© Pete Saloutos/Panoramic Images (Washington Title Image Large)
Curricula for Washington State
© Pacific Education Institute Two girls mapping biodiversity in a schoolyard
These curricula focus on Washington state but have components that would be more generally useful.
Celebrating Wildflowers
The Celebrating Wildflowers Educators Program promotes understanding, appreciation, and conservation of native plants and their habitats by emphasizing their aesthetic, recreational, biological, ecological, medicinal, and economic values.
It uses wildflowers as a window into native plant communities—from the Olympic Peninsula rainforests, to westside lowland forests, to mountain and alpine meadows, to the dry shrub-steppe sagebrush communities of eastern Washington.
The program addresses one of the most critical environmental issues in the Northwest today—the loss of habitat and biological diversity—by focusing on one of the area's most spectacular and accessible natural resources, wildflowers.
Department of Ecology curriculum guides
The Washington State Department of Ecology offers a number of K-12 programs, including “Discover Wetlands,” “Project WET—Water Education for Teachers,” and “A-Way with Waste.”
Evergreen State:
Exploring the history of Washington's forests
This is a curriculum project for Washington schools developed by Connie Y. Chiang with Michael Reese at the Center for the Study of the Pacific Northwest in the Department of History at the University of Washington.
It includes information and primary documents related to the history of Washington's forests. These materials provide students with an opportunity to investigate attitudes toward and uses of this natural resource. For middle school, high school, or university students.
Noxious Weeds
The Washington State Noxious Weed Board has a variety of educational materials, including a coloring book. See also the National Park Service curriculum “Aliens in Your Neighborhood.”
Partnership for Arid Lands Stewardship
The Partnership for Arid Lands Stewardship (PALS) is building a library of resource cards provide information on the arid lands of the Columbia Basin.
The cards cover a wide range: pillbugs to porcupines, lupine to cryptogamic crust. Each resource card contains background information, suggested activities, and additional resources including curricula, books, and websites.
The resource cards are developed by the PALS Partners: Pacific Northwest National Laboratory education staff and scientists, and by teachers who have participated in the PALS Teacher Institutes.
Project Learning Tree
Sponsored by the Washington Forest Protection Association, Project Learning Tree (PLT) uses the forest as a "window on the world" for students.
Goals include understanding our complex environment, stimulating critical and creative thinking, developing students' ability to make informed decisions adn remain open to future information, and to instill in students the confidence and commitment to take responsible action on behalf of the environment.
PLT lessons have been correlated to the Washington State Essential Academic Learning Requirements (EALRs). A new addition is Exploring Environmental Issues: Biodiversity for secondary students. It aims to give a broader view of concepts and connections: biological, political, cultural, ethical, and economic.