Looking for an educational and sustainable vacation for your family this summer? Maybe pick up a foreign language while you’re at it? Moorhead, Minnesota’s, Concordia College-sponsored Concordia Language Villages have offered children and families language immersion programs since 1961, and, in 2006, opened Waldsee BioHaus Environmental Learning Center, a camp that combines principles of environmental education, sustainability, and sustainable building with German culture and language.

Waldsee BioHaus is modeled on Germany’s Passivhaus standard, which is similar to, but more extensive than, the LEED standard used here in the US. The BioHaus incorporates cutting-edge green tech, including a green roof, solar panels, vacuum insulation passive solar design, and is the most airtight building in the United States. The building also has transparent siding, allowing visitors to see the building materials. In addition, BioHaus won the Minnesota Environmental Initiative Award for air quality and climate protection, based on their 24-hour air/heat exchange system and 85% efficient heat recovery unit.

Concordia has taken pains to ensure that Waldsee BioHaus is not just German language in a green building. Along with instruction in German language and culture, BioHaus also features an extensive sustainability curriculum focusing on sustainable living practices in Germany and including green roof gardening, energy conservation, fresh-water ecology, and sustainable forestry practices.

For more information on Waldsee BioHaus’s programs, visit their extensive blog or Concordia Language Village’s website.

Ask most educators about No Child Left Behind, the current administration’s education initiative, and a constant complaint would be the de-emphasis on those subjects deemed non-essential: art, music, physical education, etc. Environmental education, outside of the traditional science class, fits into the category of subjects that aren’t assessed by standardized tests and, therefore, not prioritized in many U.S. schools. Fortunately, potential legislation might change that. No Child Left Behind expires this year, and Congress must reauthorize it, allowing room for changes.

On July 12th, Congressman John Sarbanes (D-Md.) introduced the No Child Left Inside Act of 2007. The measure, HR 3606, provides incentives for state educational agencies to create a state environmental literacy plan that will integrate environmental education across disciplines in K-12 curriculum while building an infrastructure for environmental education. It will also provide funding to help states, districts, and non-governmental organizations to implement this plan. The bill is supported by the No Child Left Inside Coalition, which includes the Sierra Club, the National Wildlife Federation, the National Audubon Society, and the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.

Where would the money come from? The bill would include environmental education as a authorized areas for use of The Fund for the Improvement of Education, where many states and districts obtain special funding. The bill also calls for grants that could be used to train teachers as specialists in environmental education.

To ask your representative to co-sponsor the bill, click here.

Ontario's Liberal Party unveiled its plan for statewide environmental sustainability education, Education Minister Kathleen Wynne announced yesterday. "We must help students build on the knowledge and leadership they have already shown on climate change issues," said Wynne. "Our government is committed to reaching every student with an environmental education that inspires them to take positive action."

The Canadian province's plan infuses environmental education in all grade levels across disciplines, as well as creates an optional Grade 11 course focuses exclusively on environmental education. Ontario previously had mandatory environmental education, but that initiative was eliminated in 1998. The new initiative will cost $4 million.

The plan was partially in response to a report issued by the Ontario Ministry of Educations's Curriculum Council and their Working Group on Environmental Education that recommended the standardization of environmental lessons and inclusion of parents in that education. The report, titled Shaping Our Schools, Shaping Our Future, is available online.

The plan is just part of a string of environmentally-friend initiatives the Ontario government has supported, including the EcoSchools program, two green-themed websites targeting high school and elementary students, and a Clean-Air and Climate Change artwork and essay contest.

Renowned University of Alberta ecologist David Schindler said in a speech Friday that children are our best hope for slowing climate change.

Speaking at the Trails To Sustainability conference on environmental education near Calgary, Schindler said,

"By the time people who are six to 12 years old now are grown up, we're going to see a different political landscape and a different environmental one."

A world-renowned expert on climate change and fresh-water ecology, Schindler was the 2001 winner of the NSERC Gerhard Herzberg Gold Medal for Science and Engineering, Canada's highest scientific honor. Schindler also noted,

"We're all pretty set in our ways and I think looking at people who really don't get it - who leave their cars idling while they're in the grocery store for an hour in the winter and things like that - we're not going to reach those folks. We can reach their kids."

Schindler, who also teaches environmental decision making at the University of Alberta, also said that while today's generation and their elected leaders have refused to deal with looming water shortages and global warming issues, unavoidable change is coming.

The Kentucky Department of Education recently awarded the University of Kentucky with a $111,000 grant to fund and undergraduate curriculum in sustainability. The grant will fund a general-education sustainability course for undergraduates, a program to help high-school teachers integrate sustainability into their coursework, sustainability-related software for use in existing environmental courses, and the development of the sustainability living-learning community located on campus.

Proposed by UK political science professor Ernie Yanarella, the grant was born out of Yanarella's long-term interest in sustainable cities. In a press release from the university, Yanarella noted that he wanted to "[Link] the present general education reform initiative to the mounting interest across campus among students, faculty, and administrators in taking environmental education and sustainability programs to a new level."

This grant will provide excellent opportunities for both UK students and Kentucky-area teachers to help integrate sustainable thinking into a broader range of classes, and will expose more students to pressing issues such as climate change, endangered species, and pollution.

Sources: Kentucky Kernel, UK News