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Student Environmental Development Program
2008 SEDP class
Summary of the SEDP
Program History
Goals
SEDP Format
How Are Students Selected?
Sharing the Knowledge
Mentoring
How Long is the Program?
How Do We Measure Success?
How Can I Get Involved in the SEDP?
Past Program Participants and Partners
SEDP Photo Gallery
SEDP Podcast
Summary of the SEDP
The SEDP is an environmental education and leadership development program. The students spend seven weeks of their summer at EPA Region 3 headquarters in Center City, Philadelphia, PA, and on the campus of George Washington University, in Washington, D.C. There, they are taught by a middle school science teacher and given topic lectures by EPA employees and local professionals. The students participate in hands-on learning activities, outdoor education and extended learning experiences (field trips) which supplement their in-class learning. The versatile format can be used as a model for after school, summer, and/or day camp programs. The students are from diverse racial, economic, and cultural backgrounds and range in age from 12-14.
View the Greenworks TV Video on the Mid-Atlantic Region SEDP Program
2008 SEDP class field trip
Program History
The Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) Student Environmental Development Program (SEDP) is nationally recognized and has been replicated in communities, including low income communities, throughout the nation. EPA Region 3 currently sponsors programs in Philadelphia, PA, (fifteenth year) and Washington, D.C. (seventh year). Wilmington, DE, now in the ninth year, is a community biased program, initiated by EPA, but continues under direction of the Delaware Center for Horticulture, as the Horticultural & Environmental Leadership Program, (HELP) (http://dehort.org/events_education/programs.php). Past programs have also been located in the communities of Chester, Pennsylvania, and Baltimore, Maryland.
Goals
The goal of SEDP is to provide a holistic education for the students and help them become responsible adults. The students learn about environmental issues common to their urban communities, including contaminated fish consumption, children's asthma, sun safety, lead, polluted drinking water, and hazardous household waste. Students are also consciously exposed to cultural diversity through classroom activities and field trips. Diverse professionals from the community and government provide instruction and serve as excellent role models.
Life skills such as public speaking, working with group dynamics, and computer literacy are also necessary for successful completion of the course. Through this approach to education, general life and job skills, critical thinking, self esteem, team work, and personal and civic responsibility are all promoted. The major goal is for the students, after graduation from the program, to take their knowledge back to their own communities to teach others -- particularly elementary school kids -- about the impact of environmental issues upon their lives.
2008 SEDP class field trip
SEDP Format
Each SEDP is designed to address the specific needs of the community in which it is held. The students are encouraged and empowered to use critical thinking to look at the needs of their community and determine ways of addressing them. SEDP challenges students with finding innovative ways to educate their community on environmental heath issues, such as, contaminated fish consumption, lead safety, pollution of the Anacostia River watershed, children's asthma, and other topics of direct relevance to the students. The students will develop outreach materials and presentations that will be shared with the local community and others on such subjects
How Are the Students Selected?
SEDP is a science based academic enrichment program for seventh grade students. Students, who are achieving academically and demonstrate an interest in the science, human health, and or the environment, are nominated by their local middle schools. Applications are due in the spring of each year and compete to participate in the program during the summer prior to entering the eighth grade. The applications are reviewed by EPA and selections are made based on the student’s grades, attendance, extracurricular activities and behavior. The schools agree to support the program goals and provide assistance and opportunities for the students to teach others and showcase their talents.
2008 SEDP class field trip
Sharing the Knowledge
Students are given extensive communication and public speaking training, as well as, many opportunities to practice their new skills. SEDP is designed such that graduates will return to their communities and share their new found knowledge. Additionally, the students take their knowledge on the road and give team presentations to a variety of audiences, including the staff of the U.S. National Fish & Wildlife’s National Conservation & Training Center, EPA Regional offices and EPA Headquarters.
Mentoring
To ensure a smooth transition, classes are assigned mentor. We use cascade mentoring to give the students the best opportunity to adjust to the work world and the program. Cascade mentoring is the process of having mentors from different age groups to give the students a better picture of how people achieve at different age groups and levels. Our program mentors are eleventh grade through college. These mentors work with the students each day and also act as teacher’s assistants. EPA staff members and Summer Interns also work as personal mentors. The job of the mentors is to help develop another avenue of communication that may ease the students' adjustment and to hopefully develop a professional relationship that will last a lifetime.
2008 SEDP class field trip
How Long Is the Program ?
Each year the students spend six to seven weeks between July and August participating in SEDP. A typical work day is 8:30 a.m. till 1:30 p.m. Monday though Friday. On days when the students participate in extended learning experiences (field trips) the hours are adjusted accordingly. The graduation ceremony is held during the final week of the program and the students are required to participate in a group presentation of an environmentally related topic of their choosing. Graduation is one of the program highlights. Each team selects an environmental topic, such as, lead poisoning, radon, water pollution, recycling, and pesticides, that they want to research and present in the form of skits, newscasts, and game shows, etc.
Evaluation Methods and Measurements of Success
Internally we measure success and the programs effectiveness through the pre and post test scores, by the number of schools who develop environmental science clubs, and by the number of classes and outreach activities conducted by the SEDP graduates. External reviews include post program evaluations from an external panel of conservation & environmental professionals, the program teachers, participating schools, students and the contractor hired to administer the program.
The program is designed to meet and be evaluated by the American Association for the Advancement of Science's Benchmarks for Science Literacy and the North American Association for Environmental Education's Environmental Education’s Guidelines for Excellence in Environmental Education, with a the main focus on the Guidelines for Learning (K-12).
