Happy Halloween!

As many of you know, we operate on a pretty small staff here at USEE. Now we're even smaller with Andree' away on maternity leave, but we're going to keep having fun!

Jason and I decided that we would have an office costume party, even if Jason and I were the only participants.

Jason is an 80's Hockey Player, sporting a nice shiner from the fight he got in during last night's game, nasty mustache, turtleneck, and complete with his vintage Toronto Maple Leafs hat and jersey. The only thing that could make this one any better is a mullet!

I went a little old school as well and to bring back the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Michelangelo is one of my favorites (I loved the ninja turtles growing up) and I think this one pretty much speaks for itself. Too bad I forgot my nunchucks for these pictures!


Looks like we are very excited about Halloween! What about you? Did anyone else have office parties? Are you dressing up?

2009 Utah EE Conference Happenings

-by Danny Trujillo

Whats up everyone!

We have lots of cool things coming up here at USEE. The biggest one (or at least the biggest thing everyone here has been working on) is the up-coming conference that is taking place during the third week of November. We have some way awesome presenters that will be speaking this year about all things environmental education. Some of the ones topic that I am personally looking forward to are:

• Energy: The BIG Picture;
  
• Connecting Early Childhood Development and Nature; and
  
• Learning to speak the same language.

Some other really exciting presentations that will have some good information are:

• Field Trip at the Hogle Zoo;
  
• School Yard Explorers;
• Designing Games for Learning;
  
• Sowing Seeds for a New Future: Garden Education Program at the Salt Lake County Jail.

In addition to some of these presentations we will also have a free movie that will be open to the public about water issues and how the West might not have enough water for our communities. I personally have seen the film in one of my classes at the University of Utah and it makes you really think about water in a whole new way.

These are just a few of the topics that will be covered this year. Also, the key note speaker this year is Robert Michael Pyle who has written many excellent books about the environment. He is also an independent biologist and holds many other accomplishments in the environmental filed.

I hope to see you all there; it's going to be fun! For more information about this or any other up-coming events please visit our website at www.usee.org or visit our Conference Information page.

Wild About Utah: Spruces in the Urban Landscape

A spruce tree was felled in my neighborhood recently. I have no quarrels with its removal, especially since it was leaning over my roof. But some wild neighbors were not so upbeat about the incident. A Red Squirrel scolded anyone within earshot. It had lost its secure pathway between the front and backyards. Now it must run on the ground before once again climbing into the safety of loftier pathways.

Spruce trees have much to offer the non-human inhabitants of our urban landscapes. The noisy Red Squirrel may also have been complaining about the loss of a nest. Both squirrels and birds like to nest in spruce trees. The dim interior of the spruce is a good place to look for owls roosting during daylight.

Spruce trees shelter animals during storms, their dense branches providing a dry, calm haven from wind, rain and snow.

Spruces offer a high perch from which every bird, house finch to crow to robin, can declare their territory by song sung lustily from the topmost branches. When the Sharp-shinned Hawk swoops the birdfeeder for a feathery meal, the juncos and chickadees scatter to hide themselves in the spruce’s embrace.

Last winter, flocks of White-winged Crossbills descended upon Utah. Their bill crosses at the tip, which makes it perfect for prying open spruce cones to get to the tasty and nutritious seeds. These birds wander the Northern Hemisphere in search of abundant cone crops of spruce and other conifers.

The noble, lofty spruce is more than a decorative landscape tree. It offers food, home, safety and shelter to our wild neighbors.

Colorado Blue Spruce
Courtesy of Linda Kervin

Credits:

Text: Linda Kervin, Bridgerland Audubon Society

Wild About Utah is a weekly nature series produced by Utah Public Radio in cooperation with Stokes Nature Center and Bridgerland Audubon Society. Archives of the program can be found at www.wildaboututah.org.

Only a Few More Days to Save for the Conference!

Only a Few More Days Until the Early-Bird Deadline!

20th Annual Utah Enviornmental Education Conference
Thursday, November 19 (evening opener) through Saturday, November 21, 2009
At the Wasatch Retreat and Conference Center
75 South 200 East, Downtown SLC


Early-Bird Registration ends
this Friday, October 23.

Register Now!

Please Note: As you may have noticed, we are NOT sending out hard-copies of the Registration Packet. In order to reduce our footprint and to save a little money on postage, we are doing registration online.
For questions, please contact Nicole Thomas at nicole@usee.org.

