COASTAL EDUCATORS NEWS
September/October 2003
Vol. 19, No. 1
Gone to the Web
This will be the last regular edition of Coastal Educators News. Due to budget constraints and to take advantage of web based technology, the Coastal Educators News will be found on New York Sea Grant Extension's education website from the Great Lakes extension staff.
Click on Newsletter & Publications Tab
You will be able to learn of current
events as well as new resources and activities at this Coastal Educators News
website. Anyone who would still like to get a hard copy or an email copy of
Coastal Educators News can do so by filling out the form found in the inside
of this newsletter and returning it to Coastal Educators News at 229 Jarvis
Hall, University at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY 14260-4400. You must fill out and return
the form to get a hard copy.
Thank you for your interest this past 25 years!
ESCAPE! Exotic Species Compendium of Activities to Protect the Environment
Escape Classroom Routines with Exotic
Species Teachers Workshop:
Sponsored by the Buffalo News, New York Sea Grant, and The Great Lakes Program at UB. Learn about exotic species in the Great Lakes. Receive an ESCAPE compendium, valued at $65, which contains 36 hands-on multi-disciplinary activities - grade-adaptable, inquiry-based lessons. ESCAPE enhances existing curriculum.
Teachers in grades 4-9 are encouraged to attend. LIMITED TO 20 TEACHERS!
A fee of $10.00 will be charged. Payment must be made in advance. Fees collected will be used as a donation to the Center for Great Lakes Environmental Education.
To register, contact: Helen Domske
(hmd4@cornell.edu) 716-645-3610.
Announcing a New Youth Food Systems Curriculum
A new curriculum is available on-line. Designed for teachers and leaders of middle- and high-schooled aged youth, this website has downloadable lesson plans, activities, and more. Discovering the Food System: An Experiential Learning Program for Young and Inquiring Minds. Discovering the Food System enables young people to:
· Learn through direct exploration
about their food system.
· Engage youth in cooperative and inquiry- based learning with their
peers.
· Enhance their awareness of the food system and foods of their region.
· Understand the links between food choices and the food system.
· Distinguish between foods that are likely to support the community
food systems and those which are less likely to do so.
· Immerse youth in highly participatory, community-based experience,
involving interviewing community members and gaining information about the food
system.
· Foster relationships between youth and their community and between
the agricultural and non-agricultural community.
Check it out! http://www.hort.cornell.edu/foodsys/
Useful Websites
Grant of the Week Website
School Funding Services, a division
of New American Schools, features a new grant each week on their website. Funds
in the past have been used for environmental curriculum development and environmental
community awareness; innovative science programs and/or developing new science
curricula; and professional development for science teachers. For more information,
check out: http://www.schoolfundingservices.org/news
Viewer.asp?docId=2546
Federal Funding from EPA's Office of Water
This user-friendly searchable funding database of federal grants and loans provides easy access to federal funding opportunities for everything from environmental education/outreach to environmental restoration. For more information, check out: www.epa.gov/watershedfunding
Digital Library of Earth System Education
The Digital Library of Earth System Education (DLESE) has created an online library of educational resources and services to support Earth system science education at all levels in both formal and informal settings. A quick search on "marine" came up with 142 entries. For more information, check out: http://www.dlese.org/
Water Science for Schools
This site from the U.S. Geological Survey explores many aspects of water. This website includes pictures, data, maps, and an interactive center where you can test your water knowledge. A glossary and related links are also included. For more information, check out: http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/
Pennies for the Planet
World Wildlife Fund is again sponsoring
its popular "Pennies for the Planet" campaign in which kids can learn
about three priority regions around the world, helping get them excited about
conservation and connecting environmental education with environmental action.
This year's program includes the Everglades and South Florida. For free posters,
educator's materials and additional education activities, check out: www.worldwildlife.org/windows/pennies/
2004 Great Lakes Student Summit
May 13-14, 2004
Buffalo, NY
Join us for this unique opportunity that will inspire your students to learn
about and take an active role in the protection of the Great Lakes Basin ecosystem.
We guarantee it will be an experience your students will never forget!
Who Should Attend?
Conference Highlights
WE NEED TO HEAR FROM YOU!
Due to budget constraints and to take advantage of web based technology, the Coastal Educators News will be found on New York Sea Grant Extension's Education Website located at:
However, if you would like to still receive our newsletter through the mail or have it emailed directly to you, we need to hear from you. Please complete the form below and return it to our office as soon as possible.
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of the newsletter to the address below.
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Return to: Coastal Educators News, 229 Jarvis Hall, University at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY 14260-4400.
Changing the Wild Relatives
The genetic qualities of some farm crops might cause serious problems for their wild relatives. Pollen from domesticated plants like corn and rice can spread to the wild relatives of those plants if they're growing nearby. Some ecologists say this movement of pollen has a very real potential to affect entire populations of the wild relatives. They say it could eliminate genetic qualities that make the wild plants unique, and it might even eliminate the plants themselves.
Ralph Haygood is an evolutionary ecologist at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. He worked on mathematical models of how pollen moves between populations of plants. The models show that in some situations, domestic plants could permanently alter wild populations within a few decades. Haygood says that deserves more attention.
One way farm plants can affect their wild relatives is by assimilation. That's when genes from crop plants replace genes in the wild ones and slowly turn them into hybrids. Another way is "demographic swamping." That's when wild plants take on qualities of domestic ones and lose their fertility in the process. Over time, the wild plants simply disappear.
Haygood says there's a good reason
why this needs close consideration. Although these processes have been going
on for thousands of years, the scale of them today is unprecedented because
the size of the human population and the amount of land being devoted to agriculture
is unprecedented. Haygood's research is being published by the Royal Society
of London. Credit: Earthwatch, WI Sea Grant
Coastal Educators News, edited by David Greene, Extension Educator, hdg2@cornell.edu is published five times a year by New York Sea Grant. It will be located on our website at www.nysgeducation.org