success is 
     partnering with various organizations in the community.
       Parents are another valuable resource. Without them, Wilson 
     said, he could not accommodate all the students who want to 
     do independent work, often after school and on weekends. They 
     help transport and chaperone students giving presentations to 
     public groups, civic organizations, teacher conferences, and 
     workshops, as well as those taking special field trips or 
     traveling to the biotechnology lab at Penn State. Parents 
     also help with tree-planting projects and water-quality 
     monitoring.
       The students, too, have tapped into the partnering concept. 
     When they proposed creating a wetland near the school, for 
     example, they raised $1,000 and then found partners to 
     contribute the $3,000 needed to complete the project--proof 
     that they have learned to leverage their dollars and attract 
     broad-based support.
       The community that spawned these savvy students and 
     teachers is by some standards an unlikely one. Huntingdon, a 
     town of 7,000, is located in south central Pennsylvania, an 
     area that historically has reported the highest unemployment 
     figures in the state. The average family income here is 
     $20,000 annually. Only 9.4 percent of adults in the county 
     have earned a post-secondary degree, compared to 18 percent 
     statewide.
       Wilson also noted a dichotomy in the region's attitudes 
     toward education, with some residents very supportive and 
     others indifferent. Consequently, it has been exciting for 
     Huntingdon's teachers to watch a gradual shift in the 
     public's attitude toward the students' endeavors. ``At first, 
     they were taken rather lightly,'' Julian noted, ``but now the 
     community is coming and asking them for help.''
       Without a doubt, Wilson observed, the Huntingdon teachers' 
     decision to use the environment as an umbrella for 
     interdisciplinary study and hands-on instructional strategies 
     has produced tremendous results. ``I think that our students 
     are engaged in a meaningful learning experience that will 
     help to empower them to be critical thinkers and become more 
     independent learners,'' he said.
       As principal Jill Adams sees it, programs like STREAMS and 
     teachers like Wilson and his colleagues hold the key to 
     reshaping the entire educational process. ``The future of 
     education really depends on people like this,'' she said. 
     ``We cannot continue to teach the way that we were taught.''

  Mr. SARBANES. In the Chesapeake Bay region, the Governors of 
Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania and the Mayor of the District of 
Columbia have recognized the importance of engaging students in the 
protection of the Chesapeake Bay. The States have each enacted 
legislation to integrate environmental standards into the curriculum 
for particular grade levels. As signatories to the Chesapeake 2000 
Agreement, they have also committed to ``provide a meaningful Bay or 
stream outdoor experience for every school student in the watershed 
before graduation from high school'' beginning with the class of 2005.
  Likewise, several not-for-profit organizations including the 
Chesapeake Bay Foundation, and the Living Classrooms Foundation have 
spearheaded efforts to create long-term, cohesive education programs 
focused on the local environment. They have developed terrific 
partnerships with schools and are helping teachers develop and 
implement quality instruction, investigations and Bay or stream-side 
projects.
  Unfortunately, all these efforts and programs are only reaching a 
very small percentage of the more than 3.3 million K-12 students in the 
watershed.

[[Page S6018]]

Classroom environmental instruction across grade levels is sporadic and 
inconsistent, at best, and relatively few students have had the 
opportunity to engage in meaningful outdoor experiences. Many of the 
school systems in the Bay watershed are only at the beginning stages in 
developing and implementing environmental education into their 
curriculum, let alone exposing them to outdoor watershed experiences. 
What's lacking is not the desire or will, but the resources and 
training to undertake more comprehensive environmental education 
programs.
  In 1970, the Congress enacted the first Environmental Education act 
to authorize the then-U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare 
to establish programs to support environmental education at the 
elementary and secondary levels and in communities. In its statement of 
findings and purposes, the Congress found ``that the deterioration of 
the quality of the Nation's environment and of its ecological balance 
is in part due to poor understanding by citizens of the Nation's 
environment and of the need for ecological balance; that presently 
there do not exist adequate resources for educating citizens in these 
areas, and that concerted efforts on educating citizens about 
environmental quality and ecological balance are therefore necessary.'' 
Grants for curriculum development, teacher training, and community 
demonstration projects were made available for several years under this 
Act, but the program expired and was not reauthorized.
  In 1990, the Congress enacted the National Environmental Education 
Act to renew the federal role in environmental education. The Congress, 
once again found that ``current Federal efforts to inform and educate 
the public concerning the natural and built environment and 
environmental problems are not adequate.'' Today, 32 years after the 
first Environmental Education Act was first authorized, those findings 
are still true. Last year, nationwide funding for the National 
Environmental Education Act administered by EPA was only $7.3 million. 
That averages to a little more than $140,000 for each of the 50 States, 
a sum that is totally inadequate for schools to incorporate 
environmental education as part of the K-12 curriculum.
  The legislation which I am introducing would authorize $6 million a 
year over the next three years in federal grant assistance to help 
close the resource and training gap for students in the elementary and 
secondary levels in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. It would require a 50 
percent non-federal match, thus leveraging $12 million in assistance. 
The funding could be used to help design, demonstrate or disseminate 
environmental curricula and field practices, train teachers or other 
educational personnel, and support on-the-ground activities or 
Chesapeake Bay or stream outdoor educational experiences involving 
students and teachers, among other things. The program would complement 
a similar initiative that I sponsored last year within the National 
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration which is providing $1.2 million 
to support environmental education in the Chesapeake watershed.
  The Chesapeake Bay Program has pioneered many of the Nation's most 
innovative environmental protection and restoration initiatives. It has 
been a leader in establishing a large volunteer monitoring program; 
implementing pollution control programs such as the ban on phosphate 
detergents and voluntary nutrient reduction goals; and conducting an 
extensive habitat restoration program including the opening of hundreds 
of miles of prime spawning habitat to migratory fish. It is an ideal 
proving ground for demonstrating that strong and consistent support for 
enviornmetnal education, using the Chesapeake Bay and local environment 
as the primary instructional focus, will lead not only to a healthier, 
enduring watershed, but a more educated and informed citizenry, with a 
deeper understanding and appreciation for the environment, their 
community and their role in society as responsible citizens.
                                 ______