BEES Updates to website

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What is new on the BEES website

Now available, the BEES Water Quality Monitoring Database!
Add data you and your students have collected
or view data collected from local waterways.

What is happening in BEES programs

	Stacy Park Restoration Project (Spring 2001)
	Participating Schools : Granville Academy - Trenton
	A group of 15 Granville Academy students braved sleet and rain Saturday morning to help in a streambank restoration project in Trenton's Stacy Park. The event was organized by the nonprofit environmental education organization BEES (Building Environmental Education Solutions), in conjunction with the Trenton Department of Natural Resources. Students from both the Granville Academy after-school program and the Charter School joined volunteers from the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection in the service project. [ more ]

BEES Receives EPA Grant (2001)

Students across New Jersey will learn why protecting the watersheds they live in is the best way to protect their local environment. The United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) awarded $22,315 to Building Environmental Education Solutions (BEES), a statewide program that trains teachers how to integrate environmental toimages into their daily lesson plans. The grant - the largest of nine environmental education grants awarded in New Jersey -- will enable BEES to provide year-round assistance to teachers. [ more ]

BEES and Community Members Team Up in Earth Month 2000 Kick-off Project

About 25 students and community volunteers turned out Saturday morning, April 1^st, for a clean-up and streambank restoration project on the Assunpink Creek in George Page Park in Trenton, NJ. The event, a kickoff for Earth Month 2000, was organized by BEES (Building Environmental Education Solutions), an environmental education outreach arm of the Stony Brook-Millstone Watershed Association in Pennington. Students from the Granville Academy after-school program and the East Trenton Community Council joined community members in the service project. In addition to picking up trash in and along the creek, the students planted more than 400 blue flag and yellow irises, sedges and rushes along the streambank. According to Dan Derby, Municipal Parks Superintendent for Trenton, the plantings will help shore-up the streambank, protecting it from erosion brought on by floodwaters, which are becoming increasingly common as upstream areas become more heavily developed. He noted that the reintroduction of native wetlands species will also aid in filtering polluted run-off water before it enters the creek, as well as provide wildlife habitat. The project was made possible by an Earth Day 2000 grant from the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. Harold Nebling kindly arranged for a loan of tools from the NJDEP, and David Ponton from the East Trenton Community Council provided a table and chairs for the event, in addition to directing students in their work on the service project.

Last fall, BEES implemented a Water in Our Community unit with the Granville Academy students, during which the students visited several sites along the creek and performed chemical tests and biological sampling to assess water quality. Other toimages related to the Assunpink were also addressed, such as historic and current land use near the creek, flooding problems and solutions, brownfield sites along the creek, and the proposed Assunpink Greenway Plan. "It is great to have an opportunity to follow up our previous investigations with a hands-on project in which students do something positive for their community and their watershed", noted Jeff Hoagland, director of BEES.

BEES banner

Building Environmental Education Solutions (BEES) is a nonprofit organization that works with educators to develop innovative environmental education programs which are multidisciplinary, inquiry-based, and customized around a local issue. BEES was acquired last year by the Stony Brook-Millstone Watershed Association, whose current education program actively reaches over 10,000 students annually through 400 programs, most of them implemented as field trips on the Watershed's Nature Reserve. BEES complements this effort by working directly with teachers, helping them to fold environmental education into their existing curricula and linking them with natural resources which may be used as outdoor extensions of their classrooms. According to Mr. Hoagland, "Creating a sense of stewardship is probably the single most important component of any environmental education effort, and it is critical for bringing about any lasting change. Thus it is vitally important to instill in students a sense of connection to and responsibility for their natural surroundings, and there is no substitute for direct experience." BEES will be hosting a Summer Watershed Education Institute for middle and high school teachers which emphasizes field techniques for water quality monitoring.

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