good morning everyone the legislative hearing by the subcommittee on insular affairs oceans and wildlife will come to order today will hear testimony concerning h r thirty six forty four the bay watershed education and training regional program and national environmental literacy grant program act over recent years experts have observed that our modern lifestyle has led to children spending more time indoors watching television than being outside the growing disconnect between children and their natural world has been shown to negatively impact child development and may hamper a child's ability to make decisions as a new in coastal watershed regions such as guam where global warming is creating dramatic eco system changes this nature deficit disorder could significantly undermine our stewardship of the natural resources upon which economic development and human health depend many experts agree that the best way to remedy this situation is to develop a student's enry that is environmentally literate the idea of improving environmental literacy and connecting children to the outdoors through direct contact with nature should be something we can all support new research shows that children who go outside for hands on learning have a better understanding of math and science improves self esteem are more motivated to learn and experience better health through lower rates of attention deficit disorders obesity stress and depression the national oceanic and atmospheric administration has taken on the task to increase environmental literacy in the general public know was bay watershed education and training program better known as be wit and environmental literacy grant program has made great strides in advancing ocean atmospher environmental literacy in the united states our colleagues from california congresswoman lois capps introduced h r thirty six forty four to formally codify both education grant programs these outstanding programs have a proven track record of successful hands on educational experiences in addition this legislation will expand access to these two grant programs to island territories in the pacific ocean including the island of guam which i am honored to represent so i would like to thank the congresswoman and her staff for their hard work on this bill it is imperative now more than ever that our nation's young people not only understand the world around them but also how their actions affect the environment upon which we all depend i look forward this morning to working with congressman caps and the other members of the subcommittee to move this bill forward and now i'd like to recognize mister cassidy the acting ranking republican member of the subcommittee for any opening statement that he may have thank you m i appreciate you holding this hearing today on h r three six four for the bay watershed education and training regional program and national environmental literacy grant program act that's a mouthful i think all of us agree on the value of teaching children about the importance of the bay's watersheds in coastal areas of the united states the u s commission on ocean policy found that based on two thousand them it's the year two thousand ocean related activities generated more than one hundred seventeen billion dollars of economic activity supporting over two million jobs when coastal activities are included the numbers increased to more than one trillion dollars this means that one tenth of our nation's annual g d p is generated in the near shore areas adjacent to the coast when the coastal watershed county economies and i will say county and parish a condom use are included the contribution  wells to over four point five trillion dollars this is half of the nation's g d p and accounts for sixteen million jobs these figures clearly show how important coastal areas are to the u s economy and my home state of louisiana that's why reference parishes ocean and coastal activities are critical to the local economy recreation and culture while providing a livelihood for many louisianians well i suspect members all agree with educating youth about the importance of khowst there are concerns about this legislation centering around three issues first the cost and growth of government associated with this bill i think any responsible person except that we have an accidental threat to our nation's future and that threat is our nation's debt and this i'm told will be two hundred thirty five million dollars which may sound like a leaky faucet in washington d c but out and want outside of washington two hundred thirty five million dollars is a lot of money the imposition of new mandates and the effect of these mandates on existing programs and finally how these two programs authorized in the legislation fit into the existing system of education grants with the no hope we'll begin a discussion on these issues today and that these concerns will be addressed and being addressed this build me able to move forward thank you madam chair and i look forward to hearing from our witnesses i thank the gentleman from louisiana for his opening statement before  before introducing the witnesses i would like to ask for unanimous consent to enter into the hearing record a letter from dr stuart distraught president and c e o of the chicago zoological society in support of r thirty four sixty six hearing no objection so ordered and now for our witnesses to begin with we have miss louisa koch director nola office of education dr r mr doug sigmund federal affairs director chesapeake bay foundation mr jim elder director the campaign for environmental literacy and our next witness i would like to ask the gentle lady from california i understand she knows you well and she would like to introduce you so congresswoman lois capps i thank you madam chairwoman and i want to say how grateful i am that you are holding this hearing today on my the l h r thirty six forty four you know i have worked in our schools locally for many years and i understand how important education is to our children and as someone who represents a coastal district i understand homeport and the environment is as our ranking member said to our communities health and prosperity my bill helps get children outside where they can connect through hands on experience to their environment how else could they understand the importance of their actions and significance of what we're asking them to protect i believe that now is the time to react to authorize an expanded no as be wet and the environmental literacy grant programs we need to ensure that these programs are here for our children now and into the future i pledge to work with my colleagues so that any concerns they have me with the language of the bill can be alleviated so that we can focus on what is most important to all of us which is our children our environment our future i want to thank all the witnesses who are here today who have traveled some long distances to testify about the importance of oceans and environmental literacy but particularly for me it's a real honor to welcome my if she wishes to talk about her experiences with marie cho along with her teacher the multicultural education program for channel islands national marine sanctuary this program delivers bilingual ocean conservation experiences and services to santa barbara and ventura counties the no a california be wet program has provided funding for this wonderful program for the last four years i could go on and on but i'll leave it to three say and the other witnesses to tell you more and thank you for allowing me to have a personal and the next witness is mr kevin coyle vice president for education and training national wildlife federation and our final witness is mr eric rhodes supervisor of mathematics and science stafford county schools i thank you all so much for being here today and as we begin i would note for all the witnesses that the red timing light on the table will indicate when five minutes have passed and your time has concluded we would appreciate your cooperation in complying with these limits be assured however that your full written statement will be submitted for the hearing record and at this point i would now like to recognize thank you for inviting me here to testify before you on h r thirty six forty four the bay watershed education and training regional program and national environmental literacy grant program act no one has an important role to play in addressing our nation most critical scientific economic and environmental challenges global change rising sea levels and habitat loss a real threat to the american economy the environment and our way of life at the same time america's youth continue to fall further behind their global to peers in science technology and math to successfully meet this need and have sustained strategic impact know must rely on resources of its own but must