Earth Partnership for Schools

Filming the children as they begin to sweep the prairie to explore the insect population.

Earth Partnership for Schools holds summer institutes for teachers, students and community members to learn how to make ecology more relevant in the classroom, home and hometown.

We are visiting for two days to see how participants learn and grow and take these concepts home to their own communities.  Here we follow kids visiting a prairie, the Curtis Prairie, for the first time, as citizen scientists, observing, collecting data and learning how to make use of that information in their daily lives, including living with nature!

Students use nets to collect specimens for observation and learning.

Students use nets to collect specimens for observation and learning.

Students work in teams taking turns sweeping for insects and photographing and recording the data on iPads.

Engagement, inspection and identification.  Future Habitat Heroes!

Engagement, inspection and identification. Future Habitat Heroes!

 

Wisconsin Wonderful!

Corrie Daniels working to heal ecosystems.

Corrie Daniels, working for healthy ecosystems.

Wow! What a beautiful state and fantastic people!  Today we visited Corrie Daniels and her crew at Taylor Creek Restoration Nursery in Brodhead, WI.

Taylor Creek and sister company Applied Ecological Services, have been around for over 30 years providing native plants grown from locally collected seed as well as ecological design and restoration services.  Founder and sustainability visionary, Steve Apfelbaum, started all this back when “green” was just a color. We will be following Steve in the coming months to explore his approach to land use which brings ecological science to the design process creating a balance between human needs and ecosystem health.  Corrie says of her boss, “Steve is a dynamo. His passion, his absolute passion, is to bring health back to the earth.” Stayed tuned for more on this Wisconsin Habitat Hero!

One of the interesting little critters hanging out at the nursery!

One of the interesting little critters hanging out at the nursery!

Happy 4th of July!

Children explore meadow planting.

Children explore meadow planting.

Hello all! We are on the journey and are open to your suggestions of Habitat Heroes. We shoot in Ohio over the holiday and then on to film in Wisconsin for the next week. One program we visit is Earth Partnership for Schools. Teachers engage in week long institutes:
“We invite teachers to participate in a one-week summer Earth Partnership Institute for graduate credit. You will learn how to use the process of ecological restoration as a broad environmental context for teaching and learning about your local natural and cultural communities. The process of habitat restoration is an exciting real-life project that extends through the K–12 curriculum and beyond, and includes many disciplines such as science, math, social studies, language arts, and related arts.”
Effectively teaching our children about the natural world will help grow future stewards and a new army of Habitat Heroes! Looking forward to the next days and the summer institute!

We need your help to make this film. Please DONATE!