Developing a Plan for the Infusion of Environmental Education at the Intermediate Level

Abstract

Although Madison Metropolitan School District published an environmental education curriculum guide in 1990, little follow-up has been done within the schools to monitor its use. As a result, environmental education is taught in a hit or miss fashion in most schools throughout the district, including Frank Allis Elementary School. This project was designed to facilitate the infusion of environmental education into the curricula in grades two through five at Allis. Allis is a large school and the teachers work as teams of four to six at each grade level. Approximately one half hour per month of each team meeting was devoted to the infusion of environmental education during the 1994-95 school year. Each team chose units for infusion, gathered materials to be infused, and established a format for ease of use of the materials. Some of these materials were then piloted by the teachers and shared briefly at the meetings. The materials were organized according to unit and lesson, and placed in the appropriate grade level binder in the team leader's room for easy access. The project resulted in four resource binders of lessons chosen for infusion, one for each grade level involved in the research, and an expanded teacher resource library of environmental education materials.