News & Information
Thanks to Ferndale's Alcoa Intalco Works, three Bellingham School District educators have been selected to receive summer training at a national institute designed to provide classroom lessons focused on local environmental issues.
With the funding support of the Alcoa Foundation, Alcoa Intalco Works in Ferndale is supporting Carl Cozier Elementary School teacher Molli O'Neill, Shuksan Middle School teacher Sarah Walker and Larrabee Elementary School principal Eric Paige to attend The Keystone Center's Key Issues Institute: Bringing Environmental Issues to the Classroom.
They are three of 16 educators selected by 13 Alcoa locations in 11 states who will be attending the 2009 Environmental Issues workshops in Colorado over the summer. Since 1997, Alcoa Foundation has strengthened the skills of 131 teachers across 26 states in delivering sustainability education to students.
“The educators that come to the training bring a cadre of experiences and issues relevant to their communities,” said Dan Schroder, Key Issues Program Director at The Keystone Center. Teachers use the Key Issues Framework, which meets National Education Standards in a variety of disciplines, to implement classroom plans in their schools that focus on local environmental issues. Past session participants have addressed diverse issues, including water quality, wetlands and solid waste management in their respective communities.
Within the context of a scientific investigation, educators spend the week in classrooms as well as on field activities exploring the environmental aspects of a simulated issue. To augment their classroom implementation, participants receive the simulated curriculum, instructional materials, computer software programs, lab kits and online support with other educators and instructors.
About The Keystone Center The Keystone Center (TKC) is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization founded in 1975 to ensure that present and future generations approach environmental and scientific dilemmas and disagreements creatively and proactively. The Keystone Center's mission is to equip citizens with deliberative frameworks, democratic processes, analytical information, and critical-thinking skills to navigate tough problems and develop solutions. Through its two major programs -- The Keystone Center for Science and Public Policy and the Center for Education -- The Keystone Center improves decisions about long-term issues by helping thought-leaders, teachers, students, and decision-makers effectively address technically complex and politically uncertain situations. Since Key Issues Institutes piloted in 1992, the generous support of foundations and corporations such as Alcoa has enabled more than 2,000 educators to enhance the decision-making skills of their students. For more information, visit www.keystone.org.
About Alcoa Foundation
Alcoa Foundation has been working alongside the communities where Alcoa has a presence since 1952 with more than $490 invested to strengthen community sustainability and address local and global challenges in such areas as Conservation and Climate Change, Education and Skills Development, Health and Safety, Diversity and Future Leaders, and Community Capacity and Resilience. In the last three years (2006-2008), Alcoa Foundation has invested more than $22 million in community-based projects to inform public policy, build capacity, raise awareness and mobilize action around global climate change. Additionally, since late 2005, Alcoa Foundation’s flagship $9.2 million Conservation & Sustainability Fellowship Program has been unlocking answers to the most challenging sustainability issues facing the world today -- climate change, energy use, water management, accelerated growth and development in all corners of the globe.
Alcoa has a strong culture of employee volunteerism, with employees giving 705,000 services hours in 2008 to make their communities stronger, more resilient places to live and work. For more information, visit www.alcoa.com/foundation.