RE: School based programs

[patricia bonner <bonner.patricia@epa.gov>]

In 1971 in San Diego I did my first in schools education program. Most of EPA's outreach staff members have a link to schools.  A few years ago -- 1992/93-- for about 6 months solid my job was to work across the agency to have staff go into classrooms and speak to classes and assemblies mostly about water programs.  Hundreds of EPA people participated and we reached through two efforts -- one during November's geography week and the other around Earth Day in April -- we reached out to nearly 70,000 students.  It was exciting, productive and fun, but the effort could not be sustained without someone to coordinate it, I was reassigned to higher priorities, and the work ended. There are many of us at EPA who used to do environmental education work, then did less and then stopped because other parts of their jobs were given higher priority.   Still, there are many programs across the Agency from HQ and our regions that focus on educating children and young adults, many of them are in partnership with or done by not-for-profit organizations and local government. There are also some pretty creative things happening through media and the Internet that engage young people but also the parents. I am contacting several offices and asking them to showcase their work by sending in a message.  One thing we don't do well is market the "good stuff" we produce and support.     

pat