Environmental Education Association of Washington"Report Card"
News Conference on Washington's Environmental Education
remarks by Dr. Jeff Koenings, Ph.D., WDFW Director
October 13, 2004

Thanks for inviting me here this morning. It's a great pleasure to be here!

I'd like to thank all of our distinguished guests for being here today, as well as the students and staff of Dearborn Park Elementary School for allowing us to be their guests this morning.

It is truly remarkable what Dearborn's students and staff have accomplished.

Smack dab in the middle of one of America's largest urban corridors, you've managed to create a unique, outdoors classroom; a five-acre open-air laboratory that allows students to leave the classroom - leave the box, learn outside the box, if you will - and experience the environment in a way most city school children can only dream about.

I can't think of a more perfect setting to talk about environmental education than Dearborn.

Those of you who know me know I am a firm believer in environmental education.

Through the Pacific Education Institute, my agency has joined with a host of other public and public entities including: the Department of Natural Resources, the Department of Ecology, the Department of Transportation, the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, the Port Blakely Tree Farm, and the state chapter of Audubon.

PEI's goal through its members is to explore ways to enhance environmental education, forge new partnerships and increase the state's support for EE especially the field investigations.

That's why I believe the recently completed report on the state of environmental education in Washington state is important, and why I want to say thank you to the many people who comprised the private-public partnership that prepared it.

The shorter, report card prepared by the Environmental Education Association of Washington condenses the major findings of the larger report.

I'm confident the findings contained in the report prepared by the private-public partnership, and condensed into a "report card" by the Environmental Education Association, will help us in the months ahead as we work to underscore the importance of environmental education to a well-rounded education.

For those of us who have long supported environmental education, one of the report's findings - that a recent survey indicated widespread citizen support for environmental education - probably doesn't come as much of a surprise.

What is surprising, however, is that despite this support, we still haven't been able to marshal the collective resources, creativity, and political will to make environmental education a reality for all those who want it here in Washington State.

One of the most intriguing as well as exciting findings of the report was its chronicling of the preliminary research focusing on schools which offered environmental education. The research showed that students enrolled in these institutions have better scholastic achievement levels than in others.

More research is required to determine what exactly is at work here, but the indication is that students learn better in real world contexts, or situations, that we can offer in a variety of ways. Also, educators in several school districts have asked us to help them reduce the school drop out rate by involving students in real world fieldwork dealing with habitats and wildlife.

Indeed, one of the most rewarding aspects of my tenure as director of the Department of Fish and Wildlife has been the "real world" initiatives we've forged with students and school districts.

In fact, the report we're talking about today chronicles one of the most high profile of those initiatives, Project CAT, CAT, in this case, is an acronym for Cougars and Teaching.

Using global positioning satellites to keep tabs on twenty, local, radio-collared cougars, we've teamed up with the Cle Elum-Roslyn School District to create a unique project involving students in fieldwork and data collection.

In the words of Evelyn Nelson, superintendent of the Cle-Elum-Roslyn Scholl District, Project CAT's mission is "to create a proactive educational program for students and communities that promotes living with cougars through experience or curriculum, scientific exploration and community empowerment."

We also have another, similar - and equally successful- project, this one called Project Mule Deer, which also utilizes students in hands-on fieldwork and data collection. And working with the Pacific Education Institute, my Department and others hope to continue these important projects and expand our partnerships with schools, and our state's citizens. Citizen science is a growing endeavor within the natural resource field, and citizens educated in the natural world make citizen science solid.

It is my goal, too, that my agency, working with the Pacific Education Institute, contributes to the development of a statewide, strategic plan for environmental education in Washington, a plan that would assist in ensuring uniform quality, quantity and delivery of environmental education to our students.

That is the chief recommendation of the report that we are here today to discuss, and I support it and ask all for you here today to join with me in supporting it.

My belief is that the report on environmental education in Washington is a call for action! The bottom line is that it works as an educational tool, it's not discretionary and every student should learn about "mother nature" by experiencing it first hand.

Thank you.

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