Stewardship for the Next Generation

Over the past seven years, environmental educators in Maryland have worked closely – and tirelessly – with Governor Martin O’Malley to build upon his steadfast commitment to our natural resources and our children. Our alliance began in 2008 with the Governor’s creation of the Maryland Partnership for Children in Nature, a first-of-its-kind collaboration of public and private experts tasked with creating new and innovative ways to connect young people with their natural world and help them grow to become responsible adult stewards.

While the Partnership’s journey is far from over, we have made much progress along our path, expanding opportunities for learning and inspiration through unstructured play in natural settings, structured outdoor learning through park and public lands programs, and exposure to nature and environmental learning as part of their school day.
To date, the Maryland Green Schools program includes 425 certified schools with an additional 170 applications being processed this year. After applying for this distinction from the Maryland Association for Environmental and Outdoor Education, schools are selected by demonstrating that students, teachers, staff, parents and community partners are incorporating green, sustainable practices into the classroom, and tackling environmental projects in their neighborhoods.

Under Governor O’Malley’s 2012 Stream Restoration Challenge — a 3-year grants program that marries buffer planting with service learning and environmental literacy opportunities — students are improving water quality and supporting tree planting goals. Last spring 2,800 students earned more than 7,500 service learning credits, planting 46,000 trees. In the fall students planted approximately 100 acres of trees at 60 sites. And their work continues.

Taking stream restoration lessons to the next level, in 2013 Governor O’Malley launched Explore and Restore your SchoolShed, through which students use the streams and creeks on or near their properties as outdoor classrooms, learning about water quality and taking steps to improve it. More than 100 schools are now participating statewide, and students are seeing measurable results on the ground.

Teaching green job skills along with an appreciation for nature, the Governor’s Conservation Jobs Corpshas graduated 1,800 at-risk youth from a summer employment program at Maryland State Parks over the past 5 years.

And, lest we forget the indelible impact of time spent outdoors on a child’s health and well-being, theMaryland Children’s Outdoor Bill of Rights continues to encourage parents, teachers and mentors to simply spend time with young people enjoying our great outdoors through activities like fishing, swimming, camping and exploring. State and local parks in every county offer spaces, trails and programs to support these activities.

Together we realized our most important accomplishment to date in 2011, when Maryland became the first state in the nation to adopt an environmental literacy graduation requirement. The environmental education community remains fully committed to this effort, working with local school systems to infuse core subjects with lessons about conservation, the Chesapeake Bay, Smart Growth and natural resource management, and use the environment to meet emerging new requirements in science, technology, engineering, math, social studies and more.

Our investments in environmental education today are ensuring that our young people graduate high school not only with the intellectual ability to tackle complex environmental challenges – but also with the will and desire to care for our natural world.

Along with our commitment to our natural resources, these investments will determine not only what type of planet we leave our children, but also what kind of stewards we leave our planet.

There are innumerable partners – parents, teachers, non-formal educators, and others — who work every day to support these efforts and this week, in honor of Earth Day and Environmental Education Month, we salute them, and the leadership and commitment of Governor Martin O’Malley.