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A program to learn from

I'm a little late on this -- like, three weeks late -- but this article about a San Francisco high school curriculum that immerses urban kids into the surrounding environment is heartening. Well, my first reaction is frustration and "why do we need a special program to introduce kids to nature?" but recognizing the state of the union at this point in time, this is way better than the status quo nothing.

The program, sponsored by the Goldman Environmental Prize, "seeks to educate kids about both environmental science and the history of environmental activism." Which is cool. Nothing like evoking past activism to get kids -- or people of any age, really -- fired up about their potential.

A school in San Francisco is taking the program a step farther, involving other entities to create an even wider and more comprehensive teaching tool. Check it out:

The students listened to [a habitat restoration expert] before going out into the Presidio [neighborhood] to collect air-pollution monitoring devices they had set out the week before. Later in the day, they would analyze the data from the devices -- basically cardboard boxes that capture particulates on a sticky matrix -- to arrive at estimates of general air-pollution loads.

Imagine: sit down and chat with the experts, go out and do in-the-field work, and make it relevant to your own life and neighborhood.

Why isn't this happening in every school across the country?

Media Shower: A weekly roundup

Wow, I guess I underestimated my ability to influence coverage here at Grist. If you haven't noticed, environmental media has been getting a lot of play around here lately. So, this week I'm simply going to provide a roundup of green-media topics appearing on Grist (and elsewhere):

Obama and Lugar introduce ‘American Fuels Act’

I'm not in the habit of regurgitating press releases, but one I just got from Obama's office seems significant, so I'm reprinting it below the fold. (As I'm sure our faithful readers will hasten to point out, it's an ethanol bill.) Discuss.

Francisca Porchas, clean-bus campaigner, answers readers’ questions

In her work with the Bus Riders Union, Francisca Porchas has helped prevent 33 premature deaths, 805 asthma attacks, and 7,000 lost workdays -- just by convincing Los Angeles to replace dirty diesel buses with ones that run on compressed natural gas. Answering reader questions, Porchas shares more impressive stats about her org's successes, discusses her strategy for luring drivers out of their cars, and explains the meaning of "drive-by pollution."

From Portman to Polo

It’s better than Mickey Mouse Club Just when you think Natalie Portman can’t get any cuter without doing irreparable harm to the space-time continuum — she’s immune to bad hair days, we tell you! — it turns out she used to perform in the World Patrol Kids, which rocked such adorably memorable kiddy tunes as […]

The Road to Hell Is Paved With ‘Hood Intentions

Census estimates show U.S. population shifting to exurbs As the U.S. population rises, more and more people are moving into compact, smartly planned, energy-efficient cities. Ha! Ha! Sigh. Actually, the fastest-growing areas of the country are fringes: suburbs and semi-rural areas on the edges of expanding metropolitan regions. “It’s not just the decade of the […]

It’s Déjà Ew All Over Again, Again

Sighting of ivory-billed woodpecker questioned by new batch of experts Ivory-billed woodpecker, we hardly knew ye. And then ye came back and we acted like we’d known ye all along. But now it turns out there may be no ye to know after all: In today’s issue of the journal Science, leading North American birder […]

It’s Déjà Ew All Over Again

Drill-happy senators go after the Arctic Refuge yet again It seems like just three months ago that oil-thirsty congresscritters were pawing at the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge like horny adolescents buzzed on wine coolers. Oh, wait, it was just three months ago. The effort to drill in the refuge “keeps coming back like a recurring […]

Multiple Chemical Sensitivities can drive sufferers into poverty as well as ill health

Consider the trappings of modern life: Calvin Klein Eternity, gasoline, Gore-Tex, Aveda hairspray, paint, particle board, polyurethane iPod cases. Is this the face of the future? Photo: iStockphoto. Now imagine that you’re allergic to virtually all of them. Environmentalists usually think about chemical toxicity as either a dramatic local crisis (Bhopal, Love Canal) or the […]

Bush Sticks Dirk in Interior

Enviros decry Bush’s nomination of Kempthorne to lead Interior He’s a mountain-bike enthusiast, two-term governor, and object of fear and loathing among conservationists. And he just picked another one. Mere days after the resignation of Gale Norton as secretary of the interior, President Bush nominated as her replacement Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne (R), saying he […]