“e” inc. Receives $50,000+ Grant from NSTAR to Expand “Kids Green Their Schools” Program for Boston’s Urban Schools

Boston, MA, November 19, 2013 – Environment science non-profit “e” inc. has received a $56,717 grant from NSTAR to continue and expand the successful “Kids Green Their Schools” (KGTS) Program for Boston area public schools. Created by “e” inc., the KGTS Program is a dynamic, pilot-tested, experiential program for K-8 schools looking to boost their existing science involvements while also going green.  Schools in Cambridge, Dorchester, Roxbury, Mattapan, Somerville, and Brighton will continue or launch the program this year.

The KGTS Program is based on the idea that young people can play an active role in helping their schools become sustainable (aka green) by leading the charge toward conservation. “e”  inc. designs all of the KGTS curricula, which are structured to ensure that students gain measureable  science knowledge (as documented by increases in science test performance of 30 to 60 percent). In each of three courses – (1) Water as a Resource, (2) Rethinking Energy, and (3) The Zero Waste Planet – students become conservation leaders as they take concrete, measurable actions that reduce their schools’ environmental impact.  Students learn fascinating, standards-based science while their schools conserve resources and save money.

At every site, the program is “in residence,” so that one educator is stationed at each school for either six or twelve weeks depending on the school’s size. The sessions sponsored by NSTAR will feature six hands-on lessons on energy conservation, including:

• What is energy and how does it originate from the sun?
• What are a fossil, a fuel, and a fossil fuel?
• What is electricity — how do we generate it and how does it get to your home?
• What are climate change and the greenhouse effect and how does your school use energy?
• What are renewable energy sources and how do they work?
• Lastly, the students brainstorm what they have learned, and powered by their new knowledge, plan and practice a three-part electricity conservation process for their classroom that is repeated by students throughout their building to help the site save energy.

According to Dr. Ricky S. Stern, Executive Director of “e” inc., “Our science programs are unique because knowledge is paired with action. Students took pride in what they were doing, made a truly strong attachment to their “e” inc. teachers, had a great time participating in the lessons, and understood the important issues at stake.  Many principals took the idea of added sustainability to heart and were pleased with the conservation efforts and their results.  We are grateful for NSTAR’s ongoing support of the KGTS Program, and we look forward to expanding this important enviro-science initiative.”

In 2013-14, through the KGTS Program, “e” inc. will teach a total of 200 separate classrooms and will have direct ongoing involvement with approximately 4,000 children.  The full 2013-14 program will be taught in twelve Greater Boston schools, seven of which are sponsored by NSTAR, with two additional schools focused on water conservation, and three schools focused on zero waste programs.  The latter sites are supported by the Mass Cultural Council and other sources.

“e” inc. Helps Charlestown Children Get A Head Start in Science

Boston, MA, February 10, 2014 – Environment science non-profit “e” inc., in partnership with the John F. Kennedy Family Service Center, Inc. (Kennedy Center), has launched the “Head Start Scientists” program in Charlestown, MA. This early-childhood science program addresses the stimulation and science education needs of over 80 low-income children in the Head Start and K-1 after school programs based in Charlestown’s Kennedy Center.

Head Start Scientists is designed to involve Kennedy Center children in science inquiry and problem solving through the use of investigations and experiments. Using an interactive curriculum created by “e” inc., pre-school children are exposed to natural phenomena and general themes and patterns in science. By helping children observe the natural world, they learn to see relationships between living and non-living things and beings, as well as, the relationship between available resources and animal behaviors. “e” inc. will also take children out for real-time explorations where they can take pictures, use bug catchers and magnifying glasses and create field books for the things that they observe. Each class will also design and carry out action projects based on what they have learned, such as creating a vegetable or butterfly garden, adding recycling to their building, protecting trees, creating bird feeding stations, or saving energy and water.

Kennedy Center teachers involved with the Head Start Scientists program commented, “The science program is providing the children with hands-on and fun-filled science projects.  The children are ecstatic when the “e” inc. teacher comes.”

“Our “e”inc. teacher, Mr. C, is great with the children,” said Nick Free, after school program teacher, Kennedy Center. “He understands the material he is presenting and is always prepared.  He also understands my student population. He shows patience and tolerance with an appropriate sense of humor.  The students love [their afterschool class] on Tuesdays with Mr. C.   They talk about it during the day when I see the kids in the halls of the Harvard-Kent School.”

“By introducing science to children early in their learning, they will be able to use the world around them as a natural laboratory filled with phenomena they can study, classify, and try to understand,” said Head Start classroom teacher, The Kennedy Center. “Head Start Scientists is a hands-on way to understand patterns, experiences and themes, to take on investigations, and to run experiments.  Children can make predictions, learn to draw conclusions from evidence, hazard guesses that they back with evidence, and enjoy and appreciate their planet.”

The John F. Kennedy Family Service Center, Inc. is a non-profit, multi-service agency that provides a wide range of educational, antipoverty, elder care, and social services to the residents of Charlestown, Boston and surrounding areas.