Featured Articles

How Far Did Your Meal Travel? By Corrine Steever

While doing a Project WILD activity with students called, "What's that, Habitat?"  in which the students are to draw their own habitats, I asked them to really think about the space of their habitats.  Where do they get their food from?  Most students drew their houses and included the grocery store, but one student took it even farther.  She drew the globe, and when asked to explain she said that her food comes from all over the world, from the banana she had for breakfast to the rice that she eats at dinner.  That was when the students had an “Ah ha” moment.  Click here to read more.

Life Goes On By Henry Lappen

One day last summer, I watched something small and brown fall to the ground.  Not sure if I was seeing a leaf or a moth, I knelt to have a closer look.  Sure enough, it was a moth - one so perfectly adapted in size and color and in its flying behavior as to imitate a dead leaflet from a honey locust or some such tree.  I'm sure it must fool many a predator, whether dragonfly or phoebe, and continue to survive and propagate it's species.  Click here to read more.

Spontaneous Stewardship by Susan Caplan McCarthy

 In spite of hours of lesson planning, sometimes students find a different lesson than the one you thought you were teaching.  In the fall of 2008, I was working with a group of homeschoolers ages 10-to-13, at Mass Audubon’s Moose Hill Wildlife Sanctuary in Sharon.  The new class, called Tuesday Travels, would introduce a different topic each month, most often with one day meeting on-site at Moose Hill and the second class traveling to a field trip site or sites. Click here to read more.

Teaching Green Cleaning with Science, Props, and Humor! By Leslie Reichert

When was the last time you had your kids VOLUNTEER to clean? Once you introduce your children to green cleaning, you will be surprised how interested they become in the subject. Leslie Reichert, a green cleaning coach, teaches children from preschool age to high school about taking the toxins out of cleaning. She engages them in her presentation by using science projects, props that are over 100 years old and lots of humor. Leslie has been so successful with this teaching formula that Rhode Island College has asked her to come and “teach the teachers”. She presented her classroom talk to the students in their masters program and shared with them her techniques.  “It’s nothing complicated”, says Reichert, “everyone loves a good story and I share real-life experiences with the kids so they can learn from others”.  Click here to read more.

High School Environmental Workshop Needs Your Vote! 

Please take this chance to support a local Massachusetts School in their efforts to obtain a veggie van for their school.  This will allow the school to not only continue their efforts as being a “green” school, but also allow students an opportunity to get out into their community more.

The high school environmental workshop’s veggie van group continued to work on their alternative transportation goals for the school this year.  They wrote a proposal that not only would launch a shuttle system at South Shore Charter Public School , but provide a new veggie van for field trips and produce up to $30,000/year in profit for green activities at our school. 

Voting takes place from January 17th to February 18th.  All voters must register with their e-mail the first time they vote.  You will then receive a link you must click within your e-mail.  After you register, you may vote up to five times/day.  You may place all five of your votes in the same session, too!

To vote and view our video, please visit the following link: www.samsung.com/solvefortomorrow

Click here to read more. 

Teacher Seeking Pupil By Kristen Audette (Leicester High School Student)

We all have a story to compose in this world. Whether the story has a positive or negative result, it is one that will make an mpact. In David Quinn's book, Ishmael, a gorilla exposes his philosophy to a young inquisitive man. Throughout my life there have been many influential characters, but not one who has made me think about my path in life as much as Ishmael's student, Alan Lomax. “Teacher seeking pupil.

Must have an earnest desire to save the world.” A simple newspaper ad answered by the curious Alan Lomax sets the plot of the story. Within the pages of this book, Ishmael and his student explore the evolution of modern civilization along with the importance of sustainability in the environment. Use of Socratic dialogue and biblical events also reveal a different side of human culture.

As I read this novel, the light bulb that was flickering in my mind stayed on. I realized the importance of OUR world. It is not just our world, and it has never been just ours. It is the plants, the insects, the amphibians, and the mammals home just as well as it is ours.  Click here to read more. 