also leverage the vast resources of our external partners two of the most successful programs noah has for working with external partners are the national environmental literacy grants program and the regional program these programs play an integral role in achieving snow a mission and advancing environmental literacy let me tell you a little bit about the environmental literacy grant program environmental literacy grants fund development of programs materials and exhibitions that expand the use of earth system science in our nation's schools museums aquariums and other educational venues to date fifty nine competitive awards totaling twenty five point eight million dollars have been granted demand for these grants is high since the program's inception in two thousand and five we have funded only nine percent of the applications received and only seven percent of the requested funds leaving many high quality proposals on funded successful environmental literacy grants catalyze change in formal and  informal education through the development of new partnerships and approaches for example these grants have supported development of ocean literacy and climate literacy frameworks written by teams of scientists educators and decision makers these frameworks provide the scientific foundation to help people understand how the oceans and climate influence us and how we are influencing the oceans and climate these frameworks have been very useful to teachers of ocean and climate science and to informal educators at museums aquariums and documentary filmmakers these large scale awards are building national resources allowing locally insulated programs like the wit to have context resource and model programming they need to reach their audience successfully and i'm to tell you a little bit about the b what program do you like grant strength and science and environmental education for children in kindergarten through twelfth grade they also provide professional development for teachers to increase their knowledge and effectiveness the goal of the wet program to provide locally relevant experience to learning opportunities like investigating water quality changes in the local stream or building a rain barrel to better understand urban runoff these experiences enrich the traditional twelve environment while meeting state learning objectives to be wet program began in the chesapeake bay in two thousand and two to support the commitment of the chesapeake bay program a partnership for watershed restoration which calls for every student in the watershed to have at least one meaningful educational experience before graduate graduating from high school to be what program is now run successfully in six regions of the country each program is administered locally and is tailored to regional priorities to ensure relevance and alignment with state and regional environmental and educational objectives program has accomplished a tremendous amount in its eight year history the program has invested over forty million dollars to support more than five hundred thirty projects in two thousand and appreciate the work that has gone into the bill but i would like to highlight two areas for additional consideration first the administration would like the environmental literacy grant program to address all of you know its mission goals we suggest amending the language referencing coastal ocean and watershed to reference coastal ocean lakes climate and weather education second the admin russian would prefer to have flexibility in developing  taking into consideration watershed boundaries state boundaries local incapacity as well as noah's regional structure as opposed to the eleven regions as authorized nature thirty six forty four in closing the authorization of the environment grant program in the bay watershed education training regional program is an important step to ensure these the content continuity of these programs these programs are complementary and critical they allow no with the support environmental in our system science education to meet service stewardship and science mandates these programs also address the scientific achievement gap between our students and their global peers and better prepare our country to deal with the growing environmental challenges that confront us we look forward to working with you on this legislation and thank you for the opportunity for letting me testify for the first time and represent no i would you have to take any question thank you ms koch and you did an excellent job our next witness is mr i thank you for being with us today and you are now recognized to testify for five minutes good morning carol but i'll everyone else as a former teacher and son and grandson of teachers i'm humbled to be in this crowd today you have my formal statement i want to just tell you a story the chesapeake bay foundation has been around since one thousand nine hundred eighty seven we've been working on our mission of trying to restore some measure of ecological integrity to the chesapeake bay since that time forty two years our program areas essentially are engaging citizens we have two hundred fifteen thousand members engaging our citizens and doing hands on restoration projects such as oyster restoration underwater grass planting tree planting and so on policy analysis and advocacy and perhaps most important for today environmental education we began our environmental education program in  ninety three and our education staff tells me that we believe that through our efforts since nine hundred seventy three we've delivered some kind of environmental education to over a million students either directly or through our teacher training programs indirectly we have a fairly extensive infrastructure for our environmental education programs we have a network of residential and education centers around the bay several on islands in the bay and we have a fleet of specially designed boats that we take students on day trips we provide educational experiences for over forty thousand students every year this coke made some reference to the part of the rest the story i want to tell you in june of the year two thousand a seminal agreement was signed by the federal government and the governors of pennsylvania maryland and virginia among the goals in that agreement is the commitments in that agreement was that every student in the bay watershed should have an educational experience and environmental education experience on the bay or on a river or on a stream leading to the bay before she or he graduated from high school and given the fact that our watershed is sixty four thousand square miles that's quite a commitment after the commitment was made a number of things began to roll out one of which was organizations like mine which is almost entirely privately funded began to do very extensive fundraising for our to try to help to meet that goal the second thing that happened was the states began to mobilize and put money into environmental education in the third thing that happened was in the appropriations bill in two thousand and two the chesapeake bay that was created and we've been a reception of the web fund since around that time and we believe we've put them to very good use and they have been extraordinarily important to our efforts and the efforts of a lot of other organizations like ours in the chesapeake watershed since that time to be what program has expanded and rightly so because it's a tremendous program and it should expand in my written statement i've got five points about lessons that we have learned and i'm not going to read them to you i want to refer you to them centrally we have observed that in order to make these programs successful we need good political support for them we need support from the formal and the informal education sectors we need an active and engaged donor community that will provide matching funds and we need high quality program structure and implementation we think that if we have those five factors we can deliver the kinds of educational experiences that students really need  routinely the bill that we're discussing today would expand the environmental education programs of no other federal government we find that to be an extraordinarily important thing we urge you to take it seriously we urge you to tweak it if it needs to be tweaked but we urge you to give at the highest possible level of support wanted to stand on a personal note in my remaining minute or what i have my two children are fourteen and eleven they go to a fairly wealthy school in the maryland suburbs a public school in the maryland suburbs often times mr credible often times i get asked to come and be a speaker i've been amazed that ten year olds can not only accurately spell you traf occasion but they can explain exactly how that works over night your fixation of the water leads to demean you