LSUS Institute awarded $8,000 grant by EPA 09/02/03

The LSUS Red River Watershed Management Institute has been awarded an E PA Environmental Education grant worth $8,000 for the institute’s “High School Watershed Education Project.”

Gary Hanson, LSUS assistant professor of environmental science and the institute’s director, said the project will be led by institute faculty in collaboration with public school teachers from Caddo and Bossier Parishes and the director of ShrevCORPS, a nationally recognized Americorps program administered by Shreveport Green and an active participant in the Earth Force program.

Developing a work force capable of meeting technological challenges of 21st Century careers is a high priority in the Shreveport-Bossier area. “In order to attract research and development firms to this area,” Hanson said, “recruiting officials have repeatedly urged the public school system to focus on programs aimed at developing qualified workers. The long-range goal of our institute is to help meet that need by exposing public school teachers and students to these future priorities and hands-on education in scientific and technical methods.”

Hanson said the project is a combination of lab, classroom and field trip. It targets 20 10th and 11th grade environmental science teachers with significant percentages of minority students. “There will be 40 students in the practice teaching component,” he said, “and more than 450 students during the school year. About half will be minority students.”

The grant will also be used to offer a pair of two-day workshops conducted by LSUS environmental science faculty, Hanson said, “to demonstrate and teach scientifically sound water quality monitoring and sampling techniques, the compiling of field data and basic laboratory analyses.”

On the first day of the two workshops, 10 public school science teachers will be trained in sampling and analyses. On day two, under faculty supervision, each teacher will pass on knowledge and skills gained to two students drawn from the general population of those enrolled in environmental science courses.

Field work will be conducted in the Red River Education and Research Park (C. Bickham Dickson Park), which is jointly managed by LSUS and the city of Shreveport. The 585-acre park is the site of cutting-edge environmental research led by LSUS faculty in collaboration with other universities, business and industry, and city, state and federal agencies.

In October 2001, the Louisiana Board of Regents established the Institute to provide a broad range of research, education, and public outreach programs designed to increase knowledge about one of the largest river basins in the continental U.S. and help ensure future water quality within the watershed.