Center for Ecoliteracy
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- Center for Ecoliteracy
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SDA-RF-AT-3.24
Center for Eco lite racy
Report on Grantmaking
Mission
The Center for Ecoliteracy is dedicated to fostering experience and understanding of the natural world.
"Ecological sustainability requires a patient and systematic effort to restore and preserve traditional
knowledge of the land and its functions. This is knowledge of specific places and their particular traits of
soils, microclimates, wildlife, and vegetation, as well as the history and the cultural practices that work in
each particular setting. Sustainability comes from the careful adaptation of people to particular places.
This is as much a process of rediscovery as it is of research."
—David Orr
Director Center for Ecoliteracy
"How can we educate children to know about the ecosystem they live in—to know the plants, the
animals, the river systems? What does their biosystem consist of and what are its requirements? Those
children who become ecologically literate can then create a dialogue about what must be transformed in
order to listen to the land, in order to comprehend and attend to the requirements of the land. In that
way, we can start becoming reconnected to the land."
—Jeannette Armstrong
Advisor; Center for Ecoliteracy
Working Systemically
The Center for Ecoliteracy adopts an ecological approach to philanthropy, working with whole
systems at multiple levels of scale. Our funding strategies recognize the classroom as nested in the
systems of the whole school, the school district, the surrounding community, and its local place.The
diverse yet interdependent terrestrial, marine, and freshwater ecosystems of the San Francisco
Bay-Delta provide the vibrant context for our work. In the Bay Area's waterways, wetlands, farm
lands, and shorelines, students can discover the principles of ecology—the core concepts in ecology
that are the patterns and processes by which nature sustains life.
Through immersion in living systems, teachers and students learn to
appreciate and understand the natural world. We accomplish our mission
by supporting educational organizations and nurturing communities in
schools that both teach and embody ecologically sustainable ways of life.
Our funding supports diverse efforts in fostering ecological literacy through
gardening, cooking, sustainable agriculture, and habitat restoration.
The Center supports programs that nurture a collaborative culture throughout the school
community, integrate curriculum around a shared conceptual language, engage in ecological action
projects such as school gardens or habitat restoration, and explore the place or ecosystem in which
their school is embedded.
It is my great pleasure to present this report of our grant making, donor-advised funds, and
sponsored projects.
Zenobia Barlow
Executive Director
Center for Ecoliteracy
Sustainable Communities
The Center for Ecoliteracy is dedicated to fostering the experience and understanding of the
natural world in educational communities. In providing support to educators, we empower them to
help children learn the values, knowledge, and skills that are crucial to building and nurturing
ecologically sustainable communities.
In our efforts to build and nurture sustainable communities we can learn
valuable lessons from ecosystems, which themselves are sustainable
communities of plants, animals, and microorganisms. Being ecologically
literate means understanding the basic patterns and processes by which
nature sustains life and using these core concepts of ecology to create
sustainable human communities, in particular, learning communities.
Applying this ecological knowledge requires systems thinking, or thinking in terms of relationships,
connectedness, and context. Ecological literacy means seeing the world as an interconnected
whole. Using systems theory, we see that all living systems share a set of common properties and
principles of orgamzation.Thus we discover similarities between phenomena at different levels of
scale—the individual child, the classroom, the school, the district, and the surrounding human
communities and ecosystems. With its intellectual grounding in systems thinking, ecoliteracy offers a
powerful framework for a systemic approach to school reform.
Fritjof Capra
Chair, Board of Directors
Center for Ecoliteracy
Principles of Ecology
Core concepts in ecology that are the patterns and processes by which nature sustains life.
NETWORKS
All members of an ecological community are interconnected in a vast and
intricate network of relationships, the web of life.They derive their essential
properties and. in fact, their very existence from these relationships
NESTED SYSTEMS
Throughout nature we find multi-leveled structures of systems nesting within
systems. Each of these forms an integrated whole within a boundary while at the
same time being a part of a larger whole.
CYCLES
The interactions among the members of an ecological community involve the
exchange of energy and resources in continual cycles. The cycles in an ecosystem
intersect with larger cycles in the bioregion and in the planetary biosphere.
