 A PRIDE Environ- mental Education Liaison is available to the region's schools during the next school year. In counties that join the PRIDE Environmental Education Outreach Program, a liaison will visit the county’s elementary schools to lead fun, educational lessons about the environment.
PRIDE liaisons bring hands-on activities that help students understand that smart choices today are needed for a cleaner, healthier environment tomorrow. Topics include energy conservation, water quality, recycling and proper trash disposal. Liaisons typically work with grades 3-5, with an emphasis on 4th graders who take the state’s annual science test.
“When I ask 8th graders what we learned together five years ago, they remember,” said Linda Rose, who has been Morgan County’s liaison since 2003. “Kids need to feel needed, and environmental education gives them that. The environment needs them.”
“I have had students say, ‘The PRIDE lady talked to us about this,’” said Terry Wilson, who teaches science in grades 4-8 at Frakes School Center in Bell County. Wilson advises every county to enroll in the outreach program, saying, “I think it benefits the students on test scores. For this quality of interaction with the students, it is money and time well spent.”
This convenient program is available to the 38 counties served by PRIDE, but local leaders must pay a fee to enroll their schools. During the current school year, 11 counties are participating. Since September, local liaisons have reached 21,080 students.
“We have invited county judges, mayors and school superintendents to sign up for the upcoming school year,” said PRIDE’s Karen Engle. “They can share the program fee or allow one entity to pay it. It is common for the county to invest its litter abatement funds from the state in the PRIDE outreach program.”
“If educators want to learn more about the program, they can call our office in Somerset at 888-577-4339 or e-mail us at PRIDE@centertech.com,” Engle added. “Our goal is to expand the program into more counties and reach more students with the PRIDE message next fall.”
Eastern Kentucky PRIDE is a nonprofit organization that promotes “Personal Responsibility In a Desirable Environment” in southern and eastern Kentucky. PRIDE works with communities to improve water quality, clean up solid waste problems and increase environmental awareness.
The Environmental Outreach Program reflects PRIDE’s commitment to teaching students how our daily lives impact the local environment and why it is our personal responsibility to care for it. The goal is to increase children’s environmental knowledge by providing lessons tied to state curriculum guidelines and involving students in cleanup activities.
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