wish in the dissolved oxygen which means to which is bad for aquatic life which is bad for the communities that surround it etc ten year olds eleven year olds it's an amazing thing and it's because of the programs we're talking about today but i want to make the point that i don't just want my kids in a rich public school district to be able to do that i want to have kids in the district of columbia and in baltimore city and in cities around the country and madam chairman i tried hard to i looked up the clavicle of guam i was going to put glom in that sense but i don't know how to pronounce it so if you tell me how to pronounce it i'd be happy to  sense thank you everybody needs to participate in these programs and i urge you to give it the highest possible support thank you thank you very much mr sigman for your personal observations and  and i'd also like to thank you for bringing this bill forward thank congresswoman caps for sponsoring it for you again for joining the list of co sponsors and also thank the committee staff dave jansen and katherine romance for the hard work that they put into this listening that they did when the stakeholder communities had had input and for crafting what i believe is a very strong bill as a result i just want to make four quick points five five points first it's about the economy and our president has has set a major goal of transitioning to a green economy and he's not really leading quite as much on that as one might think europe gets that this transition is our underway and we're actually in  game of catch up there's increasingly an understanding that in order to make this transition to a green economy we need to really invest in green job training but to date that understanding that focuses largely on for example the renewal renewable energy sector and there really isn't yet a broad awareness and understanding that the transition to a green economy is a game changing transition and it really requires the participation and engagement of architects engineers business men insurance companies finance experts venture capitalists a new economy needs to be built by a lot of different sectors in a lot of different professions and education has a really key role in that process which to date has been largely overlooked we need to retrain many of our  professions to understand what a green economy is and what's going to need to take place we need a literate consumer base that really understand that can drive this green economy and we need citizens who are who are literate about these issues so that they can incorporate into their daily decision making number two environmental problems aren't environmental problems problems of the environment for say they're largely human problems and they are largely human behavior problems and they are largely a result of ignorance a lack of understanding of the role of ecosystems and how they support life on this planet and the lack of a lack of understanding of the impact of our behavior on the environment mitigation is costly the everglades the six hundred billion dollars that we're spending to clean up the everglades is just one example so far more cost effective is to educate people at the beginning they know what to do and they do the right thing from the start so we need to start treating the disease when we're dealing with environmental problems as well as the symptoms third we have a serious environmental literacy gap in this country awareness is going up but understanding is going down as the issues that we face become more complex we don't have a lot of data on this but there was a recent organization for economic development study of fifty seven  countries and the environmental literacy of students in those countries at the age fifteen we rank thirty fourth out of fifty seventh we beat ergo way and thailand which is the good news we lost to a stony croatia slovak and czec republic's not to mention canada japan australia russia and the u k a fourth point is that environmental education as a case through twelve subjects suffers from benign neglect ninety eight percent of the population supports environmental education a lot of school administrators supported in concept but it's still relegated to a third tier subject along with art music foreign languages and similar topics death to be wet and l g programs are important part of the solutions to these issues no it reports that in two thousand and eight the bee went program alone reached one hundred twenty five thousand students and six thousand teachers and i particularly think that this balance this combination of a national and regional program makes good sense the national programs able to fund things like a like a national model earth science laboratory course and that really has pushing the field the practice and the policy of the field forward and the same time the regional programs as we've heard are able to fund the the the troops on the ground who are trying to bring this education directly to kids so it's a terrific it's a terrific balance and in closing i just want to say that we are the first generation leave this planet in worse shape than we got it every living system on on the planet is in decline and the rate of decline is accelerating and there's not one scientific paper that's been peer reviewed in the past ten years that refutes that that disturbing fact to me really forces me to take a good look at how i can provide my children's generation with the tools meaning the knowledge in the skills to really address this bank of problems that we're leaving with i think this bill takes one important step in that direction and at the end of the day that's why i support it finally  katherine has there being no objection to the statement being entered into the record so order thank you i thank you mr elder for your dedication to environmental literacy and ms ellingson having traveled all the way from the sunny state of california i believe you win the prize for the for this distance traveled to be with us today so welcome on behalf of oceans and children for the past twelve years i've been a teacher at monteux elementary school in the ventura unified school district in california i'm accompanied today by michael listed alan to llosa who has written testimony that i would like to request be submitted to the official record bay watershed education in training grant support an important program at my school specifically the marital program which stands for most i call to role education for resource issues threatening oceans this is a community based marine science education and awareness an initiative primarily grants funded and largely dependent on the know what the what grants program since two thousand and seven when i enrolled in the channel islands national marine sanctuary pro marital program all fourth and fifth grade students and teachers at my school have been part of it this year is married to a program serve sixteen schools throughout santa barbara  ventura counties twenty six educators and nine hundred students what is my school's audience montauban elementary audience is comprised of kindergarten through fifth grade students we have a large number of english learners and hispanic students it is a title one school and as such reaches a large portion of under represented groups including those that are hispanic african american native american asian and middle eastern the hispanic population comprises over thirty nine percent of the population in ventura county what is my involvement with the u s and maraton with the support of the b what grant the marital program has given me the training the tools and the resources to help my students understand the connection between our watersheds creeks oceans and atmosphere and to realize the effects of our habits on the health of ocean and coastal environments the core of the academy is  standard along and curriculum which teachers can implement in the classroom why still addressing california's rigorous and numerous academic standards i find the depth and engaging nature of the curriculum allows me to integrate it scientific content and explorations into reading writing art and technology and i use it to teach english as a second language as well it's been a vehicle for being creative and passionate in what i teach by still exposing my students to those rigorous academic standards my students are engaged in the field trips and field experiences have been critical to developing within them the excitement of an underwater world that's not just on the t v it's a world that's minutes from their houses they get told get wet they get to ride on boats before the marital program the majority of montauban is fourth and fifth graders had never visited any of the channel islands let alone understood the biodiversity and in the visible connections of the watershed and oceans because of the program their lessons are not