Scott Resch, August 22, 2002

Is a Natural Habitat At Your School Required To Teach Environmental Education?

Not according to Scott Resch, a 2002 graduate of the Masters in Environmental Education for Teachers Program at the University of Wisconsin Stevens Point who teaches in the Hortonville Area School District.

Like many teachers, Resch teaches at a high school that lacks a natural area close to the school campus that can be used for outdoor instruction.  In addition to this, he struggles with the natural teaching areas available on campus because they mainly consists of mowed lawns and athletic fields.

"Even though the school lacks natural areas, there is a large number of ecosystems on the campus that allows me to do a wide variety of activities" Resch reported.

Some activities Resch described are using plants like Dandelions and Plantain, which are considered "weeds" and grow well in this environment, for population studies.  Integrating other disciplines is very important in environmental education so Resch uses many of the historical aspects of the property.  Examples of these are flags and historical signs referencing people who have donated trees in the past. An old bell that was given to the school many years ago now has plants growing on it such as mosses and lichens that can be used to study many aspects of science, history, math, and English. (How?) Students look at the historical perspective of the school, research the school’s history and other things that were happening around the world at that time. In Math students study populations of different species. They determine where they grow and analyze how fast they colonized. They graph the data showing linear growth, sigmoid, and exponential growth. The English component consists of writing poetry based on a theme. An example may be lichens.  Students are required to incorporate in their poems as many factors that affect the lichens as they can.

Resch realized that the Hortonville Area School District needed someone to develop an in-service to help teachers in all subject areas infuse environmental education into their curriculum. (Why?)   “EE was being infused but teachers struggled and I thought it would be helpful if I gave them some techniques to help them” stated Resch .  Therefore, Resch developed and implemented an annual environmental education in-service for the Hortonville Area School District.

Resch’s goal was to positively influence the attitudes and values of the teachers towards environmental education. For his Master’s degree project he measured his success in accomplishing this goal.

The process started by Resch getting involved with curriculum writing.  This provided him with an understanding of what environmental education materials teachers were teaching and at what grade levels.  Resch said, “This allowed me to see how teachers and the school were accomplishing the task of infusing EE. Since I help write high school science curriculum and it was similar at the various levels I had a good understanding of what occurred. After this, a network of links with principals, administration, faculty, and school board members was established.”

"One thing I found is that teachers have confidence in teaching and teaching environmental curriculum.  What they needed was help in finding the environmental education curriculum materials," stated Resch.

Resch developed his first in-service as part of a project requirement for the Master of Science in Natural Resources Program for teachers at the University of Wisconsin Stevens Point.  The in-service lasted between one to two hours for teachers grades K-12.  The teachers were given many environmental education resources, ways to implement the material, and activities that could be adapted for all grade levels.  In addition, Mr. Resch also provided teachers with the state’s  standards for environmental education. He also showed how activities he conducted helped achieve the state standards.

According to Resch, “An important benefit of using Environmental education as a tool is that it appeals to the student's youthful sense of curiosity.  With a vast number of budget cuts in most school districts, using the outdoor classroom on your campus can be an economical way to get your students involved with a hands-on integrated outdoor learning experience they won't forget”.

For more information on UW Stevens Point's Master's degree program in environmental education for teachers contact Tim Byers, Program Coordinator at (715) 346-4176.

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