Environmental Education for Underprivileged Youth
by Barbara Wiseman
Richard Stewart in a training session with Boot Camp students.
Boot Camp students picking up trash to save wildlife.
In November, The Earth Organization (TEO) joined forces with the 77th Street Police Precinct in Los Angeles, California to bring environmental education to students attending the precincts award-winning Boot Camp program for low-income, at-risk children, run by Officers Julie Peat and Joe Marone. 55 students, 12 members of the Explorers Cadre, and 10 police officers attended sessions conducted by TEO staff and volunteers. The group took an educational tour through the Eco Station, a wildlife rescue facility, in which they got to see exotic animals up close, and learn how litter negatively affects wildlife. For most this was a completely unique experience with eye-opening information. Additionally, they attended presentations led by TEO volunteer Richard Stewart, gaining greater understanding of how garbage, improperly handled, not only harms local wildlife, but can come back around to badly impact them personally through polluted water, food, and air. The students also learned simple, basic principles about how to recycle. For the final step of the program, the group went out to pick up trash around their school and neighborhood with the purpose of preventing further harm to the local wildlife and water resources. The majority of students participating in the Boot Camp program were court-ordered there by a judge. Most are semi-literate and some functionally illiterate. At the end of The Earth Organizations program with them, the students were surveyed and the results were truly remarkable. Here are just a few of their comments: I learned that trash is bad for the earth. I liked this program a lot because it really made us think and I learned that trash could kill animals. I learned that I can be creative and reuse things in different ways. It was fun! What I liked most is that we are going to help the citys and the world. I learned if you see trash on the floor to pick it up and throw it to a trash/recycle can. I like your program and it will help the world. I learned how to throw away trash and to not litter, how to help new animals. And to not throw trash around are [our] neighborhood. I liked the program a lot! I learned that trash has a lot of chemicals that kill animals in our environment and make our ocean dirty.
I liked that it shown us what we can do to help. Thank you for helping us to make our earth clean. One student, when asked what he learned, cryptically, but poignantly, wrote: Clean earth safe life As a result of the success of the program, the Earth Organization has been invited to participate in future Boot Camp programs as well as to participate in other police community betterment programs around Los Angeles County.
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