Environmental School Registration is Open
/Submitted by Beverly Williams
Some Background Information
Our club’s national affiliate, National Garden Clubs (NGC), offers educational opportunities to members and non-members, such as Flower Show School, Gardening School, Landscape Design School (LDS), and Environmental School (ES).
The Florida Federation of Garden Clubs invites you to attend NGC Environmental School Course 1 sponsored by FFGC District IV via Zoom the mornings of January 13 – 15. To learn how to register, contact Schools Chairman and Bartram Garden Club president, Beverly Williams. bevthepatriot@gmail.com Or consult the FFGC website calendar for the registration form. https://ffgc.wildapricot.org
Facts about Environmental School
MISSION STATEMENT
To teach environmental literacy . . .
Environmental literacy is a learning process concerned with the interrelationship within and between the various components of the natural and human-made world producing growth in the individual and leading to responsible stewardship of the earth.
There are 4 courses in this school. Anyone may take a course, and students are not required to be a member of Bartram Garden Club. Courses may be taken in any order.
NGC Environmental Certified Consultant* status is offered to any NGC garden club member who completes all 4 courses and passes all exams (on a pass/fail basis). Course exams are optional. However, a student who wishes to obtain NGC Consultant status is required to take and pass each test. All exams are multiple choice and open book/open note.
*NOTE: This certification is not a professional or academic designation, but it is considered a significant achievement among NGC members.
Certificates of Completion are awarded to non-member students who complete any course.
The Environmental School is composed of a minimum of forty hours of study of specific units divided into four courses of ten hours each that includes a two-hour field trip. The courses investigate The Living Earth, Air, Land, and Water.
Course 1 – The Living Earth topics
ECOLOGY
PLANTS - BIODIVERSITY
ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE
ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES
BACKYARD WILDLIFE HABITAT
NETWORKING AND OUTREACH
HISTORIC ENVIRONMENTAL ACTIONS AND LEADERS
SUSTAINABILITY
Virtual NATURE DISCOVERY FIELD TRIP (2 hours)
Our communities are being plagued with lack of comprehensive environmental planning; indiscriminate use of pesticides; community blight; air and water pollution; traffic congestion; and the lack of institutional arrangements to cope effectively with environmental problems. These problems are legitimate concerns of community governmental officials and planners. The responsibility for their solutions rests, largely, with us – the citizens.
It is important that each individual obtain a fuller understanding of the environment, problems that confront it, the interrelationship between community and surrounding land, and opportunities for the individual to be effective in working toward the solution of environmental problems.