compliant confined to being inside with this relevant content i'm able to engage the least literate and my most academically gifted students they get to go to tide pools island streams beaches and wastewater treatment plants they get to meet multiethnic multilingual ocean scientists using scientific terms teaching them to take scientific measurements and use scientific equipment it motivates them to do research write poems stories and create powerpoint presentations children have studied the impacts of litter on the watershed and wildlife and begged to clean up the campus during recess they are preparing presentations to motivate third graders to make better choices with trash passing on the knowledge passing on the inspiration what are some of the wets accomplishments the big what grant through the marital program has been able to touch the lives of over forty five hundred low income students and over two hundred educators in the santa barbara channel and monterey bay areas since two thousand and two most of the students in my class come from poverty and the merit of staff and curriculum has opened their minds to new possibilities as a teacher in the program i have experience to help children's repertoire of what i want to be one i grow expand from the usual responses of fireman policeman doctor lawyer now their responses include oceanographer ocean biologist hydrologist herpetologist and remotely operated vehicle engineer this is important because these students come to realize that careers in earth and ocean science are not exclusive of the anglo and or economically privileged population who currently dominate in these professional areas why are these programs needed the be wet program has been the main fiscal sponsor of the marriage so academy programs for both the channel islands and monterey bay sanctuary disruption of funding for the b what grants would be disastrous to thousands of teachers and students or by the programs if funds there are far thereby limiting positive impacts on an ailing ocean in closing i will read a testimonial from nancy a colleague in the program from jeff all elementary school every child has a right to an equal and quality education but the reality is that children in inner city schools miss out not only on science but on the arrangement opportunities that can accompany it the marital program has given my students in an inner city school in the heart of the gang injunctions zone of oxnard the opportunity to have access to a world class science program scuse me complete with visiting scientists science equipment and field trips is just given my students an awareness of the environment and how their actions affect the ocean it is provided my students many of them who have never even visited the beach five miles away from them the opportunity to visit the islands and revel in the beauty of the marine sanctuary that had previously been so close and yet so far away from them thank you i thank you very much ms ellingson and if there is no objection we will submit alan's testimony for the record hearing no objection so ordered mr coyle welcome you are now recognized to testify for five minutes the morning madam chairman thank you first let me thank the members of the committee for moving forward on this legislation in particular congresswoman caps for showing the leadership here it's very important issue i'm going to having heard all these wonderful comments i'm going to summarize my comments to just a few key points the first of those is the state of environmental knowledge in america and let me just say that over many years i've worked on research not only at the national wildlife federation but in a previous position that i held which looked at the state of environmental knowledge in america and the best way to describe it is not notwithstanding the state ones experiences with you terrific cation that in general terms there's a stunning amount of ignorance about the environment in american society it's just stunning and let me also say the people who work in the environmental field way over estimate how much people actually know and i can i could go on with statistics but the gist of it is is that there's a it's a very simple principle to follow and that is that if an environmental issue or a viral subject involves one step people generally get it they generally understand that a car pollutes the atmosphere or that a factory will put pollutants into a stream but if it's two steps  car puts oil on the ground and then rain comes along and washes all into a stream watershed concept they really don't get it so i just want to highlight that that there's there's a very important role for this legislation and other legislation that this committee considers in this area and then let me say also my second point that when considering coasts and oceans and the issues around coasts and oceans and islands what we're looking at is tremendous complexity and tremendous pressures on these resources those pressures involved not only the normal pressures that we would see with population and pollution and things like that but secondarily a new set of pressures that are rising and becoming more visible and more pronounced in the form of climate change and so i just want to highlight that that as we look at this legislation and we look at the importance of educating people in the coastal zone and and the importance of people understanding  large resource areas that it's vital that they have a grasp of the complexity of these areas and the kind of pressures that they're under let me also address a point with this legislation that's important which is that the legislation if you think about it is really into tears the first here is this the wet program and it really focuses in and tries to create a community of understanding around particular areas of the country and that's really vital that's vital for the great lakes is for the chesapeake bay doug was very modest in the fact that the folks at the chesapeake bay basically were instrumental in getting this program up and running to begin with so there's a lot of opportunity to have those communities of interest form around important areas louisiana wetlands the caribbean islands other other places the second point is that we need national literacy we need people to really understand these issues on a national scale and that's the great part about the the literacy grant portion of this program so it's  in essence it's a one two punch let me put on my sort of education hat here for a minute and talk as as an educator might about why environmental education with all of the pressures you see kids grades going down in math and science and so forth why environmental education and let me say that there's over the last twelve years there's been a very good body of research that's been developed that shows a few things that are important the first is that kids with environmental education do better on their statewide tests these are the tests required under no child left behind and it's very it's very consistent data on that the second thing is they help with college entrance course and there's there's again data on that science reading and math  particularly valid and particularly important for environmental education is good connections there and good data on that lower income students as was pointed out do a lot better under these programs they come farther excuse me they come farther along than even the middle class kids in terms of how far they come and their learning motivation improves and discipline improves and these are all math things that matter a great deal to some of the school systems that we work with and then let me just close by saying a few words about the national wildlife federation's interest in this the federation has four million members and supporters and we reach four million kids every month with our program so we have a we have a lot of skin in this game so to speak  our membership is very committed to education more so than a lot of environmental groups or conservation organization there are exceptions like the chesapeake bay foundation and wonderful organizations around there but there's a this dedication  to to the at the national wildlife federation and our membership is very diverse including teachers and including bird watchers but we have a lot of hunters and anglers people who are out there on the land they're conservative by nature they're conservative politically they're conservative religiously but they're out there on the land and they're seeing tremendous changes so we endorse this legislation we support this legislation wholeheartedly we think for a couple of reasons it's fair it's good in the long run it's going to save money because people thank you mr coyle for your testimony and for your organization's work to encourage children to seek outdoor adventures through the be out there campaign and