Students Francis Danahey, James Armstrong, Curtis Lias, teacher Eric Moyer and student Codi Evans from the Armstrong School District built this 5.5 foot wooden tree to show off donors’ names to the Environmental Learning Center.

By Jonathan Szish, School and Community Relations Coordinator

On a dozen field trips this spring, the Crooked Creek Environmental Learning Center has educated more than 700 Armstrong School District students, the most ever in one season for either the school district or the learning center.

The record numbers reflect a growing partnership between the Armstrong School District and the Environmental Learning Center in Bethel Township, Armstrong County. The Crooked Creek Environmental Learning Center, situated on 31 acres of meadow and forest, is dedicated to promoting environmental education and resource conservation.

The record numbers also reflect the Armstrong School District’s increasing emphasis on environmental education. Most of the students who studied bugs and walked the trails at the learning center this spring were seventh-grade students. All of them will take a new course in environment and ecology this fall as part of a curriculum upgrade at Armstrong School District. The newly designed eighth-grade course ties in to Pennsylvania academic standards in environment and ecology.

Recognizing the importance of environmental education, the school district also temporarily assigned an experienced teacher with a biology and environmental education certification to run field trips at the Environmental Learning Center this spring. This teacher, Laurel Glover, has also provided environmental curriculum assistance to other teachers. Armstrong School District is paying for this temporary assignment through federal funds.

On their field trips this spring, students hiked interpretive trails. They studied bugs during stream studies, built terrariums to observe plants and small animals and tested water and soil. They used compound microscopes with flex-cam eyepieces that projected their findings onto a screen.

The Armstrong School District Foundation, a non-profit group that promotes innovative learning that otherwise might not happen, recognized the Environmental Learning Center’s value to students by donating $500 to the center’s new fund-raising campaign called “The Donation Tree.” The Donation Tree is a 5-and-a-half-foot tall tree made of oak and walnut. It displays bronze, silver and gold leaves that are each printed with donors’ names. Technology education students at West Shamokin Jr-Sr High School near Rural Valley built the 30-pound tree and gave it to the Environmental Learning Center.

The first leaf was in memory of Cynthia Venturini, a reporter and editor at the Leader Times newspaper in Kittanning. In the first three weeks of the Donation Tree campaign, so far 10 leaves have gone up, raising $2,000 for the non-profit Environmental Learning Center.

With all the good going on at the center, district officials invited teacher Laurel Glover and program coordinator Dennis Hawley onto the school district’s TV show, “Education Today,” for a show that aired in May. The center is in good hands with Hawley, an award-winning environmentalist. The Armstrong Conservation District named Hawley the Educator of the Year and the Kiski Watershed Association named him Environmentalist of the Year – both for 2004.

School students aren’t the only ones who can enjoy the center. It has numerous public events. This first half of the year, the Environmental Learning Center has hosted a dozen events on everything from gardening to using traps to control wildlife. An April work weekend at the center drew 100 volunteers. The annual open house May 14 drew more than 200 people.

With this much momentum going, it’s almost hard to imagine that the Environmental Learning Center’s future was in doubt just a few years ago. The United States Army Corps of Engineers, which had built the center and operated it for years, had to close it due to budget cuts.

Fortunately, the Armstrong Educational Trust rallied to rescue the Environmental Learning Center and began operating it in 2002. The trust is a Community Education Council that provides education and training opportunities in Armstrong County. The AET has a 25-year lease with the Corps of Engineers to operate the facility.

Other partnerships are at work for the center. Its steering committee is a true government-education-community model. Four member school districts -- Freeport Area, Apollo-Ridge, Leechburg Area and Armstrong – are key stakeholders, as is Lenape Technical School. There are also four watershed associations, the Penn State Cooperative Extension, representatives from local universities (like Indiana University of Pennsylvania and Penn State New Kensington), state commissions and others too numerous to mention.

This regional asset becomes all the more important when you realize that Armstrong County has no county or state parks. Unlike state and county parks, the ELC is not supported by tax dollars and must rely on grants, user fees, donations, and sponsors to sustain operation. That shows how crucial the Donation Tree campaign is.

To learn more, visit the Crooked Creek Environmental Learning Center website or 724-763-6316. Or, better yet, drop by the center to hike the nature trails, visit the herb garden or observe the impressive collection of mounted birds and animals.

Jonathan Szish is the School and Community Relations Coordinator for the Armstrong School District and can be contacted at 724-763-5268 or by sending email to: szij@asd.k12.pa.us .

6/17/2005