Bringing Environmental Education to Schools

Even though Earth Day is celebrated in April, Community Resources, Inc. (CRI) helps to bring environmental education into schools all year through our wonderful partnership with Wendy Dew and the Environmental Outreach and Education Program at the Environmental Protection Agency, Region 8 (EPA). With the onset of Covid-19-related school closures, the EPA quickly pivoted to virtual presentations and were one of the first to offer live virtual presentations back in April 2020. The EPA offers programs to teachers and students on a variety of environmental topics that can be tailored to any age group. Popular topics include: food waste, Earth Day, recycling, air quality, energy, climate change, environmental justice, and water quality. They can also create presentations to match other environmental/conservation topics to fit specific curriculum.

The EPA is also active in CRI’s Academic Mentors program, providing terrific volunteers for Environmental Engineering and Environmental Science mentorships over the years. A recent mentorship paired EPA Environmental Engineer Jason Deardoff with Thomas Jefferson student Sebastian Aichele. Together they took an in-depth look at how environmental science is used to protect public health and the environment.

Over the past three years, Wendy and her team have worked with several students from Academia Ana Marie Sandavol school for their 6th grade Empowerment Projects. Projects included: Pollution in the Ocean, Environment—Going Green, Save Our Planet, and Environmental Issues.

In addition to in-person experiences, the EPA also has lesson plans, activity books, pre-recorded presentations and games available for any teacher or school.They are always happy to assist as science fair judges and career panelists and can host educational booths at fairs and other outreach events as well. Wendy and her amazing team are a terrific RESOURCE for our COMMUNITY!