finally our final witness i would like to recognize mr rhodes thank you for being here this morning mr rhodes and you are now recognized to testify for five minutes thank you madam chairwoman subcommittee members first of all i want to thank you very much from the about three thousand outdoors and in a little indoor instruction but i want to say thank you very much those those middle school students greatly appreciate it i have a unique perspective about this legislation because i started my career as a classroom teacher and then was i worked at the virginia department of education for five years as a science coordinator in two thousand and two and we can advance the slide and the chesapeake bay two thousand agreement was one of the first initiatives that i took on as a science coordinator with the virginia department of education and the crafting of the meaningful watershed educational experience you see that goal and it's been mentioned already that by the year two thousand and five each student before graduating has a meaningful watershed educational experience and it's not just a term it's it's a definition it's actually a four page definition if you've had an opportunity to read have four page definition we definitely worth are with that definition and so if you take a look at those those photographs of the grant that we did this year and i'm going to go back because now i'm a supervisor of mathematics and science in the school district with about twenty six thousand students i'm responsible for mathematics and science for those students and over the last three years we've incorporated meaningful watershed educational experiences at the elementary middle and high school level and we have seen huge gains in student performance on standards of learning test that's our academic indicators in virginia and we tracked this data over the last three years and you know fortunately we've been able to get more students out but you can see there that the program that we have stafford is an exam it's part of the know it be what exemplary program that program provides professional development for teachers as well as the possibility for student experiences are meaningful watershed  experiences the professional development we stick with the no child left behind definition of high quality professional development we stick with about forty hours of professional development for our teachers and we model that professional development after what we would expect them to do in the classroom so that professional development experience for teachers is outdoors it's project based they are outdoors collecting data they are using inquiry based learning techniques during that training because we want to model that in an effort to then have them go back many of us have experienced we teachers especially we  that you kind of teach how you were taught so we're trying to teach the teachers differently so they will teach differently and so now we're experiencing some some pretty wonderful things you see there in the two photographs we have you know as well as some other chemical indicators they also do biological indicators and you can see on the right there like i said this is an exemplary program in terms of professional development match with a meaningful watershed experience those are teachers way because our students we see a great impact because they're engaged they really truly are able to use the environment is an integrating context of verses learning in silos that's one of the things as an educator i've learned over my career is that you can't teach in silos you can't teach mathematics separate from science separate from english they have to be integrated in the environments the perfect integrating context and of course they're structured around high quality and instructional design we use problem based learning in base learning you can see also there once again down at the bottom we have teachers engaged in that learning the same way we have our students engaged in learning and it's an interval all part of our star program our virginia standards of learning and have have real rich connections to the environment anybody from virginia knows that our we have a whole strand k through six that focuses on natural middle school students there investigated and looked at their school yard habitat now they looked around and recognized that they had some issues with erosion so those students came up with a plan first they wanted to find out how that erosion impacted their local streams and of course the chesapeake bay so they did lots of research behind that they made a difference in terms of shoring up the  that occurred on that that hillside but then they went a little bit farther and realized that they needed to you know to make a bigger difference they needed to put some other things in action so they went out and harvest about seven hundred blackwell of saplings and created a willow farm because well those are great little water suckers and you can put them along a string bank to create a riparian buffer so those students now you know looking at the watershed as a system it's not just the land it's lots of different components and in terms of sharing and communication now we have children that are true stewards of their environment ou of the possible four thousand students in the school divisions that partnered in this about three thousand of those students have have communicated in some manner whether it was a web site that they've developed school boards that they've talked to parents groups that they've talked to about the importance of being great environmental stewards and it's really interesting parents when i come out to speak to parents anyway i'll get a crowd of about forty or fifty parents voice and just to give you a quick look that's that's our program there and the results from our program thank you thank you thank you very much mr rhodes and i would like to thank all of the witnesses for your dealership in environmental education you are all doing a great job building and shaping the next generation of decision makers in america i will now i'd like to first introduce some of my colleagues that have joined me here this morning from the state of michigan the honorable congressman dale kildee also from maryland congressman frank  and from new hampshire congressman carole shape order and thank you for joining me this morning i will now recognize members for any questions they may wish to ask the panel alternating between the a majority in the minority and allowing five minutes for each member and if you so desire we will have a second panel of questions cole i have a question for you can you explain the concept of a meaningful watershed educational experience and how that differs from a traditional watershed educational experience how does  these standards well i think that you just heard from eric rhodes who has been helping us design them and help us come up with a definition of very the description of a meaningful watershed education experience what we're looking for is for children to be able to go out  their environment to collect data to understand the issues that are involved in their watershed to actually take part in the research to do the analysis and to draw their own conclusions from the data they gather and to be outside in the environment so they connect the academic learning with the environmental experience thank you we wanted that for the statement statement for the record how would you respond to concerns that this bill goes too far beyond  people and in the two years since we received that authorization the culture of noah has changed there's much more of a focus on communicating our science not just investigating and learning more about the environmental issues that we confront no it does not need thirty six forty four in order to run the bay what an environmental it is a grant programs but we have put a lot of work into making very high quality programs and we believe that congressional guidance how these programs should be run and congressional explicit congressional support for these will help sustain and strengthen these programs and  vision is for an informed society to be able to not only understand but also to better manage its resources and you can't have an informed society unless you invest in education thank you  and now for mr coyle i understand that many of your organization state affiliates have memberships that are primarily drawn from hunters and anglers now many of your state affiliates have signed on in support of this bill in your opinion would this legislation help to engage more young people in fishing and outdoor recreation it certainly would for a couple of reasons our membership particular statewide affiliates we have affiliated organizations and states all over the country such as the florida wildlife federation or south carolina so forth and those folks