by Mike Gallagher for the CMF NewsWire
Posted: 9/1/2009

Teaching K-12 students throughout Michigan about environmental issues in their communities while enabling them to gain experience in problem-solving, data analysis and communications is the goal of the Great Lakes Stewardship Initiative (GLSI) and the foundations that fund the ongoing effort.

“The vision of the initiative is to help young people become effective stewards of the Great Lakes,” says Mary Whitmore, GLSI’s program director. “With the help of foundations, we are achieving that goal.”

The GLSI focuses on community-based education, sustained professional development for teachers and school/community partnerships to ensure its mission of building an ever-growing legion of young environmentalists is realized.

Michigan foundations are an important component of this effort as they have teamed up with the Great Lakes Fishery Trust (GLFT) to provide funding for the creation of seven GLSI hubs in the state, including those located at Michigan State University, the Western Upper Peninsula Center for Science, Math and Environmental Education (Hancock, MI), Eastern Michigan University and the Muskegon Area Intermediate School District.

While more hubs are planned, Whitmore says GLSI is now in the process of evaluating how the model is working throughout the state and is seeking a new round of funding to keep the initiative moving forward.

Foundations that stepped up with initial grants to launch the effort include the Wege Foundation, Community Foundation for Muskegon County, Fremont Area Community Foundation, Charles Stewart Mott Foundation and Frey Foundation.

Foundations Praise HUBs’ Successes

GLSI officials say there are several examples of successful projects involving students, teachers, community leaders and government officials.

For example, the West Michigan GLSI (WMGLSI) hub has launched several programs, including:

  • Project Wet, a water education program focusing on promoting awareness, appreciation and knowledge of water resources
  • Project Webfoot, a wetlands education program focusing on wetland conservation and stewardship
  • Great Lakes in My World, featuring hands-on activities directed toward service-learning, Great Lakes issues and methods to integrate new approaches in the classroom
  • Project WILD, spotlighting wildlife’s intrinsic, ecological value as well as their role in teaching how ecosystems function

The WMGLSI sessions taught people about various water quality parameters, how these are connected in aquatic ecosystems and sampling techniques and analysis through hands-on inquiry activities.

Other key efforts by the WMGLSI teams in the 2008-09 school year included two stream bank restorations, a salmon release, a family science night, spotted knapweed removal, habitat restoration for the Karner blue butterfly, protection of waterways in a local golf course, and several water quality evaluations.

Original funding foundation officials all said they were pleased to be able to help spark an interest in Great Lakes preservation and environmental stewardship among students, teachers and community leaders.

According to Whitmore, the GLSI hubs to date have collaborated intensively with about 80 K-12 teachers in nine schools. In addition, more than 54 local or regional groups have stepped up to serve as partners. More than 4,100 students have been engaged in community-based activities designed to develop environmental stewardship.

“Looking at the success of the projects now under way,” notes Whitmore, “we think our foundations have received a pretty big bang for the buck.”

Terri McCarthy, vice president of programs for the Wege Foundation, agrees.

“We’ve supported this work for many years even before there was the hub concept,” says McCarthy. “We’ve been involved with the UP (Upper Peninsula) effort. Success revolves around getting someone to champion your hub.”

The GLSI has been and is a tremendous success story for the Fremont Area Community Foundation, according to its president Elizabeth “Libby” Cherin.

“The Fremont Area Community Foundation is proud to support innovative environmental education projects like the Great Lakes Stewardship Initiative,” says Cherin. “Our support was motivated by the Initiative’s potential to greatly affect Newaygo County students by increasing their interest in math, science, the Great Lakes and watersheds in general.”

Milt Rohwer, president of the Frey Foundation, says his organization went through an intensive analysis of the then-proposed GLSI project and found it mirrored many of their same goals.

“The Frey Foundation has a long-standing interest in land protection and with that goes a concern with the management of the land and that it stays protected,” says Rohwer. “The idea of stewardship of the land obviously has an appeal (for us). The involvement with students was a plus, but not a primary motive for our funding decision.”

For more information about GLSI, visit glstewardship.org.