FLOWS
All organisms are open systems, which means that they need to feed on a
continual flow of energy and resources to stay alive.The constant flow of solar
energy sustains life and drives all ecological cycles.
DEVELOPMENT
The unfolding of life, manifesting as development and learning at the individual
level and as evolution at the species level, involves an interplay of creativity and
mutual adaptation in which organisms and environment coevolve.
DYNAMIC BALANCE
All ecological cycles act as feedback loops, so that the ecological community
regulates and organizes itself, maintaining a state of dynamic balance
characterized by continual fluctuations.
Food and Water Strategies
The Center for Ecoliteracy recognizes foodsheds and watersheds as essential systems that provide
meaningful contexts for achieving ecological understanding (ecological literacy). Working with whole
schools on projects that take school children out of the classroom and into the natural world to
explore their local watershed or food system grounds education in the uniqueness of place.
Projects that examine
the fit
between
human communities and the
habitat in which they live instill a reverence for life
and as well as a connection to the local community. They address
a need to understand ecosystems and the cycles of life in order to create
sustainable communities.
"We support projects that have tangible and demonstrable
impacts leading to systemic change."
- Peter Buckley, a Founding Director
of the Center for Ecoliteracy
Food
Food Systems Project
The Center for Ecoliteracy's Food Systems Project has been designated as one of four pilot projects
of the United States Department of Agriculture under the Secretary's initiative,'‘Linking Farms to
Schools.” The Project currently is working to enhance a district-wide effort in Berkeley to
transform the school nutrition service and related curriculum. Using a whole systems approach, the
Project links family farms to schools, tackles policy issues, and improves food access and nutritional
health for the community and the families whose lives are connected, through their children, to the
school district.
The Edible Schoolyard
The mission of the Edible Schoolyard project at Martin Luther King, Jr Middle School in Berkeley.
California is to create and sustain an organic garden and landscape that is integrated into the
school's curriculum and lunch program.The Edible Schoolyard is a unique, one-of-a kind
collaboration of remarkable people, yet this project also embodies basic elements that contribute
to its success: strong leadership with a clear vision, a rich web of relationships, and a community
working together on a tangible project that
fosters both an experience and an
understanding of the natural world.
The Center for Ecoliteracy is
honored to be among a core
group of funders committed to
the fruition and sustainability
of this project.
GARDENING, FOOD, & AGRICULTURE
Selected Grantees
Berkeley Community Food Security Council
To support fundamental policy development and enhancement of food security of Berkeley’s
school-age children. 1998, $50,000 (Food Systems Project—CEL)
Berkeley High School
To further develop their ecoliteracy/environmental studies projects. 1998, $5,780
Berkeley Unified School District
A planning grant for From the Garden to the School Cafeteria to support the work of the BUSD
Food Policy Collaborative in connecting school gardens with the district's food service program.
1998, $ 15,000 (Food Systems Project—CEL)
Center for Urban Education about Sustainable Agriculture (CUESA)
To support Open Garden Day, a tour and celebration of community and school gardens
throughout the Bay Area. 1999: $3,300
Chez Panisse Foundation
Founding benefactor to this grant-giving organization, started by Alice Waters, that "supports
projects that teach young people the interwoven pleasures of growing, cooking, and sharing food,
inspiring them to respect and care for the land, their communities, and themselves." 1997, $5,000
Hayes Valley Neighborhood Parks Group
To support garden mentors and develop appropriate garden-related curricula at John Muir
Elementary School in San Francisco. 1997, $ I 1.000 (San Francisco League of Urban Gardeners)
Jefferson School
To provide support for the use of an organic garden to teach Berkeley students about nature,
science, and nutrition. 1998, $3,525
Laytonville High School
