As you start wrapping your head around school year 22/23, I'd like to remind you the 4J/EWEB Education Partnership Program is here to support you and your students!
The 4J/EWEB Education Partnership (4J/EEP) is a grant funded program within Eugene School District 4J. About 30 years ago, this phenomenal partnership was formed to support and supplement science education, particularly in the areas of energy and water. Prior to the pandemic, the program was slightly revisioned with the theme: Our Changing Planet-Preparing for Our Future.
Check out our website's teacher page for program offerings. (Note: updates always in progress)
Reach out with questions. shepard_t@4j.lane.edu
This fall Eugene 4J will continue our carbon reduction efforts with the 4J Loves Food Not Waste Plan in ALL kitchens and ALL cafeterias across the district. The plan is part of our Climate Action Plan partnership with the City of Eugene and our shift to in-house cooking in 4J Nutrition Services prior to Covid closures three years ago.
Understanding the value of food and where it comes from, as well as how to dispose of your meal remains is important knowledge to carry forward as humans on planet Earth.
Check out the Love Food Not Waste Resources for information about the plan and some resources to help you help your students understand this shift in their cafeteria experience.
23/24 Elementary Love Food Not Waste Resources
23/24 Secondary Love Food Not Waste Resources
Be a Waste Warrior-K-12 lessons (by grade band), activities, and resources to teach the planetary impact of what we eat and what we throw away. WWF Food Waste Warrior FREE!!
Small Shifts, Big Difference
ICAW Poster/Video Contest
Each year, the International Compost Awareness Week Committee holds a poster contest to pick a new design for the annual poster. There is always a new theme for ICAW, which is highlighted on the poster as well as the dates for ICAW. The dates for 2024 are May 5 – 11. The poster contest is open to anyone from anywhere in the world age 14 or older. The video contest is for ages 10 – 13.
Click the link for more info:
ICAW Poster/Video Contest opportunity
Salmon Education
We have space for up to 60 classrooms to raise salmon in their classrooms with the ODFW Fish Eggs to Fry program, a priority to third and fourth grade. If you are new to 4J, check in with your team/building leadership to find out which grade level participates in your setting.
We are so excited to work with teachers and students from late October to winter break raising salmon in your classrooms and releasing them into the "wild". A teacher training is provided the first week in October.
This experience is has great science and social studies connections with Tribal History, Shared History and the NGSS standards, especially 3rd and 4th grade.
No Time to Waste
Understanding the value of natural resources, what they and and where they come from, as well as how to conserve, protect and regenerate them is important knowledge to carry forward as humans sharing planet Earth.
Schedule a classroom visit with Eco Chick. We will work with you to streamline the visit to your teaching needs. Visits typically include a story, information and an activity.
4J Climate Justice
(photo: 4J CJT students presenting to the school board last June)
Interested in starting a "Green" Team" in your building this year? Need a little help with how to get started?
We're here for you!
Set up an initial consultation and we will work together to get a team going at your site.
Get Outside!
McKenzie River Trust's Living River Exploration Days at Green Island
2nd Saturday of the Month, March - December
Take a walk near the place the Willamette and the McKenzie Rivers meet. Observe 15 years of tree-planting work on Green Island, a habitat for beaver, river otter, and over 150 species of birds. If you’re looking for a special place to connect to nature this year, join in the fun on the second Saturday’s, March through December, and explore the Living Rivers in your backyard!
September Environmental Focus "Good Clean Fun"
What would happen if every person picked up at least one piece of trash?
September is a great time to get your students outside to take action for the planet. Let's clean her up! Below is a list of some of the September environmental recognition days. Litter pick-ups are a great way to connect students to the environment....and collect data using the Litterati app.
World Clean-Up Day 9/16
World Water Monitoring Day 9/18
Zero Emissions Day 9/21
World Rivers Day 9/24
World Environmental Health Day 9/26
Choose a date and reserve the 4J/EEP litter pick-up kit. Our staff would love to join you!
Global Fight to End Fossil Fuels-September 15 through 17
It's been twelve years since local climate activist, Kelsey Juliana first started her legal advocacy for limiting climate change. It's been five years since Greta Thunberg skipped school and protested against climate change. These actions, among others taken by youth, have spurred quite a movement.
Striking isn't the only way for us to stand up for the planet...let's think outside the box to give students time to share their voices for our dearly beloved, Mother Earth.