Keynote Speakers

Robert Michael Pyle

Robert Michael Pyle has a Master's Degree in Nature Interpretation, which was followed by a doctorate in Ecology and Environmental Studies from Yale University. In 1971he founded the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, and later chaired its Monarch Project. The Society for Conservation Biology awarded Pyle a Distinguished Service Award in 1993. For many years he has been a full-time writer and independent biologist and teacher. His fifteen books include Wintergreen (winner of the John Burroughs Medal for distinguished nature writing), The Thunder Tree, Where Bigfoot Walks, Chasing Monarchs, and Walking the High Ridge, as well as The Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Butterflies, The Butterflies of Cascadia, and several other standard butterfly works. His most recent book, Sky Time in Gray's River: Living for Keeps in a Forgotten Place, won the 2007 National Outdoor Book Award for natural history literature and was a finalist for the Orion and Washington Book Awards. He lives along a tributary of the Lower Columbia River in southwest Washington with his wife, Thea Linnaea Pyle, a weaver and botanist.

Tim Brown

Tim Brown, a native of Salt Lake, is the Executive Director for Tracy Aviary. Tim’s interest in EE began in college when he participated in outreach programs and, in 1993, he completed an internship at USEE. Over the next few years, he worked his way up the ladder to become the Executive Director of USEE in 1996. In 2002, Tim became the director of the new non-profit Center for Green Space Design and in 2005, Tim jumped at the opportunity to be the Executive Director of Tracy Aviary. Tim has also served on many local boards including Friends of Great Salt Lake (current), Four Corners School of Outdoor Education, and HawkWatch International. Tim has degrees from the University of Vermont and Antioch-University – Seattle, and lives in Salt Lake with his wife and two children.

Concurrent Sessions

The conference will also be featuring an Opening Event on Thursday, November 19. (To Be Determined) We have many exciting conference sessions, including regional presentations and some very fun feild trips. Some of this year's concurrent session line up are:

• Designing Games for Learning
• Sowing the Seeds for a New Future: Garden Education Program at the Salt Lake County Jail
• How Partnerships between Colleges and EE Programs Can Provide Great Opportunites
• Home on the Range with GoogleEarth: The Impacts of Grazing Over Generations
• Assessment and Evaluation 101: How to Get Started

Field Trips

We also have some awesome field trips lined up:

• Repertory Dance Theater's Green Map Project
• The Nature Conservancy's Shoreland Preserve Tour
• The Hogle Zoo
• and of course, there will be the usual Guidelines Training during this time as well.

Teacher Day

This year's conference also is featuring a "Teacher Day" which will take place on Saturday from 8:00 am to 3:30 pm. There are at least 2 or more sessions directly related to teachers going on all day. Some exapmples of sessions include:

• School Yard Explorers
• Measuring CO2
• PLT Forests of the World Training
• Environmental Education for Grades 3-5
• Energy - The BIG and Basic Picture

Wild About Utah: Edward Abbey

Hi, I’m Holly Strand from Stokes Nature Center in beautiful Logan Canyon.

Utah nature has influenced a number of eminent nature writers, Edward Abbey among them. A novelist, essayist, and poet, he especially loved the desert southwest-- the slickrock desert of southeastern Utah had a special place in his heart. He once declared: “Within this underslung lopsided rump-sprung dough-bellied highly irregular parallelogram lies the least inhabited, least inhibited, least developed, least improved, least civilized, least governed, least priest-ridden, most arid, most hostile, most lonesome, most grim bleak barren desolate and savage quarter of the state of Utah—the best by far. “

Undeniably one of our best western writers. Abbey has been called a “national treasure," and Thoreau of the American West. He has also been called an arrogant self-centered bigot, a militant conservationist, and America's crankiest citizen. He was full of contradictions about his own beliefs about nature and society. He could run on and on about the “hooved locust,” his name for cows, grazing everywhere on public land. Then he would order a steak from a restaurant a few hours later.

Born in 1927 in Pennsylvania, Abbey came west to study at the University of New Mexico. He moved to Utah in 1956 to take a job as a ranger in Arches National Monument. During his time in Arches, he created a multi-volume journal of his experiences. He later collapsed the journal material from three seasons into one season to produce one of the bestselling books on nature ever written, Desert Solitaire.

The very first Earth Day, April 22nd 1970 drew millions of people to numerous locations around the country. Abbey was invited to speak in Logan by organizers Thomas Lyons and Ingrid Eisenstadt. He accepted and was favorably impressed by the area and its people. When the University of Utah offered him a post as the first Writer in Residence, he accepted, spending much of his time with Ingrid in Logan in a little house on 6th East.

Abbey didn’t stay in Utah for long. He was a restless man, roving around in search of wilderness or adventure and in pursuit of a number of women, 5 of which became wives at different times of his life.

Eventually, Tucson became his main residence. But he still made many trips to Utah, spending time here and there visiting friends and wild places.