To provide support to Sustainable Forestry and Small Scale Agriculture, an applied math/science
program in which students participate in hands-on projects designed around themes of ecological
sustainability. 1997, $ I 3,200
Life Lab Science Program
To fund the manuscript development of Getting Started: A Guide for Creating School Gardens as
Outdoor Glassrooms. 1997, $4,500
Market Cooking for Kids (MCK)
To support a program that gives urban school children access to and experience of local, seasonal
food through an integration of ecology, biology, geography, and cooking. 1996, $5,000: 1997, $25,000
(CUE5A)
Occidental Arts and Ecology Center
To provide support to teacher training and a network for Sonoma County elementary, middle, and
high school teachers interested in creating school gardens and garden-based curriculum. 1997,
$30,000: 1999, $20,000
San Francisco League of Urban Gardeners (SLUG)
To provide support to Growing Together, a pilot program that focuses on developing and
maintaining school gardens in San Francisco. 1997. $ 10,000
Sierra Youth Center Market Garden
To support the Youth Center and the Sonoma County Office of Education in
creating a two-acre environmental education and market garden that serves as an outdoor science
classroom, produces organic fruit and vegetables for the kitchen, and provides job training and
socialization skills for incarcerated youth. 1997, $ 12,000; 1998, $ 12,000
Slide Ranch
To support Teaching Ecology to Youth, an environmental education program that offers hands-on,
direct experiences with a farm and organic garden, coastal
wildlands, and rocky shoreline complete with rich tide pools. 1997, $7,500; 1998, $9,780
The Classroom of Strawberry Creek Park
To provide support for a garden program to incorporate watershed education, native plant identifi
cation, and a youth-run landscaping/plant nursery business. 1998, $25,000 (Berkeley Youth
Alternatives)
Tule Elk Park Children's Center
To support transforming 20,000 square feet of asphalt into an environmental
learning landscape. 1995, $5,000; 1996, $ 1,000; 1997, $5,000 & $ 10,000; 1998,
$ 14,000 (Center for Ecohteracy)
Willard Middle School
To support incorporating the Greening
Project into 6th, 7th, and 8th grade
curricula, giving students the
opportunity to take care of the school
gardens, while learning about
composting, nutrition, and other
garden-related subjects. 1997, 15,000;
1998,25,000
Water
STRAW: Students and Teachers Restoring a Watershed
Loss of riparian habitat is one of the most critical issues in the San Francisco Bay
Area. In an effort to address this issue, STRAW, a joint project of The Bay
Institute and the Center for Ecoliteracy, coordinates and sustains a network of
teachers, students, and community members as they plan and implement
riparian habitat restoration projects in Marin and Sonoma counties.
Over the past seven years, the project has grown to include classes from
dozens of schools that are actively engaged in restoration
projects on miles of creeks flowing through ranches and
public land. Participants in the STRAW project
recognize the importance of understanding the
’W"-~
pattern of relationships between water, vegetation.
.
H
land, wildlife, and human communities.
HABITAT RESTORATION & WATERSHED
Selected Grantees
Adopt-A-Watershed
To provide support to broaden the Bay Area network of watershed
educators and to support leadership teams in the area. 1999. $20,000
\
I
California Freshwater Shrimp Project
To support an award-winning project initiated by fourth and fifth graders at Brookside School in
Ross Valley to complete the planting of native trees and bushes on Stemple Creek in Marin and
Sonoma counties. 1995, $ 10,000
Lincoln Unified School District
To support development of an Eco-Historical Sense of Place, a program to involve teachers and
interested community members in exploring the agricultural land and the rich system of waterways
of the Delta. 1997, $ 16,000
Literacy for Environmental Justice
To support teachers as they develop student competency in environmental justice issues through a
hands-on, community service program of stewardship and civic action in Bayview Hunter’s Point.
1999, $ 15,000 (The Southeast Alliance for Environmental Justice)
Mill Valley School District
To support bringing the principles of ecology into the classroom in a district-wide watershed effort.