are basically people who care a lot about the natural  environment they think about the natural environment in terms of the outdoor experience and we're all aware if you have been following the statistics on this today the average child is spending about six hours and thirty minutes six hours and twenty minutes a day staring at an electronic screen that does not include homework and as of it's a kaiser family study if you're if you want to know the source of that and our members look at that particular state affiliate members which number about a million different folks and those and those organizations they're very concerned about that they see the loss of natural heritage they see the loss of what is what it is what it means really to be american and to have this idea that people are growing up within watersheds close close to coastal areas and so forth we don't really understand their connection to it they don't understand what it is or why it's a special place is of great concern to membership and so there's tremendous support for forts and education efforts a lot of our of our affiliates about thirty of them are coastal and so this is a tremendous focus of thank you thank you very much and i have a question for you mr siegel and i time for one more you know what that the existing chesapeake bay program is underfunded if we were to use this program is the template for all other be wet regional programs what level of funding would you recommend for an expanded be wet program madam chair i don't i don't know i don't have a recommendation for you on that i note the authorization level in your bill i assume that you and your staffs and miss caps and others think that that's an appropriate level and i can't offer you their opinion on it would any of the witnesses wish to comment on that question thank you i can't speak to chesapeake bay per se but from the outside it does look to me like anytime you're trying to mount a grant program that's less than a couple of million dollars it's really inefficient very very very difficult to do it effectively and efficiently so i think there is some kind of minimum threshold that you might want to consider for each of the regional programs just the situation again i'm not specifically familiar with maybe somebody else can speak to that part of it go ahead all of these programs are underfunded they're all underfunded and the and the reality is that the world is changing such with climate change in particular and particularly coastal areas and ocean areas that we need to find ways to run these programs well we need to find ways to show that they are valuable to society and valuable to the economy and so you can easily make the case that would be wet program in the in the chesapeake bay region which is a vast region of i don't know what it is twenty million people  more that the programs are underfunded because these people are growing up these kids are growing up in areas where they're not really having a meaningful experience with the natural resource system that they're part of and so i think when you when you look at this across the board we are in an age now where we have a chance in this in this current century in moving through this century we have a chance to actually educate our young people on the environment and have them be better participants in society as a result of that thank you thank you very much mr coyle and now i'd like to recognize our acting ranking member mr cassidy thank you thank you  koch do we have outcomes data we have some very compelling anecdotes about how kids lives have been changed and pre and post testing resume after the coursework has been done that their awareness of environmental issues improved but as we compare that to a control group of kids with similar demographics in quality of school teacher these kids got the program these did not and more of these the if you will the intervention group went into a science career i think designed the programs to help me ask you though because kansas data i'm assuming that has an was adequate enough to significance those numbers up there would not be such so i'm assuming that a lot of this environmental been done independent of the be wet program evaluation and has had significant control group and did find that the teachers were more confident about teaching about their watershed the students were developing a better understanding about  stewardship and taking care of their environment and we need to continue to align the programs both with the national results and regional programs specific evaluations california has also done of we're describing as frankly the scientific method is just applied to something which is a particular concern which is the watershed in environmental activity and so so again are we contrasting that with teachers some earlier equipped to teach the scientific method or is it going skilled control of teachers in order to compare them to and then use the academic records and then pre and post to evaluate both the teacher skills and the student performance now because it was very impressive if you can statistically raise in our highest high stakes test the child's ability to perform in math and science frankly i'm a little skeptical that that's entirely attributable to the b what program and if i mean that's just amazes me if that were the case because again you're in a very small and so are we sure that this is not part of some broader secular trend to point the teachers with a better way to teach the scientific mathematic method and i'm not really sure why math would improve because really you're you're looking at a scientific process as opposed to math which is related but think enough so that i would expect it to be a different outcome if you will the really good question thank you  the evidence that i cite and the and the evidence generally speaking in the environmental education field compares schools that have environmental education programs and therefore use a certain method and that method is you know as an educator way that the teachers are taught to teach it this is not really about the content as much as it's about the method so there's a study was done in washington state but i think that establishes my point that it's not the content of the be web program perhaps as much as it is that teachers are discipline our group that now the the philosophical question because one we have a huge deficit in our country it's amazing how much money we owe so this two hundred thirty five million of us fully funded is frankly going to be entirely borrowed entirely borrowed and then we're going to borrow from somebody to pay in the future it almost seems like it should be the college's department of education which is teaching this method of teaching as opposed to relying upon this kind of after the fact you're already teaching so let's go back and show you this particular sort of course work which i think i've gathered mr coyle is again not necessarily coursework but the method of teaching do you follow and go on with us this almost seems like something from the department of education as opposed to the federal government you talk about the  state department of education correct i think generally speaking any education reform efforts would say that it's important for the federal government to take some lead to provide some support for change and jim elder was talking earlier about the the basic point that there really isn't much environmental education in schools and i guess my point on that is that going back to i think you cheat myth that are being found seem to be the method of teaching as opposed to the specific the specific course material so i'm trying to get that it's both mr congressman it's the reality is that some of the content is good science some of the content does generate an important knowledge for kids knowledge of what the future like and i except that on the other hand again i think it's the scientific method that's been implemented i'm out of time and there's others to ask questions i'll just summarize though by saying that interested to see i don't think we frankly i don't think you can so i don't think you can attribute the typically significant improvements in math to this coursework i can see it if you are related to the ability of a teacher to teach differently  and so when i look at us borrowing two hundred thirty five million dollars to teach teachers how to teach i have some kind of hesitation about that but thank you very much i thank the ranking member and  are in the midst of votes right now we think we have one fifteen minute to five minute votes so we are going to reconvene in about thirty minutes to forty five minutes so if the witnesses would stay around i know that  my colleagues here have further questions so at this time we recess until about eleven thirty affairs oceans and wildlife will now come to order reconvene