National Journal - Take the Classroom Outdoors

News Article

By Fawn Johnson

What a difference introducing a bill makes. Rep. John Sarbanes of Maryland is a rank-and-file Democrat in the House. As such, he doesn't have much power. Yet he has managed to stir up nationwide interest in educating kids about the environment simply by proposing legislation.

Will it become law? It's a stretch. Even Sarbanes isn't holding his breath. He just keeps on keeping on. He recently reintroduced the No Child Left Inside Act, as he has done in every Congress since 2007. The bill would dedicate a small amount of federal grant money, distributed by the Education Department, for schools to train teachers and develop curriculum on environmental literacy.

Sound hippy-dippy and hopelessly liberal? Only if you stop listening at the word "environment." A major advocacy hub for Sarbanes's bill is the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, a group whose efforts to save the Chesapeake Bay have been described by conservatives as "beyond any partisan issue." A similar proposal passed the House in 2008 with 68 Republican supporters.

The types of activities Sarbanes wants the Education Department to fund include class trips to wetlands or streams to study water patterns and take samples. Such activities have been proven to increase students' interest in science--and that's definitely a good thing, given our lack of science majors in U.S. colleges--and to improve math and reading generally. In very young children, outdoor science activities can reduce symptoms of attention deficit disorder. Plus it gets them away from those darn screens.

The beauty of Sarbanes's effort is that environmental education is already happening without his bill becoming law. Since Sarbanes and Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island began working the issue in 2007, state education departments all over the country have expressed interest in developing environmental curriculum. They are creating their own programs with a mere sniff of possibility at federal grant money.

Sarbanes is working with the Education Department to keep up the momentum, asking Education Secretary Arne Duncan to dedicate some of the agency's existing grant money to environmental education even without additional legislation. "That would send an incredibly strong message out to educators," Sarbanes said.

The bill has a "local control" angle, which could be music to Republicans' ears. The environmental education programs in Sarbanes's proposal could be structured in any way that the local school district desires. In Arizona, the environmental issues are likely to be different than in Maryland. "There are resources there that will be made available only in response to proposals that would be developed at the local level with nonprofits. It's a pull exercise, not a push exercise," he said in an interview.

Ginning up public and state interest in an issue is an oft-ignored part of the legislative process. Sarbanes has shown that that advocacy can be extremely effective even with no guarantees that the bill will pass. "I got to work with this emerging coalition and helped to kind of catalyze their leadership on it," he said. "It did lead to these things without getting legislation penned into law."

That's the way to work in the minority.

For our insiders: What is the state of environmental education today? Is it important? What are the essential elements of an environmental education curriculum? Does advocacy on the issue run the risk of becoming partisan, particularly when environmentalists are involved? How would Sarbanes' bill impact environmental education, if at all? How effective is the coalition around his proposal?

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