Eco Experience

Eco /ˈēkō/ adjective; not harming the environment; eco-friendly

Volume 14 ~ April 2022 ~ The Earth Day Edition

Climate.Energy.Water.Conservation.

- Albert Einstein

In this issue:

• A note from Eco Chick
• DisOrient Film Festival-High Tide Don't Hide April 8 @ Churchill
• DEQ celebrates Statewide Food Waste Week April 4-8
• 4J Climate Connections- Earth Week April 18-22
• 4J SHIFT campaign
• April is Global Citizen Science Month
• Celebrate Earth Day with Community Science Projects
• Climate Ed Now Series
• Drawdown's Neighborhood
• Regeneration Punch List
• Our Climate Our Future
• Global Footprint Network
• 4J/EWEB Partnership and YOU!
• STEM teaching tools
• Read.Watch.Do.
• Join Oregon Educators for Climate Education
• Extra! Extra! 4J School Board special session-Climate Action

Earth Day is every year on April 22nd. This year marks the 52nd observance. This year's official Earth Day theme is Invest in our Planet- Act (boldly), Innovate (broadly), and Implement (equitably). It's going to take ALL of us.

One way to show our Mother Earth some love is to SHiFT to eco-friendly habits. Small individual shifts = big collective impacts! Identify one thing you do on the regular that you could do differently to reduce your personal carbon emissions. There are so many choices! My biggie was single use coffee cups-I love me a good cup of coffee! Such a treat to have someone else make it for me. So, I made a personal rule that unless I have my reusable coffee mug with me, I cannot buy coffee out. I have stuck to this for the past 4 years and it is now a habit. I never leave home without my mug, clean and ready for my next treat! So, what's one small shift you could make? See below for more SHiFT ideas and info.

I hope you'll do something out of the ordinary this month with your students to show your love for our Mother Earth. Let me know how I can support you.~Tana

Directed by

Niva Kay, Emily McDowell, Nia Phipps, Phil Stebbing

Friday April 8th @ 7:00 pm

Churchill High School Auditorium

In the race for existence, striking teenagers discover that activism, authority and awareness make for a steep learning curve.

Determined to provoke real action, New Zealand teenagers nationwide join the global School Strike for Climate. But planning a movement and building momentum are the easy parts as they face political indifference, their own white privilege, and the ongoing struggle to be heard...as the tides continue to rise.

Check out the trailer below. And, for more info about the festival DisOrientfilms.org

"Everyone, everywhere has to see High Tide-Don’t Hide. It is the best, most important film I have seen in years, gives me hope for the future, kia kaha rangatahi mā, you can make a difference!!" -Dr. Ella Henry, AUT

This is a free event sponsored by the 4J/EWEB Education Partnership.

—Lily Singh

STATEWIDE, OR—Governor Kate Brown has proclaimed April 4 through April 8, 2022 Food Waste Prevention Week, and the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality is encouraging all Oregonians to take simple steps to reduce waste and save money. Spoiled food costs Oregon households on average $1,800 annually (The EPA recently updated this figure from $1,600), and it’s estimated one-third of all food in the U.S. is wasted – a significant contribution to greenhouse gases.

Click here to read the rest of the article.

4J /EEP No Time to Waste

The 4J Climate Justice Team students and staff have been working away on Earth Week ideas and resources to offer teachers via our Earth Day pages on the 4J Climate Education Hub. The Earth Day pages are part of the new 4J Climate Education Hub site being built to house all the great resources our team has compiled.

Keep checking back for new resources across the content areas.

This year's Earth Action Week themes are:

Meatless Monday-try a meatless meal

Transportation Tuesday-bike, walk, scoot, carpool, bus

Waste Not, Want Not Wednesday-reduce, reuse, rethink

Thrifty Thursday-make a frugal choice in your spending

Forest Friday-get outside

Water Weekend-conserve, protect, enjoy

—Bill Nye

What You Can Do

We all have a role to play in protecting our planet for future generations to come. Here are a few examples of simple things you can do now to do your part:

• Shift your ride – Start with one trip a week using Eugene's renowned bike path system or commuting by scooter or bus.
• Shift your meal – Commit to eating a plant-based meal 1-2 days a week.
• Shift your bin – Utilizing the City's Love Food Not Waste program keeps methane-producing organic materials out of the landfill and into compost which the community can repurpose. Simply place food waste only in your yard-debris bin for pick-up day.
• Shift your community – Being on a first-name basis with your neighbors is not only great for your wellbeing, but it’s also potentially lifesaving in the event of a natural disaster.
• Shift your consumption – Did you know that in Lane County, nearly 70% of our emissions come from upstream emissions – those occurring outside city limits related to the sourcing, manufacturing, and transportation of goods? By reducing and reusing, you can significantly curb your carbon footprint!

More info: shiftor.org

—Rumi

Citizen Science Month offers thousands of opportunities for you to turn your curiosity into impact. There’s something for everyone, everywhere! Join others in learning about and participating in real (and fun) ways to help scientists answer questions they cannot answer without you.

Check out our featured projects and events below, which are perfect for beginners. Together, we can move the world forward. Sci Starter

Citizen science, or “community science,” refers to data collected by the general public that is typically shared with scientists to help identify where we’re making progress and where we need to focus our attention.

The more data we have to help conserve the planet and its resources, the better, and scientists need our help!

