NEWSROOM
LSU
to Receive $300,000 to Teach Teachers
October
28, 2008
More teachers in Louisiana
and Mississippi are expected to get their hands dirty and wet
thanks to a $300,000 grant to Louisiana State University’s
College of Education from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA) as part of the agency’s highly competitive
Bay Watershed Education and Training Program (B-WET).
LSU’s Pamela
Blanchard will use the funds to partner with Nancy Rabalais and
Murt Conover from the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium
(LUMCON) and with Gary Bachman of the Coastal Research and Extension
Center at Mississippi State University to expand the work of two
hands-on educational environmental stewardship projects –
the LSU Coastal Roots Program and LUMCON’s Bayouside Classroom.
Both programs engage
students to learn about the environment and to take an active
part in its preservation and restoration. Each meets specific
state educational standards and includes field work. Teacher recruitment
and training are critical to the success and longevity of these
novel instructional approaches.
Blanchard developed
Coastal Roots in 2000 when she worked as Louisiana Sea Grant’s
education coordinator, and Sea Grant has funded the project since
its inception. Students involved in Coastal Roots grow native
trees and grasses in nurseries at their schools and transplant
them to local wetlands to reduce or prevent erosion and to restore
habitat. In LUMCON’s Bayouside Classroom, participants learn
about estuaries, watersheds and water quality while conducting
scientific data collection.
“These are very
powerful, positive classroom activities for students to enrich
their educational experience,” Blanchard said. “These
projects give the children a real-world way to give back to the
community while studying content they have to learn anyway. The
teachers who work with these programs are determined to make a
difference.”
The three-year B-WET
grant will fund teacher training and help bring more schools into
the respective programs. Organizers also plan to cross-train some
instructors in Coastal Roots and Bayouside Classroom.
“Both projects
have been going on for a number of years,” said Blanchard.
“We know how to do the programmatic part. The next step
is to focus on professional development training and resources
for the teachers.”
Blanchard is the principal
investigator on the winning grant application titled “Integrated
Professional Development and Resources to Enhance Educational
Goals of Two Environmental Stewardship Programs in Louisiana and
Mississippi.” She is an assistant professor in the Department
of Educational Theory Policy and Practice in LSU’s College
of Education. Her project is one of five on the Gulf Coast to
receive a share of $1.3 million in B-WET funding in 2008.
This is the
first year that NOAA has offered B-WET grants in the Gulf of Mexico,
New England and Pacific Northwest. Successful programs previously
were funded in Chesapeake Bay, California and Hawaii.
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