Abbey died in 1989, perhaps in part a victim of his own hard living. As he requested, he was placed in an old sleeping bag and buried beneath a pile of rocks to keep the coyotes away with “No comment” engraved on his gravestone. A wake was held in Saguaro National Monument and then in Moab where 600 of his friends celebrated his life and writing.

Information for this program was gathered from Edward Abbey : A Life by James Calahan. Thanks to the Rocky Mountain Power Foundation for supporting research and development of this Wild About Utah topic.

For Wild About Utah and Stokes Nature Center, I’m Holly Strand.

Credits:
Text: Holly Strand, Stokes Nature Center
Photo: http://www.nndb.com/people/651/000048507

Wild About Utah is a weekly nature series produced by Utah Public Radio in cooperation with Stokes Nature Center and Bridgerland Audubon Society. Archives of the program can be found at www.wildaboututah.org.

Take a Break - Weekend Plans?

I don't know about you, but this week has been a very busy one. We are in the full throes of our Annual Conference preparation, recovering from being gone all last week in Portland, and of course all of the other "life-as-usual" things here at USEE. Needless to say, I am very happy that it is Friday!

I thought it might be nice to write about something other than the usual this afternoon. Something easy, that doesn't require a lot of research, but still might be at least somewhat interesting to read. So how about weekend plans?


This weekend I have a mix of fun, productivity, and relaxation on my list. Tonight I am going to dinner with my family at my uncle's to see his new house. After that, my sister is coming home with me and she will be staying with me for the weekend as she takes a break from her regular life. She owns a photography business, so we are going to visit Andree' to take pictures of Little Olive and the family. Saturday night my sister and I are getting together with an old friend - maybe we will all watch the University of Utah football game together, or maybe we will just laugh the night away after going to dinner. Those plans haven't been completely solidified yet.

Other than that, the rest of my weekend is free to do as I please, other than the regular things like cleaning out my garden area, cleaning the house, and early-morning runs. I hope to get in a good bike ride, or maybe even a hike somewhere below the snowline on Sunday. I feel some studying at the local coffee shop is also on the horizon.

I am definitely feeling the seasons change. Many of my friends have gotten really sick with the flu in the recent weather changes, I feel like I've missed fall completely since the snow fell in the mountains before the leaves had a chance to change, my house is very chilly, and I've pulled out the pumpkin candle, long-sleeved shirts, blankets, and hot tea. Part of me embraces the change. I look forward to the holidays and all of the festivities they entail, getting warm with hot cider under a blanket after cross-country skiing, and wearing slippers again. The other part of me is already nostalgic for late summer vegetables, long evenings on the porch, and flip-flops.

The transition from summer to fall is always a happy one for me, as fall is most definitely my favorite season. But when summer heads straight into winter, I find myself wishing it wouldn't all happen so fast. But don't get me wrong, I am excited to go skiing! And I plan on visiting the Black Diamond Gear swap tomorrow to see if I can get a good deal on some decent skis to justify buying a pre-season ski pass from Solitude. We'll see how that goes. For now, I'm going to try and enjoy the weather as best I can and hopefully I'll be able to get one more rock-climbing day in before the snow really starts to fly.

Jason has informed me that he plans to do an 18 mile run tomorrow in preparation for the marathon he is running in a few months, followed by a short bare-foot relaxation run around the park on Sunday.

So what are you doing this weekend? Getting outside? Going for a run? Spending time with your family and friends? Enjoying life? I hope so!

Photos by Mallory Platt

Tracy Aviary Rejoins Ranks of Elite Zoos

USEE Member Tracy Aviary Regains Accreditation from Association of Zoos & Aquariums, Which Had Been Denied in 2006. On September 16 the Aviary announced that it has been granted accreditation by the Association of Zoos & Aquariums, placing it among the nation's elite zoological facilities.

"The Tracy Aviary is one of the best in the world because it has met the highest standards in the world," said AZA President and CEO Jim Maddy. "It takes hard work and a sustained commitment to excellence to meet Association of Zoos and Aquariums Accreditation Standards." Aviary leaders were delighted by the decision.

"Obtaining AZA accreditation is an important achievement that will help us to attract and retain excellent staff, raise funds, and diversify our bird collection," said Aviary executive director Tim Brown. "More importantly, it is a seal of approval from leaders in our field that endorses the progress the Aviary has made and our exciting direction for the future."

The AZA denied accreditation to Tracy Aviary in 2006, citing uncertain funding and aging facilities. Since then, Aviary employees have worked diligently to improve and replace outdated exhibits and infrastructure. And in 2008, Salt Lake County voters overwhelmingly passed a $19.6 million bond for improvements at the Aviary, providing a critical showing of community support for the institution.