Consider some of these options:
- Do One Thing DOT mural
- Lunch time Climate March around your school grounds or the 10 block allowed walking distance
- Gather at the flag pole and recite the Earth Pledge
- Climate Strike and Art Activism activity
- Write to a local or national leader , How to...
- Digital "strike"
- Have an idea? Please share.
Fridays for the Future-Beyond Strikes
Please share your projects with us! 🌎🌏🌍
SPLASH! Stormwater Awareness Week September 25-29th
Stormwater Awareness week takes place every year in the fall. This year it is September 25-29th. You are the voice of stormwater! Tell your story. Share your voice.
SPLASH! offers grants of $500-$2000 available for teachers that participate in Salmon Education and/or use the SPLASH! resources to teach their students.
Check out SPLASH! site for resources.
Look for more info about SPLASH! grant applications via email soon.
Subject to Climate
In addition, they have free asynchronous training modules available. I had the opportunity to try them out this summer and recommend them to anyone interested in integrating climate change into their subject matter. These modules highlight Climate Education Essentials for Educators. And, it is FREE!
Take a moment to check out the links included-it will be well worth your time.
STEM teaching tools Climate Education
Check it out!
STEMMaterials.org
Check it out, elementary folx!
Drawdown Webinar-The End of Normal...
Top Takeaways:
- Earth’s climate has always changed, but the change we are seeing today is unprecedented and clearly attributable to human activity. The planet is warming because of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide. These emissions come from human activities: fossil fuel burning, land use, and industry.
- A warmer world is a stranger and more dangerous one. Rising temperatures are making heat waves likelier, longer, and hotter. They’re also exacerbating drought, making storms more extreme, causing sea level to rise, and worsening fire risk.
- These are things we know, but there are also a lot of things we don’t know. (This is why science exists, and why I still have a job.) We don’t know how hot it will get, because we don’t know exactly how various feedback loops work. Our best estimate is that for every doubling of carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere, Earth will warm around 3°C. We also don’t know how much carbon dioxide living things will absorb as atmospheric concentrations continue to grow. And we don’t know when the various gradual changes will hit “tipping points” — points of sudden and irreversible change.
- The biggest unknown of all is what humans are going to do. Science tells us that if we stop increasing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere, the warming will stop. It also tells us that we have the technology and practices we need to do so. The big question is, will we?
- Carbon storage solutions like planting trees and using machines to suck carbon dioxide from the air can be a tiny part of the solution in the long term. But the easiest way to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is not to put it there in the first place. To halt climate change before it’s too late, we need to focus first and foremost on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
- The climate benefits of cutting emissions will mainly accrue to future generations. But many technologies and practices that reduce greenhouse gas emissions also carry more immediate ancillary benefits – for example, reduced lung and heart disease from fossil fuel–generated air pollution. So it’s a win now as well as a win later on.
- Science has an important role in shaping the future – but stories have an even more important role. The story of climate change has villains. It has a plot. Now it’s all of our jobs to jump in as the heroes and bring it to a happy ending.
"We don’t know when any of these [tipping points] will be set off. But we’re not doomed. Nature does not think in degrees Celsius. Every tenth of a degree matters, every ton of greenhouse gas matters …. Ultimately, the [trajectory] is up to us."
Useful Links:
- Project Drawdown
- What’s Really Warming the World?
- Global Warming: How Hot, Exactly, Is It Going to Get?
- Is There Warming in the Pipeline?
- Negative Emissions Technologies and Reliable Sequestration
- The argument that we should just adapt to climate change is so misguided
- Stop Giving Big Oil a Carbon Fig Leaf
- Job Function Action Guides
- Drawdown Stories
Three Things You Can Do NOW:
Share the webinar recording with five people through a text, email, or social media post. Check out the other webinars in our Drawdown Ignite series, too!
Use Project Drawdown videos, discussion questions, and other resources to spread hope and ignite climate action in your role as an educator, journalist, or community member.
Sign up for our biweekly newsletter to stay up to date on tools and resources for advancing climate solutions.
4J/EWEB Education Partnership
TOSA-Climate, Energy, Conservation
Grant Coordinator-EWEB, SPLASH!, Love Food Not Waste
Email: shepard_t@4j.lane.edu
Website: https://bit.ly/4J-eep
Phone: 541.790.5533