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Parish and Local Community Groups: Education
We invite teachers and educators to emphasize in their classrooms and curricula, a love for God’s creation, a respect for nature, and a commitment to practices and behavior that bring these attitudes into the daily lives of their students and themselves. —Renewing the Earth, U.S. Catholic Bishops (1992)
Education ministries provide some of the most important opportunities for incorporating Church teaching on the environment into parish life. This can be as simple as devoting one religious education or elementary school class period to the topic, or as elaborate as setting up a new curriculum or sponsoring an environmental retreat. For schools, Church teaching on the environment offers an excellent opportunity to connect science curricula with faith formation and the care of God’s creation.
Young people often instinctively know that they have a stake in protecting the future of God’s creation, and they love hands-on opportunities to act on environmental concerns. Initiatives as simple as an afternoon cleanup at a nearby vacant lot or stream, to more elaborate programs such as those described below, can capture the imagination of your parish youth group and help them learn to be responsible stewards of the environment.
Habits of Creation
The Ecological Working Group of the Diocese of Richmond provides this one-day retreat and workshop as a fun, hands-on way to examine our call to ecological responsibility. The retreat allows participants to learn about basic ecological principles, discuss real life stories of poverty and the environment, examine scriptural roots of environmental justice, and build community. The EWG has also created a facilitators guide as a resource and tool for ecological education.
Marianist Environmental Education Center
The Education Center provides education for inner-city youth with limited access to nature and for religious education groups through efforts to continue prairie restoration on the Mount St. John home of the Society of Mary in Dayton, OH. Projects, presentations, and free workshops are intended to increase awareness and appreciation of the earth. MEEC also distributes free climate change information and runs workshops on the subject for congregations in the area.
Water Wisdom in a Parish Setting
The Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Parish in Osprey, FL, developed a comprehensive water conservation and quality plan to promote and practice stewardship of Gods earth in the construction and planning of their new parish building. The Churchscape Committee, formed to help implement ecologically sound design and help educate the community about creation stewardship, also developed a workshop to provide information on water in the state and church.
Saint Benedict Center Environmental Restoration
In response to urbanization and rapid ecosystem degradation in the Lake Mendota Priority Watershed, the Sisters of Saint Benedict in Middleton, WI, began an extensive restoration project of their Center. Incorporating area organizations, such as Boy and Girl Scout troops, schools, and parishes, into their efforts, the Sisters helped raise awareness of the importance of caring for Gods creation and successfully restored a sensitive watershed and prairie system.
The BioBox Project
Sixth-grade students in the
Archdiocese of Denver’s Catholic inner-city
elementary schools created “bioBoxes” containing
artifacts and information reflecting the
students’ environmental region. They
exchanged the boxes with sixth-graders from
other regions. Through this process, the
students learned about the uniqueness of
their region, the sacredness of creation,
and the value of networking to promote environmental
awareness.
The Nature Classroom
The Nature Classroom project
in the Diocese of St. Augustine, Fla., involves
Catholic elementary school students in a
variety of experiences designed to develop
an appreciation for the interdependence of
humans and the environment. The students
were involved in classroom and field plant
identification, plant dying and weaving,
and creation of a herbarium. They also reflected
on Catholic social teaching and our responsibility
to protect the wonders of creation. The project’s
coordinators developed easy-to-use lesson
plans, a training program, and a video for
instructors.
Cycle of Life Project
Through the Cycle of Life Project,
students at St. Mary’s School in the
diocese of Knoxville, Tenn., learned the
value of organic gardening by setting up
a compost system for growing plants to beautify
areas around the school. “Grow labs” was
also set up so the children can measure differences
between plants fed by compost and those without
compost. Vegetables from the grow labs will
be donated to food pantries. The children
learned not only the value of sustainable
agriculture and beautifying their environment,
but they also learned the importance of avoiding
waste by sharing our excess with those in
need. Local newspapers, including the diocesan
newspaper, agreed to publicize the project.
Environmental Retreat
Freshmen and sophomores at
Holy Rosary Academy in the Archdiocese of
Louisville, Ky., attended an environmental
retreat where they reflected on what it meant
to respect God’s creation and to work
for environmental justice. After the retreat,
the students initiated gardening and recycling
projects that helped them act on their reflections.
Stewardship through
the Seasons
Parishioners of St. James Cathedral
in Seattle, Washington, wanted to provide
opportunities for both reflection and action
on the connection between faith and the environment.
First, they distributed quarterly bulletin
flyers on environmental issues and Catholic
teaching to encourage reflection and discussion.
Then, they offered opportunities to participate
in various environmental activities, including
farming trips and a weekend wilderness retreat.