1995,58,000; 1996,520.650; 1997.514.850
Richmond High School
To provide support to Friends of the Estuary and Richmond High School for Creekkeepers, an
after-school and summer employment program. 1997,55,000
River ofWords
To provide support to implement the River ofWords project, which encourages communities to
engage in river cleanups, creek walks and watershed-related readings, seminars, and performances.
in Bay Area schools. 1995. 520,000; 1998, 525,000; 1999,530,000 (International Rivers Network)
Science Interchange (SI)
To provide support to The Communications Support Program. 1998, $10,000
Students and Teachers Restoring a Watershed (STRAW)
To support the STRAW Teachers Leadership Institute that explores the significance of watershed
projects for San Francisco Bay and the importance of fostering a sense of place. Participants gain an
understanding of watershed curriculum that integrates art and science.They have field experiences
with stream restoration, bird studies, and aquatic ecosystems. 1999, $20,000 & $30,125 (The Bay
Institute)
The San Francisco Estuary Institute
To support the establishment of an ecological history project around the Wildcat
Creek watershed, a summer institute, and related exercises for use in Bay Area
schools. 1997, $35,000; 1998. $6,700
A Network of Educators
The web of life, itself a network pattern, inspires the formation of the Center for Ecoliteracy
network of school-based grantees. Leadership teams, including principals and teachers, from
exemplary schools embedded in the landscapes of urban, rural, and suburban communities are
convened in an ongoing cycle of seasonal retreats and educational experiences. Our purpose is to
discover, with educators, how to reconnect children to the natural world.
‘The whole school change process involves structure, culture, and community; three
components that are totally interdependent For example, if you begin to shift
instruction, assessment, and the curriculum, then you are also going to have to
change the way the school community works."
- Gay Hoagland
Director, Center of Ecoliteracy
Selected Grantees
Brookside School
To support Grounds for Learning in the Real World, a school-wide program that teaches
environmental awareness and interaction through lunch-time recycling, creek restoration, raised bed
gardening, and an annual Visitors’ Day. 1997, $ 17,200; 1998, $ 19,000
Cesar Chavez Elementary School
To provide support to Natural Perspectives: Garden, Nutrition and Curriculum Project, a school-wide
project designed to foster the understanding of child nutritional health and how food is produced.
1998, $ 18.788; 1999, $23,300 (CUESA)
Edna Maguire School
To provide support to an effort to infuse new life into a school garden through ecology, systems
thinking, and environmental project-based learning. 1999, $ 13.400
Laytonville Elementary and Middle Schools
To support Earth Stewards: Linking Ecology, Community, and Culture, a program that promotes
sustainable community, earth-centered values, and marketable job skills in a rural Mendocino
County school. 1996,$ I 1,000; 1997. $25,000; & 1999, $15,000
Park School
To provide support to environmental project-based
learning and the children's garden as a basis forteaching
ecoliteracy and engendering in students a greater sense of
place. 1999. $12,700
The Edible Schoolyard
To provide support to an organic garden and cooking
program at Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School in
Berkeley that is being integrated into the curriculum and
school lunch program of the school and to fund the
curriculum development process. 1995, $35,000; 1996,
$50,000; 1997,$61.984; 1998,$I 19,000; 1999,$73,500
Donor-Advised Funds
The Center for Ecoliteracy administers philanthropic funds established by individuals and families.
The Center's services include donor consultation and fund management Donors may recommend
grants from their funds for tax-exempt charitable organizations.
“The funding we support through the Center for Ecoliteracy is some
of the most successful funding we've done. We're particularly
interested in holistic funding that will result in changes in
environmental education. The gestalt of understanding systems
attracts us. We live in a system and if we think systemically, we can
come up with solutions that are healthier for the planet. We also
believe that the process is as important as the end produce By
working with educators and whole school systems we can address
issues at a policy level as well as at the level of direct service.
Working with the Center is a reciprocal and rewarding process; were excited about the work in general
and the specific niche we've found there"
- Wendy Boals
Michael and Wendy Boals Fund
Selected Grantees
Center for Commercial Free Public Education
To provide support to the Consumers or Citizens Program, initiated by a coalition of activists.
