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April 2008 Newsletter

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Special Feature: 2008 Virginia EE Conference & Earth Day resources
Funding and Award Deadlines
Upcoming Events
Partner Updates and Resources
Your Virginia
Assorted Items of Professional Interest
Fun Fact

2008 Virginia Environmental Education Conference

• September 17-18 at Virginia Museum of Natural History in Martinsville, VA.
  www.vmnh.net

Earth Day Resources

The 38th annual observance of "Earth Day," a celebration to raise awareness of the Earth and its resources, is April 22, 2008. Visit www.vanaturally.org/vanaturally/earthday.htmlVirginia along with educational resources. for local Earth Day events and activities across

Additional Earth Day Community Events and Cleanups
Visit www.vanaturally.com/volunteer.html, www.dcr.virginia.gov/stewardship/svevents.htm and www.cvwma.com for additional listing of events.

National Environmental Education Week Focus on Carbon Footprints
April 13-19, 2008! 
National Environmental Education Week, made possible by Canon USA, promotes understanding and protection of the natural world by actively engaging K-12th grade students and educators of all subjects in an inspired week of environmental learning and service before Earth Day. To date over 900 schools, nature centers, zoos, museums, and aquariums from around the country have pledged to implement EE Week activities, and you can join them! Participants will have access to a wide variety of FREE environmental education resources pertaining to carbon footprints, including:

• Standards-based environmental education lessons and activities, including special Climate Change Educational Resources developed by the Earth Day Network and an online Student Carbon Calculator;

• Monthly electronic newsletters highlighting the latest EE curricula, professional development, and funding opportunities;

• Opportunities for online communication and knowledge-sharing with educators from across the country, including a special EE Week Photo Blog.

Funding and Awards Deadlines

http://www.nsf.gov/publications/pub_summ.jsp?ods_key=nsf04525

Stewardship Virginia offers certificates to volunteers

April 1- May 31 

Register a project today to receive recognition certificates for your volunteers from Stewardship Virginia! The statewide initiative is held twice annually to help citizens with projects that enhance and conserve Virginia 's natural and cultural resources. Projects that enhance water quality,control invasive species, improve recreational resources, preserve historic and cultural resources,preserve natural heritage resources,educate people about recreational, historical, cultural, wildlife and water resources and improve wildlife habitat are encouraged. Get involved! Visit www.dcr.virginia.gov/stewardship or contact Bonnie Phillips at 804-786-5056.

• Birdneck Elementary School, Virginia Beach
• Chesapeake Experience, Inc., Seaford
• Friends of Chesterfield’s Riverfront, Chesterfield
• Friends of Norfolk’s Environment, Inc. and Lafayette Wetlands Partnership, Norfolk
• Meriwether Lewis Elementary School, Charlottesville
• Turner Ashby High School, Bridgewater
• VOLUNTEER Hampton Roads, Norfolk

1. Charlottesville Area EE
2. Greater Shenandoah EE
3. Hampton Roads EE
4. Three Rivers EE
5. New River EE
6. Allegheny Highlands EE
7. Central VA EE
8. Upper Rappahanock
9. Eastern Shore EE
10. SWEET

• Brunswick 4-H
• Chesapeake Experience
• EAGLES Center
• Eastern Shore SWCD
• Headwaters SWCD
• Helping Hands 4-H Club
• VASWCD Educational Foundation
• Virginia Cooperative Extension 4-H Program

Upcoming Events

Partner Updates and Resources

• Brunswick 4-H 
• Shenandoah Forum 
• RiverWorks Discovery 
• Virginia Master Naturalist – New River Chapter

Partners
Users can enter savings in emissions, electricity consumption, gallons of gasoline, or number of vehicles into the calculator and determine up to 13 different ways to express the magnitude of the savings. The calculator uses the latest emission factors, approaches and statistics available through 2007. www.epa.gov/cleanenergy/energy-resources/calculator.html

Your Virginia

Virginia’s Natural Heritage Program, housed in the Department of Conservation and Recreation, is conserving the Commonwealth’s biodiversity through inventory, protection, and stewardship. Virginia Natural Area Preserves Act codifies duties related to statewide biological inventory, land protection for biodiversity, and the protection and ecological management of natural heritage resources. DCR-DNH represents the first comprehensive attempt to identify the most significant natural areas in the Commonwealth through an intensive statewide inventory of plants, animals, natural communities, and other features that are exemplary, rare, or endangered on a global or statewide basis. DCR-DNH consists of five major sections: Natural Heritage Inventory, Information Management, Environmental Review, Natural Area Protection, and Stewardship.  housed in the Department of Conservation and Recreation is conserving the Commonwealth’s biodiversity through inventory, protection, and stewardship. The

The program also supports special projects such as the Karst Program and  The Flora of Virginia Project. The Karst program, through education and management activities, protects landscape features, water quality and biological diversity associated with sinkholes, sinking and losing streams, caves, and large flow springs.

The Flora is massive undertaking to compile a comprehensive manual of Virginia's 3700+ native and naturalized plant taxa, from oaks to cattails, ferns to pines, kudzu to coneflowers.

For latest news and program updates, visit their Fall- Winter E-news.

Virginia Natural Resource Agency News
For the latest information about VA’s seven natural resource agencies visit www.naturalresources.virginia.gov/Agencies/agency.cfm and click on the agency link you need.

Assorted Items of Professional Interest

RiverWorks Discovery Offers Curriculum on Commerce & Watershed A journey of imagination and exploration of America's waterways™, is a hands-on educational program created to familiarize children and their families with all aspects of their watershed.  A fun and educational exhibit with hands-on activities has been created for use at conservation festivals, civic events, and marine regattas along major public waterways in the United States. In addition, educational curriculums have been developed for children ages 7-12.   The materials aim at forming an effective bond with our rivers, and focus on the natural history, commerce and watersheds of major U.S. rivers. To learn more visit www.riverworksdiscovery.org.

First Annual Children & Nature Awareness Month - April 2008 As part of this effort, the Children and Nature Network C&NN will publish an online guide to regional events for April, with suggestions from network members on how to build public awareness of the issue and create solutions for getting more children outdoors. http://www.cnaturenet.org/movement/

The Virginia Climate Initiative is bringing together citizens and groups from all over Virginia to help develop and promote market based solutions to climate change. The April 2008 newsletter has a variety of articles that highlight Virginia activities and national efforts on this issue. http://www.vaclimate.org/about.htm   For other conservative activities check out the Virginia Conservation Network, a statewide organization of citizens and conservation groups working on policy issues and environmental legislation.

It's Our Water(IOW) is a North Carolina curriculum for high school Earth/Environmental Science. The guide produced in collaboration with Project WET and Healthy Water, Health People, covers the importance of water quality, monitoring and maintaining water quality and the impact individual choices and actions have. IOW centers around field activities in a local stream that lead to a final report and recommendations by the class. These activities including Project WET lessons are coordinated with videos, demonstrations, classroom activities, homework and quizzes and will be a good resource for educators looking to conduct meaningful watershed education (MWEEs). For more information or to sign up for workshops, www.eefund.org/level2.php?mpid=36. is a First Annual Children & Nature Awareness Month - April 2008 will publish an online guide to regional events for April, with suggestions from network members on how to build public awareness of the issue and create solutions for getting more children outdoors.

Fun Fact

The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality is celebrating its 15th Anniversary this month.