Loyola College Environmental
Justice Retreat Program
Loyola College in Baltimore
sponsored a retreat model focusing on environmental
justice to help students make the link between
social justice and the environment. Other
activities included hands-on service projects,
liturgies, and a speakers’ bureau.
All of these activities were initial steps
toward the establishment of a permanent environmental
justice office at the university.
Environmental Justice
for Southeast Asians
The St. Julie Asian Center
in the Archdiocese of Boston helped Southeast
Asians in the Boston region build community
spirit, pride and dignity by dealing with
the environment problems they face in their
communities.
Environmental Stewardship
Program
This project aimed to help
Catholic youth in the Diocese of Madison,
WI understand better their role as stewards
of God’s Creation. Elementary and middle
school students attended a diocesan camp
facility and the Diocesan Office of Justice
and Peace helped provide environmental service
projects through the Catholic schools.
UrSaLa-Ursulines Saving
the Land
The Ursuline Sisters of Mount
St. Joseph in Owensboro, KY updated their
farm as an environmental/agricultural education
center to train 50 teachers in land/stewardship
and ethics. The project impacted 1250 students
in good land use stewardship.
De La Roca Saldrá Agua,
Community Garden Project
The youth group of St. Mary’s
Parish in Bridgeport, Conn., reacted to the
violence and decay in their inner-city neighborhood
by taking an abandoned, garbage-strewn, city-owned
lot and turning it into a community garden
where they help their elderly neighbors maintain
plots. Through the cooperation of the local
water company and a grant from the USCCB
Environmental Justice Program, the group
helped install a water spigot at the site.
Now the elderly gardeners can water their
vegetables without hauling water, a dangerous
task during the summer heat.
Millennium Garden
The Millennium Garden, a project
of the Holy Family Catholic Educational Center
in San Jose, Calif., provided young people
with hands-on gardening experience to develop
their understanding of our responsibility
for caring for the earth. The program included
working with native plants, planting a butterfly
garden, growing plants in a greenhouse, and
cultivating a vegetable garden. A composting
project, and a weather station round out
the program, which served more than 600 young
people annually.
Environmental Eagles
The Winona, Minn., Area Council
of Catholic Women started an Environmental
Eagles Club for seventh graders who work
on local environmental issues and raise community
awareness. Their first project was developing
an environmental ecology calendar. Each member
was responsible for researching environmental
and ecological characteristics associated
with one month of the year. The children
used that information to create calendar
pages.
Prairiewoods
At the Prairiewoods Spirituality
Center run by the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual
Adoration in Dubuque, Iowa, junior high students
were taught to develop favorable habitats
for wildlife. They spent one week observing
the wildlife and recording their observations.
The project was designed to teach appreciation
of nature, promote an understanding of Church
teaching, and preserve space for wildlife
in an urban area.
The Poster Project
The project of Covenant House
and the DC Catholic Conference was a youth
leadership effort designed to help the Youth
Congress of Covenant House Washington initiate
a joint-community clean-up of excessive advertising
posters in several Washington neighborhoods.
The SHARE Team (Student
Helpers & Advocates for Renewing the Earth)
In support of Bishop Pilla’s
(Diocese of Cleveland) pastoral initiative,
The Church in the City, this demonstration
project seeks to pilot an after-school program
involving middle school students from one
suburban Catholic and two inner-city schools
in the use of satellite imagery to study
the environmental impacts of urban sprawl
and pollution in their local area. The diocese
aims to work in partnership with a local
university to prepare middle school teachers
and college student volunteers in the instructional
use of satellite imagery analysis. At the
conclusion of their environmental research
projects, participating students plan to
convene a conference for their peers and
submit their findings and recommendations
to appropriate representatives from local
governments (city and county).
Safe Cleaning for a
Safe and Cleaner Environment
Fourth-graders at St. Jude
School in Knoxville examined the marketing
of household cleaners, learn the dangers
of disposing wastes containing environmentally
unsafe materials, make earth-friendly cleaning
solutions, use and share them with the local
Catholic Charities, and disseminate their
discoveries through a newsletter and resource
materials supplied to Chattanooga’s
Recycling Center program.
Education Towards Sustainability
This project offered to a neglected
age group (10-14 year olds) in the poor,
semi-rural community of Franklin, NH, a four-day
summer youth program in the basics of education
toward environmental sustainability. This
project was part of an effort to establish
a Sustainable Living/Learning center in Franklin
by the Sisters of the Holy Cross in response
to the needs of the poor and the earth. This
project was part of a wider network for education
toward sustainability in New Hampshire.
Homeless Youth Ecology Awareness
Teens from a local homeless shelter
in the Diocese of Springfield - Cape Girardeau,
and in cooperation with a local parish, designed
and displayed a public mural at the city’s
a hazardous waste collection center. Children
from local Catholic schools who were studying
environmental issues also displayed their
art work.