environmentalists, parents, teachers, and students for the purpose of eliminating corporate
advertising from public schools. 1997, $7,500
Center for Urban Agriculture
To support a film project, directed by John de Graf, that celebrates the “rebirth of small-scale
organic farming around the world.”The film is based on Michael Ableman's book, From the Good
Earth. 1996. $8,000; 1999. $15,000
Community Alliance with Family Farmers (CAFF)
To provide general support to CAFF, which works to redirect the food and farm system toward
sustainability; and to support an outreach campaign. 1997, $ 15,000; 1999, $20,000
Habitot Children’s Museum
To provide support to the first discovery museum for young children m the East Bay for their Buck
to the Farm dramatic arts program that offers young children the opportunity to discover the
connection between farms and food. 1998, $ 10,000; 1999, $ 10,000
Mothers & Others
To provide support to the West Coast office of this national consumer education organization to
launch regional programming that includes a consumer research and education services
component. 1998, $ 10,000; 1999, $10,000
Rudolf Steiner College
In support of The WaldorfApproach Applied in the Public School Classroom, a two-week summer
institute that provides K-6 teachers with hands-on experience in integrating the arts and active
learning, with an ecological base, into the curriculum. 1999, $20,000
Learning in the Real World®
Learning in the Real World® is a publishing imprint of the Center for Ecoliteracy. The Center acts as
a publishing resource, providing consultation, editorial, design, and production services.The
Center also maintains a growing archive of photographic images of children learning in the
real world.
Selected Titles:
Getting Started:
A Guide for Greating School Gardens as Outdoor Classrooms
The Edible Schoolyard
Ecoliteracy: Mapping the Terrain
To Write a Letter of Inquiry
Grants are made to school communities and educational organizations whose views and activities
are consistent with the mission of the Center.
To be considered for a grant, please send a letter of inquiry briefly outlining your proposal.Your
letter should be on 8 1/2 x II paper; in a font size no smaller than I I pt., and no longer than two
pages. Letters of inquiry must be mailed, faxed, or emailed.Telephone inquiries are not encouraged.
If your proposed activities fall within the mission of the Center, and if our resources permit further
consideration, we will request a full proposal from you for review by staff and presentation to the
Center’s Board of Directors.The review process may involve conversations with applicants, site
visits, and revisions or modifications of proposals.
The Center is engaged in a project that takes a critical look
at the indiscriminate use of computers in grades K—3, and
we are not inclined to support computer-based
educational programs in these grades.
DEADLINESAND GRANT CYCLES Letters of
inquiry can be submitted at any time of the year Full
proposals will be considered by the Center’s Board
of Directors twice a year during the weeks following
the equinoxes. Proposals for review at the Autumn
Equinox must be received by April 15. Proposals for
review by the Spring Equinox must be received by
October 15.
The Eight Questions
These questions are central to the Center’s grant-giving program. While you do not
'leed to address these questions in your letter of inquiry, we urge you to use them to
evaluate your proposed project from the perspective of the Center’s funding goals. If you
are invited to submit a full proposal, you will be asked to answer
the following questions.
I .Will the program foster ecological knowledge and
systems thinking?
2. Is there evidence of strong leadership with a clear vision?
3. Is there evidence that the program will have
tangible and demonstrable impacts, leading
to systemic change?
4. Is there inherent potential for becoming self-
sustaining?
5. Will the program build on local knowledge of how
ecosystems work, and demonstrate the cultural
wisdom of a particular place?
6.
Is change understood within the context of the whole
school?
7.
Is there a rich enough web of relationships
to sustain the program?
8.
Does the work encourage a reverence for life
and an appreciation of the natural world?
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Zenobia Barlow
Peter Buckley
Fritjof Capra
Gay Hoagland
David Orr
STAFF
Zenobia Barlow. Executive Director
Nobuko Yamada. Adminstrative Director
Sandy Neumann. Program Officer, Education
Janet Brown. Program Officer, Food & Agriculture
Garrett Chan Weiss, Public Relations Assistant
Sabina Sapulveda. Administrative Assistant
Misa Koketsu, Administrative Assistant
INFORMATION
For additional information please contact:
Center for Ecoliteracy
2522 San Pablo Avenue
Berkeley, CA 94702
Fax: 5 10 845 1439
email: mfo@ecoliteracy.org
www.ecoliteracy.org
Editor: Margo Crabtree
Designer: Karen Brown
Photography: Tyler/Bright Moments!
Zenobia Barlow
Production: Garrett Chan Waiss
Printing: Bofors
ISBN 0-9675652-2-7
Learning in ihe Real World ®
a publication of the Center for Ecoliteracy
- Media
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