and i'd like to ask the witnesses to please be seated i would like to call the gentle lady from california for any questions she may have of the witnesses and the gentle lady is the author of this bill i thank you again madam  chairman chairwoman for organizing the hearing and thank you to each of our witnesses for your wonderful testimony very symmetrical and compiled i think made an eloquent statement for the record for us all to hear i know our ranking member isn't here right now but for the record i did want to acknowledge his concerns about evaluation and to me that's a reason for the legislation is that this is been a very instrumental program with a great deal of support in the locations where it is been used and what we want to do in collaboration with know is to provide some some of the funding for evaluation for study so that we can demonstrate  to everyone's satisfaction the effectiveness of the program that you all have given testimony to you all do such hard work but i want to particularly single out my constituent teresa ellingson and thank you for your testimony would you please share my thanks to your colleague for her written statement both of your statements were so eloquent and teachers have a way of knowing what is effective and important for their students and your dedication and commitment to your students really shone through your testimony i am constantly stuck struck living also on the central coast and having been a part of my school district in santa barbara as a school nurse for over twenty years how many of our young students living within walking distance to the beach really have never been there and they live their whole lives and maybe even from one generation to the next and and have this resource that they have not experienced and really don't know how to value and so the challenge and what you do really really especially with the marital program is so effective and i want to give you a chance in more anecdotal way if you in every any way you want to talk about stressing the bike bilingual coastal and watershed education program i took the family over while we voted and we met my colleague mr far from the monterey area  champion of the be that program on the west coast as well and he was pleased to meet the young student who has experience this program and you particularly as we know in california so many of our students english is their second language and talk about well how this program was developed for that particular purpose thank you you want to explain that's a question but you can answer it any way you want to it was a statement on my part that i know i  of mexican person and when my students see her come into the room they are very surprised by her accent and that she's a scientist most of my students their parents you know are in the food industries or in the agricultural fields or some other blue collar industry but when she comes it's just an awakening for them that this is a potential for them that there are people that come from mexico that do these kinds of things and are involved in science in a very meaningful way also the curriculum is bilingual we at our school have a dual immersion program where students learn in spanish in english  go program more like a european model where you're becoming a multilingual person doctors lawyers want their kids to be bilingual too so we have that portion that comes to our school as well could i ask did you develop they did not you personally but did you district help to develop the curriculum no it was ok mary jo the marital program itself was developed separately and you're you implementing it and yes we just implement it now i know the origin of a yellow light is on but i've been given permission to extend since i have to leave the gentle lady from california who can no can continue can you because i actually i know that you've asked that alan's testimony our students testimony be submitted to the record but i wonder if it be possible to ask ask alan to answer a question as well since she came all the way from california to be part of this hearing yes thank you would you be willing to bring her to the microphone so we could well put it in the record now alan as you're sitting down you're really a star witness to our hearing today because you're the only person on the panel who has actually been a student in a classroom and been part of the  wet program so maybe you and you know also know what the maraton program is none of the rest of us here in this room apart from your teacher and your parents have much experience with that particular program so maybe you know just in a few sentences you'd like to tell us just a can you think of one of the projects that you did and your teacher can help you if she wants to with this trip sponsored by the way it was a trip to the channel islands the highlight of my school year it was an exciting trip filled with draw as well and i was thinking of the ways that be would probably is expressed in literature it with the students reading and maybe some of their artwork also reflecting some of the lessons that they've learned and so it's it's a real pleasure to have you be part did you have anything else that you wanted to add alan ok all right she does ok we'll be patient right now i'm sure i think this is a rather unusual experience if you don't mind thank you very much thanks for your testimony and madam chair and i hope my colleague from michigan doesn't mind if i extend my time a little bit since you have already gone over the time but i wanted to ask  now you know i we in my second congressional district know about this mr farrer does in monterey we know about it from the chesapeake experience but currently there are regions like alaska that are represented at all in the be wet program but have demonstrated a clear interest in a need for these same kind of educational programs maybe you would speak specifically to your from your perspective it knowing what you see is the value of adding a different  additional regions yes absolutely alaska with so much change coming to that region with communities feeling so directly their environment change and i think i think there's so much teaching that could go on in the classroom that would immerse the students in the environment in real ways and make academic learning which sometimes seems so arcane and not interesting would make it so much more valuable and i think a very clear need for a program like thank you very much i wanted to get on the record mr elder just one statement from you because some of my colleagues may wonder why we want to authorize both be wet and the algae program  grants from the program has never been authorized before just as louise was speaking earlier about b what graham so i think it's important for all the reasons that you mentioned with the b web program the need to  get some direction from congress on it and to solidify if you will from a programatic perspective i touched on earlier the fact that  it's very unusual for the federal government to have a to have both a national for an agency and they are going to have both a national grant making program and a regional program and they complement each other very well the national program can do things that the regional program can't and vice versa so there's a kind of synergy there and at the same time they don't have exactly the same purposes they don't have the same struc the launching of be out there a campaign that i've heard about in fact i think there's something you might wish to announce for that's happening today well i mentioned earlier that our kids today don't go out anymore indoors and this is a huge societal shift that has all kinds of locations so the national wildlife federation and a group of other partners are working together to conduct a major parents education program called the out there and it takes a number of different efforts that we've had over the years to see getting kids outdoors works with other organizations throughout the country to basically ed parents on two things one is the importance of kids spending a little more time outdoors there's great reasons to do that a lot of health reasons but in addition to that the importance of basically how you know what defines america what what is it that defines america's it's going to be computer screens and television or is it going to be an experience of nature and so with that we're really today making the official announcement in fact in about an hour and a half we're having a press conference over at a school here in d c and tonight we're doing a gala event at the uptown theater with the launch of the film which opens tomorrow called where the wild things are you're probably familiar with the book nine sentences made into a feature film go figure well there you have it and so we're very excited about this thank you and finally the chairwoman has allowed me to get one