Book Reviews

Hope is an Imperative By David Orr - Reviewed by Arianna Alexsandra Grindrod

If for some reason you have never heard of David Orr , The Essential David Orr will bring you up to speed. It contains all the articles he’s written over the years, woven together and updated to form a cohesive expression of hope for a sustainable tomorrow. Orr lays out our societal blocks candidly, examines them, and then plainly and honestly states next steps. Steps that, while not necessarily easy, will help us evolve beyond current cultural constructs. This book dares you to be humble and to not react to ignorance and arrogance but rather reflect and respond with care and integrity.

Each chapter grapples with what it means to be sustainable and to truly account for the biota in our economy and design. In “Verbicide” Orr discusses our declining literacy and how a diminished vocabulary deprives us of rich understanding. “Speed” challenges our assumptions of bigger, better, and faster and gets us thinking about the nature of velocity and time. And about the need to recalibrate our policies and habits “to promote a more durable prosperity.” In “Four Challenges of Sustainability” he writes, “The overall challenge of sustainability is to avoid crossing irreversible thresholds that damage the life systems of Earth while creating long-term arrangements that secure the well-being of the present and future generations.” How do we meet this challenge in a society operating under the belief that we can live beyond our means, that we do not need to take the future into consideration, that technology will save us?    Click here to read more.

The Nature Connection: An Outdoor Workbook for Kids, Families and Classrooms By Clare Walker Leslie - Reviewed by Cynthia Menard

Clare Walker Leslie is an artist and author of several books on nature journaling.  Her newest book, The Nature Connection, is a workbook aimed at getting kids outdoors and exploring.
 
The book features a sturdy waterproof cover and is of a size that makes it worth using as a workbook or journal, but isn’t so big that you don’t want to schlep it around in your pack.   The text is divided into three sections; the first – ‘How to Be a Naturalist’ - covers some basic naturalist skills and tools: what to take outdoors, how to record observations, and some guidelines on drawing.  The second section is called ‘Learning the Sky’ and gives the reader straightforward information on seasons, weather and astronomy.  In both of these sections along with all the rest that follow, the emphasis is both on learning key natural history information and then encouraging the learner to go out and observe and record in the spaces provided.
 
The third section is divided up by each month of the year, and provides facts, drawings and resources based on the natural world during the season that each month falls in. This section comprises about 2/3 of the total book and often builds upon facts and lessons in earlier chapters and sections.  Sprinkled through the text are cultural and historical facts and references of interest to readers of any age.  Click here to read more.

Announcements, Upcoming Events & Reminders

MEES 2011 Conference - Registration for the conference has been extended until February 18th!  Sign up for the 2011 MEES Conference: Navigating MA Environmental Education: Mountains to Marine early to recieve a discount.  The 2011 MEES conference is held on March 2nd at the Holy Cross, Hogan Campus Center, Worcester, MA. Click here to register for the Conference.

Call For Conference Exhibitors - It is not too late to register to be an exhibitor for the MEES 2011 Conference: Navigating MA Environmental Education: Mountains to Marine.  Exhibitors get the unique opportunity of reaching hundreds of educators that attend one of the largest Environmental Educaiton Conferences in New England. For exhibitor information, email: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it . 

 NEEEA 2011 Conference

The Massachusetts Environmental Education Society (MEES) proudly presents the 45th annual New England Environmental Education Alliance (NEEEA) Conference:

Navigating New England Environmental Education: Charting a Course to an Environmentally Literate Future
October 21 – 23, 2011 at Prindle Pond Conference Center in Charlton, MA. 

Join us for an exploratory weekend of learning and fun, featuring Keynote speaker Julian Agyeman, and world music entertainment by Gaia Roots.

We hope to see you there!!

For more information, go to: www.neeea.org

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The MEES Board of Directors is looking for nature pictures. If you enjoy taking pictures and have some landscape, wildlife, or other nature pictures, please send them to us! The pictures will be used on our website, so by sending them you are granting us permission to use them. Pictures can be sent to This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .