School Programs at
Urban Ecology Center
Flying kites in Riverside Park . . . baking cookies in a solar oven . . . tapping maple trees for syrup . . . donning hip waders and carrying magnifying glasses to look for damselflies, leeches, clams and crayfish in the Milwaukee River . . . . Students at the Urban Ecology Center get so involved in what they’re doing — and have so much fun — they don’t even realize how much they’re learning!
A New Model for Environmental Learning
The philosophy behind our school programs is based on research which shows two things make a person environmentally aware:
- constant contact with nature early in life and
- an adult mentor (parent, teacher, friend) who demonstrates positive behavior toward the environment.
In the city, people often live in apartment buildings and school grounds are often covered in cement. The Urban Ecology Center offers unique urban sanctuaries and “outdoor laboratories” for neighborhood school children. The Center’s staff and volunteers serve as adult mentors to guide students, year after year, as they progress through school.
Neighborhood Environmental Education Project
In the nationally recognized Neighborhood Environmental Education Project (NEEP), we partner with schools within a 2-mile radius of Riverside and Washington parks. Rather than arranging for single field trips, each participating school signs up for an entire year. This provides them with multiple visits to the park, spread throughout the school year, and ongoing participation in the program each year. And at a time when physical education programs are being cut, the Center offers valuable sporting opportunities, including rock climbing, canoeing, hiking and snowshoeing.
Preschool Programs
Young ones experience an adventure in our forest and on the habitat playground. On short field trips, preschoolers learn about the world around them through games, songs, stories and hands-on projects with new friends, both human and otherwise!
Teacher Workshops
Professional development programs that are fun and interesting! Past workshops have included:
- Earth Partnership (urban gardening)
- The Leopold Education Project (creating ecological literacy)
- Project Wet (watershed issues) and ozone monitoring
