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U.S. EPA GIVES ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION GRANTS IN ARIZONA

Release Date: 4/20/1995
Contact Information: Ida Tolliver, U.S. EPA, (415) 744-1581

   (San Francisco) --The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
(U.S. EPA) today announced the award of environmental education
grants totaling $36,857 to five groups from Arizona.  Recipients
of the Agency's grants include an elementary school, a tribal
college,  a tribal and a county agency, and a non-profit
organization.  

     "We are really pleased to award these grants to
organizations educating our youth," said Felicia Marcus, regional
administrator of U.S. EPA's western region.  "If we envision an
America where pollution does not threaten the air we breathe, the
water we drink, or the communities in which we live, work, and
play, we must give these future citizens the knowledge they need
about their environment to enable them to make responsible
decisions."

     The grants are awarded under the National Environmental
Education Act, and the monies will be used to support projects,
methods, and techniques related to environmental education.  Each
organization will provide matching funds for grants which will
cover a period of one to two years.  Final selections were made
after a careful review of 88 applications by an external panel
from the academic, business, and environmental communities.

     The recipients are:

     Pima County Department of Environmental Quality, Tucson,
($5,000) will conduct workshops on clean air issues for up to 65
elementary school teachers in Sunnyside School District on the
southside of Tucson.  With knowledge gained from the workshops,
the teachers can convey to their students and their parents the
effects of air pollution and what the public can do to reduce
this pollution for a healthier future.

     Inter Tribal Council of Arizona, Phoenix, ($17,500) will
provide a model K-8 environmental education curriculum and hold
ten educator's workshops for teachers employed on reservation
schools.  The project director will work with school boards and
parents in the Indian community to institutionalize environmental
education into the overall curriculum in schools on tribal lands.

     Madison Simis Elementary School, Phoenix, ($4,857) will
enroll elementary school students in a four-week summer institute
during which the students will investigate water quality and
conservation issues.  In the second phase of the project,
representatives of the teaching staff will join the students for
a three-day interactive workshop.  In the fall, the student
institute participants will engage in peer teaching as they co-
present with classroom teachers the units they developed during
the summer to the grade level directly below theirs.

     Navajo Community College, Shiprock, ($4,500) will add an
environmental education component to the "Summer Science
Enrichment Program for Navajo Youth".  The six-week program will
enroll 80 Navajo students in grades 4-8 from the Four Corners
area.  Problems relating to solid waste management, drinking
water and river water quality, air pollution, and hazardous waste
management are issues to be included in the science curriculum.
This project will also benefit students in New Mexico and Utah.

     Southwest Center for Education and the Natural Environment,
Tempe, ($5,000) will connect high school teachers and students
in Maricopa County and the outlying rural and tribal communities
with science professors and graduate students at Arizona State
University.  The clearinghouse will link secondary school
teachers and students with science experts for telephone
consultations, for guest speaker classroom visitations, and for
access to the university campus to participate in environmentally
related scientific research.




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