our work > Science to Mobilize Change: Citizens' Environment Watch

Science to Mobilize Change: Citizens' Environment Watch

Where do science and our lived experiences meet and how does one inform the other? The health of our ecosystem affects our lives, but often we have few avenues and tools for uncovering the problems and enacting community-driven environmental change. But who has more at stake in the health of our environment than our communities and the young people who live in them everyday?

In 2005, the Laidlaw Foundation awarded a three-year capacity building grant to Citizens’ Environment Watch (CEW), a Toronto-based, youth-focused environmental organization that initiates and supports community-based ecological monitoring and stewardship. CEW’s programs put scientific tools and processes in the hands of community members, creating informed and engaged citizens who are able to advocate for the health of their environments.

The purpose of the grant was to build the capacity of Citizens’ Environment Watch to respond to community need.  While Laidlaw’s support assisted with key elements of capacity such as office management, board, advisory and staff development, financial viability and increased public awareness, it also assisted CEW in the management of its education programs through secondary schools.

Mary McGrath, Executive Director, speaks of CEW’s goals to reconnect young people to ecosystems: “We provide the science, and work to build a process with the students to engage them in issues about environmental sustainability”.  Specifically, CEW works with schools to gather scientific data regarding wild life and plant life in Ontario communities.

This has been a challenging task for CEW, especially considering that when the new secondary school science curriculum was established several years ago in Ontario, environmental science was dropped as a curriculum stream.  As such, there is very little focus on environmental issues in science classes across the province, as educators work primarily to meet the demands of the mandated curriculum expectations.  Following a similar pattern, outdoor education has been on the decline in the province, with rapidly decreasing opportunities for students to have direct interaction with natural environments and to consider how degradation of these environments has immediate and future impacts on the world in which they live.

Andrew Kett, CEW’s Outreach Coordinator, indicates how their work has tried to fill this gap: “I really believe in the kind of experiential, outdoor education that we do. It's something that is virtually absent from the school curriculum but has so many benefits for the students themselves and also the teachers and parents and community. The students and teachers and volunteers I work with in the field when I'm doing our training and making site visits genuinely feel empowered by getting to do a scientific study – something most of them have never done –  and actually learning about their world. It's amazing the number of students who have said to me ‘I didn't even know this creek was here,’ and ‘I had no idea things actually lived in the water.’”

David Gordon, a teacher at Dunbarton High School, has worked with CEW to build an entire course credit around environmental science, and students from his class confirm Andrew’s comments stating that they now “know what the little bugs are called” and spoke of how much they learned from “fish Andrew” and “bug Andrew” from CEW.

This grade 11 course – which through David’s hard work has now been identified by the Ministry of Education as a university stream course – directly engages students in environmental issues in their community.  All students were required to participate in co-op practicum twice per week for the semester, involving them with such agencies as the Toronto Zoo, University of Toronto, Friends of the Rouge, the Town of Ajax Engineering Department, and the Frenchman’s Bay Watershed Rehabilitation Program. 

Students spoke of how much they enjoyed the “hands on” learning approach and they appreciated the course’s focus on “doing it now, rather than most courses which are a preparation for what you will do later”.  They spoke particularly of the opportunity provided at the end of the course to conduct a presentation to their community including members of City Council, the Mayor, fellow students, school administration, and their parents.

“It felt really good to provide scientifically sound research about our community that we as youth could present and have people listen to us”, states one student, “Now I’d like to use that experience by being part of the Durham Environmental Council, I’d like to have an influence on urban planning”.

Another student indicates “We have to be the next generation of ‘jerks’ who are constantly bugging people about what they are doing and how it is affecting the environment and our future”.

David says CEW plays a very important role in what he able to do at Dunbarton.  “They give me the scientific credibility to do this work”.  He also talks about the importance of administrative support. ‘Whoever runs the place makes a huge difference.  Having the support of the Principal or Vice Principal is critical”.  Dunbarton’s Principal has engaged the school in the EcoSchools program, and has revived a Sustainability Committee at the school.  Board-wide or province-wide emphasis on environmental science and environmental issues has been harder to come by and much more can be done garner this support.

Andrew also speaks of the importance of the teacher running the program, “The constraints of the school system can also pose barriers to longer and more meaningful projects simply because some teachers don't feel like they have the time to really immerse their class in a topic, even if it is linked to the curriculum, or they don't have support from their administration. But thankfully many of the teachers we work with are real environmental champions and, once they experience the program, really work to make their projects successful and keep coming back year after year.”

Students also spoke about CEW’s support.  “They made it feel like they were working with us instead of us gathering data that they would use.  They were also really cool and fun, but at the same time we respected them and what they were telling us.  We took it seriously.”  Andrew confirms CEW’s direct role, “We don't just send out a set of lesson plans, we actually help them get the project going by providing through training, advice, equipment, and volunteers.”

Ten students participated in David’s first run of the course based on CEW’s program.  Clearly keen and engaged, Mary indicates that CEW is often challenged to connect with the larger student population, “We’d like to learn more about how to get more students excited about this, to have it be considered fun and cool by a bigger portion of the student body”.

When asked about how to do this, students at Dunbarton say many of their peers “aren’t aware at all of environmental issues or don’t really care about it very much”.  They suggested CEW’s outreach needs to do more to “make it about them”.  One student spoke about how many youth are quite interested in the fact that they will soon be driving and owning a car, “If they thought more about what we are doing is going to affect gas prices and more particularly access to sustainable fuel energy, they might think more about how it affects them”.

They also said that most students don’t have any idea how great it feels to get out of the classroom and into field work in the community.  “It’s such a change from the normal day-to-day stuff, it’s more fun and more interesting, and you get to learn about and try to influence your community.  Lots of them would get really involved if they knew more about it.”

Learn more at www.citizensenvironmentwatch.org

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