PROVIDENCE – The Woonasquatucket River Watershed Council has received an environmental education grant totaling $91,000 from the United States Environmental Protection Agency to finance environmental education among students in Providence and North Providence Area, the EPA announced on Monday.
Funds from the grant will specifically aid in operating a two-year program in a joint effort with the Partnership for Providence Parks called “Using Parks & Partners for Broad Reaching Environmental Education.”
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“This grant furthers EPA’s commitment to working alongside our local partners to promote a healthy environment,” said EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt. “Teaching students about conservation through hands-on experiences ensures that our future generations will contribute to be good stewards of our natural resources.”
The new program which will see K-12 students from around Providence engage with nature walkable from their schools. Additionally, local teachers will be trained at the Roger Williams Park Zoo Teacher Institute in wildlife conservation, field biology, watershed restoration, and outdoor education that will teach them how to best use local parks and nature as outdoor classrooms. Lessons from the summer training are modeled to be practiced throughout the school year.
Local parks will also host summer camps for 6-14 year old students while an Environmental Leaders program will allow 15 to 30 high school students to participate in an environmental education program and pursue environmental projects relevant to their interests. Students from that program will then impart the lessons learned from their work on the younger students.
“[We] are excited to educate hundreds of urban youth using local parks as our laboratory,” said Alicia J. Lehrer, executive director of the Woonasquatucket River Watershed Council. Lehrer estimated that the program would see some 500 K-12 students from Providence and North Providence brought outside to learn. She added that the EPA grant and the programming it funds will ensure that “both teachers and students can make the most out of local natural resources to build young environmental scientists and stewards.”
Kyle Borowski is a PBN contributing writer.
