EEAW Award!Planting Seeds

BLOG: Pelly Place – EEAW Award – Images by Art Wolfe

I am very proud to announce that the Urban Forestry Project, created by the Green Seattle Partnership in conjunction with Regalis, has won Environmental Education Association of Washington’s Community Catalyst Award. I worked on and photographed for this wonderful project with the students of Gatewood Elementary School and Chief Sealth International High School in West Seattle, my alma mater.  The catalyst project for the Urban Forestry Project was cleaning up and planting trees in the Pelly Place Natural Area with Nobel Peace Prize laureate Wangari Maathai. It was truly inspirational.
• The Green Seattle Partnership (GSP) is composed of Seattle-based entities including the Cascade Land Conservancy and Seattle Parks and Recreation. Under their leadership, grant funds were acquired from the US Forest Service with the stated purpose of creating a compelling program that would model educational learning objectives of the Seattle School District and integrate with Seattle Parks’ Environmental Learning Centers.
• The Urban Forestry Project (UFP) is a groundbreaking program that educates and empowers high school, middle, and elementary school students to explore urban forestry issues on lands adjacent to their schools and improve the health of their forests in a sustainable way. Students participate in real-world science by evaluating the habitat, forming a study hypothesis, designing their study, and implementing field investigations based on their research. The UFP provides significant and innovative opportunities for schools to meet state standards, especially in the STEM disciplines. The Urban Forestry Project incorporates multi-grade teaching that begins with high school students conducting scientific investigations that analyze the health of their local forests.

Web links:

http://eeaw.org/awards
http://www.regalis.biz/home.shtml
http://greenseattle.org/
http://www.greenbeltmovement.org/w.php?id=59
http://www.cascadeland.org/
http://www.cityofseattle.net/parks/environment/learning.htm
http://www.seattleschools.org/schools/chiefsealth/
http://www.gatewoodelementary.org/