This is a wonderful article from Project Learning Tree with an abundance of cool projects to join. Check it out!

Check out this Climate Ed Now series of articles featured on the National Center for Science site-Young people deserve a climate education that will help them ward off misinformation, overcome misconceptions, and embrace solutions.

The series Includes this one written by Portland Public's Susan Holveck-

One district’s journey: Rising to the challenge alongside our students

Join host and Project Drawdown storyteller Matt Scott on a journey to “pass the mic” to climate heroes whose stories often go unheard, and elevate climate action in the process. Drawdown’s Neighborhood showcases the diverse community of people working to help the world reach drawdown, the future point when levels of greenhouse gasses start to steadily decline. Each story serves as a bridge between climate solutions and people like you looking to tap into their own superpowers to stop climate change. Watch to hear their voices, learn about their “green careers,” and be inspired about the ways that you too, can utilize your unique gifts and talents to accelerate climate solutions and be part of shaping a better world and just future for all.

A punch list can be for an individual, family, community, company, or city. It is the list of the actions you or a group will undertake and accomplish over a predetermined span of time—one month, one year, five years, or more. You can make different lists for different time periods—this week and this year for example.

Create your Punch list today...include the habit shifts you plan to make.

Regeneration.org

Get the real facts on climate change.

Let Our Climate Our Future take you into a future that we can create and to scales so small you need to be a molecule to see what’s happening. Join us on a journey to learn why the story of climate change isn’t just about melting glaciers or disappearing polar bears, and not just about a more dangerous world for far-off future generations.

Climate change is really a story about us.

This is a 39 minute video or can be shown in an 11 chapter video series is a science based look at climate change for students with cool young people telling the story.

Sign up for free.

-Greta Thunberg

Measure what you treasure.

Humans use as much ecological resources as if we lived on 1.75 Earths. The Ecological Footprint is the only metric that compares the resource demand of individuals, governments, and businesses against Earth's capacity for biological regeneration.

What's your impact? Calculate your ecological footprint and your personal overshoot day.

Passionate about data? Check out the Ecological Footprint Explorer open data platform.

Go to the Global Footprint Network's site to find out more.

—Maya Angelou

Here are a few Earth Month activities I can bring to you and your students:

K-5 Give Me an A...STEAM!

The Give Me an A...STEAM! project is designed to bring an art element to your classroom learning. 4J/EEP's Eco Chick will provide a Water is Life mural painting experience for your students. Perfect for teachers that participated in the Virtual Salmon project or are teaching water related lessons, such as FOSS Water and Climate. Let's connect and discuss how to get your students creating. This works best with a 45-60 minute session and a second 30 minute follow-up to add fun details.

K-8 Eugene's Three Water Systems Gallery Walk

Eugene's Three Water Systems involves a small group gallery walk with various learning materials to engage with. It is designed to help students gain an understanding of our local water systems and why water conservation and protection is vital to life on the planet. This activity includes a Blue River watershed model demonstration. (45-60 minutes)

K-8 Wonder Wander

Wonder Wanders are designed for K-4 students and their teachers to GET OUTSIDE to notice and wonder in their school yard surroundings. This 45-60 minute experience includes an introduction and optional read aloud story, an outdoor Wonder Wander guided by 4J/EEP's Eco Chick, time for students to take advantage of the teachable moments being outdoors in a non-recess moment provides, time to share with partners and the whole group, and an optional follow-up SeeSaw lesson. And, they are FUN! Rain ponchos, fingerless gloves, and hand lenses are provided to get a macro and micro view rain or shine.

K-12 Food Waste Education

A classroom visit with Eco Chick to learn more about food, waste and why it matters.

Email-shepard_t@4j.lane.edu to schedule any of these experiences for your class today!

—Antoine De Saint-Exupery

Stem Teaching Tools #57

How place-based science education strategies can support equity for students, teachers, and communities

Meaningful interactions with elders, scientists, and community partners focused on studying locally relevant phenomena and identifying authentic design problems can engage students in learning in a way that teaching abstract concepts or broader global issues may not. It can also foster local agency, responsibility, accountability, and relationships through the development of a shared sense of place. Place-based science education is fundamentally transdisciplinary and cross-cultural, fostering scientific communication practices needed to address existing and emerging problems while truly involving stakeholders from diverse backgrounds.

STEM Teaching Tools #84

Let’s Talk Climate! Bridging Climate Justice Learning and Action Across School, Home, and Community

Students feel and see climate change and its impacts all around us. Indigenous People, People of Color, People Living in Poverty, People with Dis/ abilities, the young and the old, and those living at the intersections of these identities, are especially impacted by changing lands and waters due to systems of oppression that govern social, political, and economic dynamics among people and places. Teachers can support solution- and justice-centered learning of climate change by bridging conversations between school, home and community across their curriculum. They can help others Talk Climate!

To dig in further: STEM Teaching Tools Climate Learning

Oregon Educators for Climate Education (OECE) is a statewide group of educators working toward Oregon legislation that would mandate the integration and infusion of climate change for PK-12 education across all core subject areas.

Take the Oregon Climate Education survey.

Join the Oregon Educators for Climate Education.

For more info visit: Oregon Climate Ed

—Jackie Speier

Tana Shepard aka Eco Chick

TOSA-Climate, Energy, Conservation

Email: shepard_t@4j.lane.edu
Website: https://bit.ly/4J-eep
Phone: 541.790.5533