you were the pioneers for be wet you've had this program there the longest though it's not been a huge number of years but you've been working in this arena for a few decades just maybe one or two examples about the changes you've seen in the communities one community or several as a result of these programs and and is there something that you want to highlight that has made them so successful mr rhodes is closer to the ground than i am i'd like to have him taken ok river and those students strangely enough like miss ellington described even though they're there right up against the river some of their homes are very close to the river have never that leave the ocean income stream and through human made barriers that have now been destroyed they're starting to come back and the students have been investigating that for a while now at that school and of course the economic impact but one of the things that group of students wanted to do since they had never been to the river and they struggle sometimes economically and their families they wanted to to work with the virginia department of game and fisheries to learn how to fish and some of the remarks that we had from students after the experience and we took all two hundred ten students down to the  river and set them up in stations and they looked at water quality and so on of the rappahannock river one of the a few of the comments where we're really rich in terms of the students stating that the now that they've had the opportunity to learn to fish that they never got hungry and that's a huge impact in terms of in terms of you know their personal well being but also you know they're understanding that river  ecosystem and the natural resource that it truly is for them thank you very much and i thank the again lady from california mrs caps and i recognize next a veteran member of our subcommittee from michigan mr kildee thank you madam chair as one who is district is in michigan or just my district equity borders on the great lakes i have been in congress for thirty three years but only in the last eight years have changed districts four times and i border on the great lakes and i'm very i've always been interested in them but more more so now since a border and and lake michigan i'm right here on i'm deeply interested in this program i know right now you're not going programs as such in michigan when i drive home to michigan i note that when i was leaving the chesapeake watershed and crossing into the next watershed it's very interesting is to realize that the vastness of our country and so i would ask this question i in real life i was a school teacher i taught in high school and in a state like michigan where the value they have even for for shipping their fishing reach out to those school districts so those people who live in central michigan can become what we have in michigan a fundamental will you i should say since you will expand your efforts to make the be wet program is fundamentally a watershed program and it's a watershed program because that's really the boundaries that nature has defined that impact the water quality and deliver the services from the watershed and so it's very important not just to reach people along the coast but to reach people throughout the watershed because whether spilling oil you know where away from the coast or right on the coast it still goes through the system and ends up on the coastline and so it's  i think it's wonderful that when you drive that drive that you notice a difference i think very very very few people would actually notice that they're changing water but developing that water awareness and understanding is critical to protecting water quality which when you drink the have there too is that people unknowingly bring in a non native species very often from the great lakes into one of the inland lakes which we have thousands of in like inland lakes too and and i don't know whether you are responsible for putting up those signs or those signs radio very educational i always notice a question from one watershed into another i think whatever you may do to remind people of that educational experiences in the watershed area in which they live in your experience did the resources and training provided through the be what program help you connect to the outdoors and do you think that you could have done this kind of outdoor educational programming without the b with training and curriculum and tiriel no i couldn't have i was born and raised in the colorado rockies and i knew a little marine science before the be with sponsored marital program and less about marine threats even though i had a focused on environmental biology and my undergraduate studies and i also have a credential to teach biology but all that happened in the rockies so when i came here i didn't really know that much about the ocean and when the maraton program began i really started understanding about these threats it also was the impetus for me to start making my students and myself aware of how much marine debris enters from the land from land based activities and people don't really have much of an idea about that and a lot of educators don't because you can get your education inside in college but when once you're teaching and you get that kind of professional development and support that's relevant to what you're doing at the moment it's very helpful and it has brought big changes about in our school i'm not the only person in the program we have four of the great teachers including myself so my three other colleagues and i implement this well i couldn't agree with you more on that mr rhodes how have the teachers who you have worked with benefited from the resources and funding made available to them through the b would program and do you think that these teachers would have felt comfortable enough to take a class out of the classroom without the training that they received through be with interestingly enough that was another discussion point during the break we heard discussing that we have six great teachers for instance in virginia their licensure can can really be a generalist and they may not have a strong science background so they wouldn't take their students necessarily outside because of a fear that they wouldn't be able to one answer questions two for the course the students safety but three also you know they wouldn't necessarily know where to investigate to really get a deep meaning from the trip outside so as we discussed during the break it's important because there are teachers that maybe not have a natural inclination to be outside themselves and having them outside for for forty hours five straight days of professional development eight hours a day in the water and doing water quality samples looking at  rappahannock river was was invaluable one of our teachers in particular i was talking to her yesterday when i mentioned that i would be here she said please tell them that it was the best professional development that i've ever been to in twenty seven years of teaching and to that i would have never taken students outside if it weren't for this training just to relay that message to her and of course you know we hear that resonate with several of our other teachers well thank you very much and that'll be on the record my final question here is to ms koch how does no one leverage resources in funds from outside sources to strengthen educational initiatives should more funding be made available and are you confident that grant recipients will be able to generate the required non federal matching contributions  non federal match is an important issue for us and it does constrain the ability to propose certain kinds of projects we do think that leveraging the resources of other  partners extremely important and that and that the grants are the fundamental vehicle no i have to be able to engage and leverage the vast resources of external partners in doing the kinds of environmental education thank you thank you very much congressman from maryland has a bill no child left inside these things to tie together and i think that this is a very important part of the development formation and education of our young people and i think you brought a very important element into this through this hearing thank you and i thank the gentleman from michigan for his kind words i want to thank all the witnesses also for their participation in the hearing today members of the subcommittee may have some additional questions for the witnesses and we will ask you to respond to these in writing in addition the hearing record will be held open for ten days for anyone that would like to submit additional information for the record and if there is no further business before the subcommittee the chairwoman again thanks to the members of the subcommittee and our witnesses for their participation here this morning or this afternoon