A Wake-up Call

It’s time we listened to the youngsters. Prior to the corvid-19 pandemic, a number of high school and middle school students skipped class to protest in the streets about environmental issues. This rising tide of concern from teens and pre-teens, who don’t usually protest, should not go unheeded. Young people are fearful about the sorry state of the environment they will inherit and are pleading for us to do something about it. They are saying – stop the environmental damage; look for new alternative solutions to pollution.  Be resilient!

Beach Clean-up on the Fort Hamilton Army Garrison at Denyse Wharf in June 2019.

What can City Officials Do?

For one thing, the New York City Dept. of Education should make the science of climate change an integral part of the curriculum in all the K-5 schools. Unfortunately, almost all of these elementary schools have no science laboratories. To remedy this serious lab deficit problem, City officials need to create regional EcoLabs, one in each of the five Boroughs, at a tiny fraction of the cost that it would take to build a lab in every one of the more than 600 elementary schools. Each regional EcoLab would serve approximately 340 underserved K-5 schools during the school year.

Location and Use of EcoLabs

EcoLabs should be located along the shore with access to a beach. The proposed EcoLab below, subject to City and Army approval, is one example. Students would be bussed from their home school to the EcoLab and back after a two - hour lab session. Each lab activity would consist of a combination of field work on the beach followed by age appropriate science activities in the EcoLab that focus on the perils of pollution. Housed in sturdy steel shipping containers and equipped with solar panels and a wind turbine, each EcoLab would also show students, first hand, how clean energy can replace the polluting fossil fuels while producing electricity off the grid. 

Curriculum

Ecolab activities include topics from environmental science, marine biology and oceanography which contain subject matter and lab skills needed by students taking the basic sciences in the later grades. Send for EcoLab proposal below.

Contact Info

An Initiative of the New York State Marine Education Association (NYSMEA) a 501(c)3 non profit organization

Contact: Thomas Greene, Coordinator

e-mail: thomasfgreene@aol.com