Environmental Education Team (E-Team)

Groundwork Providence’s E-Team Program is a youth development and employment program for low income and disadvantaged youth. The program has been recognized by the US Environmental Protection Agency as one of the top ten environmental education programs in the country, as it was awarded the national President’s Environmental Service Award in 2004 in recognition of outstanding environmental service to the community.

The goals of the E-Team Program are to employ high school youth as environmental educators and positive role models within their communities, and to teach young children about how to protect their environment and make it a clean and safe place to live and play. While providing inner-city youth with meaningful jobs, the program also fosters the personal growth of each E-Team youth and provides quality after-school and summer programming to hundreds of children and youth in Providence.

The E-Team has been in existence for the past nine years. Each academic year and each summer four Providence youth (ages 14-18) are hired to comprise the E-Team. Under the guidance of the GWP Education Coordinator, the youth develop and implement environmentally-based projects and activities to teach younger students (ages 6-13) enrolled in local after-school and summer programs. The E-Team works 10 hours a week during the school year and 20 hours a week during the summer. The E-Team Program introduces young children to high school role models and mentors who engage them in community-based projects and teaching them about how to make environmentally sound decisions.

The E-Team Program provides youth with a variety of educational, leadership, and community service opportunities, while offering a comfortable work environment that promotes close relationships with peers, employers and adult mentors. The youth participate in two weeks of professional training at the start of the academic year and one week at the start of the summer, and gain work experience and skills that prepare them for future jobs. Many E-Team youth have been retained to participate in other GWP employment programs (such as the Brownfields Job Training Program). GWP has also aided many youth with college admission and placement in jobs within the Providence community.

Target Communities

The targeted Providence areas for the E-Team Program are the West End and Upper South Providence. Groundwork Providence has strong partnerships with schools, community development corporations and organizations in these two neighborhoods and they are where the majority of E-Team youth reside. Residents from these neighborhoods share a disproportionate burden of social and environmental ills in Providence:

Upper South Providence: Unemployment - 15%, Families living below poverty level -
36%, Families receiving public assistance – 16%, Children with high lead exposure - 25%

West End: Unemployment - 11%, Families living below poverty level - 37%, Families receiving public assistance - 18%, Children with high lead exposure - 23%

These two neighborhoods are also federally designated Enterprise Communities (a distressed area in an urban or rural community that the Federal government has targeted for development).

For many Providence youth, problems such as inadequate family support, low incomes and lack of engaging after-school activities are a daily reality. Unsafe, eroding and unhealthy neighborhood environments mirror a sense of hopelessness and despair. The E-Team Program successfully engages high school youth during summer and after-school hours, provides consistent positive adult mentoring and support, contributes to household income, and instills a sense of leadership.

Project Activities

E-Team youth receive and participate in the following experiences through employment at Groundwork Providence:

• Paid work experience, linked to academic and occupational learning, during summer and after-school hours.
• Consistent, positive adult mentoring and support (tutoring and referral to social and supportive services when needed). The GWP Education Coordinator maintains a personal relationship with each youth, nurturing his or her individual development through frequent interaction with family members, guidance counselors and/or teachers, as well as regular review of report cards.
• E-Team youth participate in an intensive two-week training session at the start of the after-school program and one-week training session at the start of each summer program, to include:
• Support during the development of youth-driven environmental activities and projects and access to pre-existing curricula and activities (such as Project Wild's K-12 Activity Guide, the EPA's topic specific K-6 curricula, RI Resource Recovery's K-12 recycling curriculum, and other education resources housed in the GWP office, including the Providence Public Schools Scope and Sequence Standards).
• Program and project implementation. E-Team youth travel with the GWP Education Coordinator to the sites to conduct their developed projects and activities with the younger students. Younger students participate and know the program in the form of an Environmental Club (E-Club) that meets once a week at their summer or after-school program site.
• Community service learning opportunities. Youth work closely with the GWP Education Coordinator to develop hands on environmental activities that engage children in the community at large. This may include activities such as neighborhood cleanups, environmental arts projects, educational games, or garden planting and maintenance.
• Regular discussion, reflection, assessment and evaluation.

Accomplishments

In 2005, the E-Team engaged 48 elementary school children and 67 middle school children in 3 neighborhood projects and 39 hours of environmental education. Together, participants created of 2 community murals, planted 13 new trees and created 2 environmental curricula (including the development of 11 new environmental activities).