The American Association for the Advancement of Sciences Benchmarks for Science Literacy specifies how students should progress toward science literacy, recommending what they should know and be able to do by the time they reach certain grade levels. Benchmarks are a tool to be used by educators in designing a curriculum that makes sense to them and meets the standards for science literacy recommended by the Publication Science for All Americans.
The Excellence in Environmental Education--Guidelines for Learning (K-12) is primarily focused on learner achievement and two other documents in this series, Environmental Education Materials: Guidelines for Excellence (1996) and the Guidelines for the Initial Preparation of Environmental Educators (2000). The Student Environmental Development Program is structured to follow the Excellence in Environmental Education--Guidelines for Learning (K-12) as described in the link.
Learning and instruction are closely linked, however, so these environmental education guidelines for learning include examples that offer specific ideas for implementation in instructional settings. These examples are based on several general principles that help guide environmental education instruction:
The learner is an active participant. If learning is to become a natural, valued part of life beyond school, instruction should be guided by the learner's interests and treated as a process of building knowledge and skills. Using the guidelines and knowledge of individual learners and different classes, instructors can make environmental education relevant to specific learners at particular developmental levels.
Instruction provides opportunities for learners to enhance their capacity for independent thinking and effective, responsible action. Engaging in individual and group work helps learners develop these capacities independently and in collaborative situations that anticipate the ways in which problem-solving happens in the community, on the job, and in the family. A strong emphasis on developing communication skills means that learners will be able to both demonstrate and apply their knowledge.
Because environmental issues can prompt deep feelings and strong opinions, educators must take a balanced approach to instruction. Educators incorporate differing perspectives and points of view even-handedly and respectfully, and present information fairly and accurately.
Environmental literacy depends on a personal commitment to apply skills and knowledge to help ensure environmental quality and quality of life. For most learners, personal commitment begins with an awareness of what immediately surrounds them. Instructors foster learners' innate curiosity and enthusiasm, providing them with early and continuing opportunities to explore their environment. "Taking the show on the road"--or at least out of the classroom--is an important instructional strategy for engaging students in direct discovery of the world around them.
How the Guidelines are Organized
Excellence in Environmental Education--Guidelines for Learning (K-12) offers a vision of environmental education that makes sense within the formal education system and promotes progress toward sustaining a healthy environment and quality of life. Guidelines are suggested for each of three grade levels--fourth, eighth, and twelfth. Each guideline focuses on one element of environmental literacy, describing a level of skill or knowledge appropriate to the grade level under which it appears. Sample performance measures illustrate how mastery of each guideline might be demonstrated.
The guidelines are organized into four strands, each of which represents a broad aspect of environmental education and its goal of environmental literacy. The strands are:
Strand 1: Questioning and Analysis Skills
Environmental literacy depends on learners' ability to ask questions, speculate, and hypothesize about the world around them, seek information, and develop answers to their questions. Learners must be familiar with inquiry, master fundamental skills for gathering and organizing information, and interpret and synthesize information to develop and communicate explanations.
Strand 2: Knowledge of Environmental Processes and Systems
An important component of environmental literacy is understanding the processes and systems that comprise the environment, including human systems and influences. That understanding is based on knowledge synthesized from across traditional disciplines. The guidelines in this section are grouped in four sub-categories:
- 2.1--The Earth as a physical system;
- 2.2--The living environment;
- 2.3--Humans and their societies; and
- 2.4--Environment and society.
Strand 3: Skills for Understanding and Addressing Environmental Issues
Skills and knowledge are refined and applied in the context of environmental issues. These environmental issues are real-life dramas where differing viewpoints about environmental problems and their potential solutions are played out. Environmental literacy includes the abilities to define, learn about, evaluate, and act on environmental issues. In this section, the guidelines are grouped in two sub-categories:
- 3.1--Skills for analyzing and investigating environmental issues; and 3.2--Decision-making and citizenship skills.
Strand 4: Personal and Civic Responsibility
Environmentally literate citizens are willing and able to act on their own conclusions about what should be done to ensure environmental quality. As learners develop and apply concept-based learning and skills for inquiry, analysis, and action, they also understand that what they do individually and in groups can make a difference.
Taken together, these strands create a vision of environmental literacy. The sequence of the strands--and the individual guidelines themselves--may suggest that some skills or knowledge serve as a foundation for others. But the process of becoming environmentally literate is not linear, and the sequence of the guidelines is more a function of bringing an order and logic to this document than a reflection of a hierarchy of skills and knowledge.
2008 SEDP class field trip
How Can I Get Involved in The SEDP?
EPA staff and personal from other organizations volunteer to work with the students. Everyone has something to offer from teaching classes, mentoring, chaperoning, administrative support, contacting schools and students, arranging trips, or just providing your ideas on how to improve the program. For more information on the Student Environmental Development Program, please Contact Larry Brown, SEDP Director, at (215) 814-5527, or at: brown.larry@epa.gov
Past Program Participants and Partners
American Forest Foundation (Project Learning Tree), American Red Cross, AmeriCorps*VISTA, Anacostia Watershed Association, Bureau of Land Management, Chesapeake Bay Foundation, Children's Environmental Health Network, Corporation for Community and National Community Service, District of Columbia Public School, District of Columbia Environmental Education Consortium, Earth Conservation Corps, ECC/Living Classrooms, District of Columbia Environmental Health Administration National Aquarium at Baltimore, National Conservation Training Center, National Park Service, National Resources Conservation Service, National Wildlife Federation, Naval District Washington, North Light Community Center, Philadelphia Zoo, Smithsonian Institution, Smithsonian National Zoological Park, United Nations, Urban Treehouse, US Fish and Wildlife, US Forest Service, World Bank, and others. Special thanks to George Washington University.
