Environmental Studies

Environmental Studies Curriculum

Technology-supported, environment-based education engages Carthay students in a rigorous learning approach while fostering love and respect for nature through outdoor experiences. The Common Core Standards—delivered through Writer’s Workshop, Project-Based Learning, and Eureka Math—serve as the core processes through which students develop the critical thinking skills needed to become lifelong problem solvers, promoting higher levels of economic prosperity and social cohesion, as well as environmental protection. Students recognize their role and responsibility to themselves, their neighbors, and view themselves as stewards of the world around them.       

As environmental instruction is integrated across the grades, themes unfold in lessons through multiple pathways: observing, discussing, writing, measuring, calculating, enacting, representing, etc.  Taught in this way, Math becomes part of real life experience and its relevance to investigating and comprehending reality becomes clear to students; Writing Workshop lessons take off from “collections” that have their start in the garden; and, Reading and Literature take on new relevance in its enhancement of students’ perceptions of the real world.   

STAR Hands-on Garden Science

In 2009, Carthay Center partnered with the Garden School Foundation https://gardenschoolfoundation.org/ to develop a pilot Garden Science curriculum that links California State Science Standards with hands-on, outdoor learning. This parent-funded program is a collaboration among Carthay Teachers, STAR Science Teachers, and Master Gardeners. The garden program at Carthay continues to grow as its success in supporting the curriculum has proven to be a valuable resource. The garden has revitalized learning on campus. Students enjoy science and have become environmental stewards, healthier eaters, and attentive observers of the natural world.

Students from every grade level rotate through the Garden School Foundation. Class time is spent both in the garden and in Carthay's science lab. Students are in small groups to ensure everyone has a chance to participate - in addition to the classroom teacher, Garden Science classes are led by a science instructor and two garden science teachers from STAR Education. Hands-on learning is enjoyable for students, makes scientific concepts "real," and encourages experimentation rather than rote memorization. 

The number of weeks spent in Garden Science increases as students progress through the grade levels: 6 weeks for grades K-3, 10 weeks for 4th grade, and 16 weeks for 5th grade.

Project Learning Tree, WET, and WILD

Many Carthay teachers supplement the materials above with lessons from Project Learning Tree, Project WET, and Project WILD. Carthay has budgeted professional development training for all Carthay teachers in at least some of these programs at Carthay. Some teachers also take additional trainings. 

Project Learning Tree (PLT) is an award-winning environmental education program whose goal is to teach students how to think, not what to think about complex environmental issues. Recognized as a leader in environmental education for more than 35 years, PLT enhances critical thinking, problem solving, and effective decision-making skills, teaching students to weigh various sides of an environmental issue to make informed and responsible decisions. As are EEI and STAR Garden Science, PLT materials are multi-disciplinary and aligned with state and national education standards.

Studies show that curricula with outdoor learning components are proven to advance overall student performance, including test scores, particularly in science and math. More than half of all Project Learning Tree activities can be conducted outdoors.

Carthay School of Environmental Studies Magnet

Carthay School of Environmental Studies Magnet is the only magnet elementary school in the LAUSD that combines the sciences and the humanities in an educational program centered on society and the environment.

Environmental Studies is a broad, comprehensive field of study that engages students in real life explorations, including:

• working in teams,
• listening to and accepting diverse opinions,
• solving problems,
• taking a long-term view of interactions between society and the environment,
• promoting actions that serve the larger good, and
• connecting with the community

By providing students with a wide variety of thematically integrated learning experiences our program gives them the skills and abilities they need to be active participants in improving quality of life for themselves and future generations.  It is rooted in rigorous, project-based learning with a commitment to policies that foster sustainable development and social equality.  These projects emphasize discovery, exploration, collaborative study, scientific research, and use of scientific tools and technology. Simultaneously, they guide our students through critical studies of environmentally sensitive literature and the arts while developing their own creative abilities with writing and artistic exercises.

Designed for students of varying abilities and interests, environmental education at Carthay embodies a learning process that increases student’s knowledge and awareness about relationships between the environment and human well-being, while guiding them to become ecologically responsible citizens of the world.