"The Aviary owes a debt of gratitude to the Utah philanthropic community, Salt Lake City and Salt Lake County governments, and especially the citizens of Salt Lake County," said Brown. "Without their support, the leadership of Davis Mullholand and our fantastic trustees, and the huge and ongoing effort of the Aviary staff, this achievement would not have been possible."

The Aviary applied for accreditation earlier this year. In July, AZA inspectors conducted a rigorous on-site investigation at the Aviary. The inspecting team observed all aspects of the Aviary's operations, including animal care; keeper training; safety for visitors, staff, and animals; educational programs; conservation efforts; veterinary programs; financial stability; risk management; and visitor services. Aviary officials then took part in a formal Commission hearing last Sunday in Portland, Oregon, after which the accreditation decision was announced.

Work on the initial bond-funded projects is scheduled to start soon. The Aviary's master plan envisions an "Aviary of the Americas," where visitors can explore themes of migration and propagation, trace the migratory path of birds from Canada to Argentina, and learn about the important role Utah plays in that journey.

"Accreditation is a major achievement, but it's not the end of the story for us," said Brown. "Over the next three years, the Aviary will get better and better. I hope Utahans will visit the Aviary, enjoy the improvements we've already made, and catch a glimpse of our exciting plans for the future."

USEE wins 9th Annual Community Builder Award

Dear Supporters of Environmental Education,

I am proud to announce that USEE has won the 9th Annual Community Builder Award from the Utah Women's Association for Community Building. This award is a reflection of our staff, members, volunteers, and others involved in Environmental Education in Utah. Please join us as we celebrate on Tuesday October 20th. More Information below.

Best Wishes,

Jason Taylor
Executive Director

---

---

The 9th annual

Community Builder Awards

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Westminster College

Jewett Center for Performing Arts

1840 South 1300 East, Salt Lake City

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS:



6:00pm

Networking/cocktail hour



7:00pm

Awards ceremony



8:00pm

Dinner



The cocktail hour and awards ceremony are FREE to the public...However PLEASE let us know that you are coming by registering at the links below.

Join us at dinner as we continue to network and mingle with this year's winners.

Prices are $30 for members; $35 for non-members.



Table sponsorships for eight guests are $300.



Member RSVP Form

Guest RSVP Form

Sponsorship Form

CLICK HERE FOR CAMPUS MAP

Wild About Utah: New Dove in the Neighborhood

During the winter after most doves have migrated, you may notice a dove foraging along the roadside or perched in a tree. A new species has arrived in our neighborhood, the Eurasian collared dove or Streptopelia decaocto, which has a distinctive black neck ring and a broad tail.

Originally found near the Bay of Bengal in Asia, this dove began its range expansion in the 1600’s. By 1900, it had made its way to Turkey, and by 2000 could be found as far north as the Arctic Circle in Scandinavia. Expansion into North America occurred in the early seventies when the collared dove appeared in the Bahamas. Since 1982, when first discovered in Florida, it has been gradually making its way north and west. 1997 marked the first official report of Eurasian collared doves in Orem, Utah. Now they have spread throughout the state.

Eurasian Collared Dove
Note black collar and broad, square tail.

Eurasian collared doves join rock pigeons, the English sparrow, and the European starling as non-native birds that have expanded across the country. Experts attribute the success of Eurasian collared doves to the wide availability of seed offered by backyard bird feeders, as well as their ability to aggressively defend feeding areas. Some fear that they will cause territory or breeding problems for our native mourning dove, but so far there is no evidence to support this concern.

In an effort to reduce the number of Eurasian collared doves, the Utah Department of Wildlife Resources allows year-round harvesting. But be careful: don't confuse this dove with the smaller mourning dove, which has a narrow, pointed tail and no ring on its neck. Eurasian collared doves have a distinct neck band and a broad, squared tail. Their calls also differ.

Native Mourning Dove

The verdict is still out on the impact that the Eurasian collared dove will have on native species. In the mean time, let’s watch to see how this new dove adapts to the neighborhood and fits into the ecosystem.

Thank-you to Lyle Bingham of Bridgerland Audubon for writing this essay. This is Linda Kervin for Bridgerland Audubon Society.

Credits:

Photos: Courtesy US Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS)
Text: Lyle Bingham, Bridgerland Audubon

Wild About Utah is a weekly nature series produced by Utah Public Radio in cooperation with Stokes Nature Center and Bridgerland Audubon Society. Archives of the program can be found at www.wildaboututah.org.

Portland!

Jason and I are currently at the Annual North American Association for Environmental Education (NAAEE) Conference! We are in the full swing of things going to many meetings, social gatherings, and, most of all, finding out what the rest of the country has to offer so we can bring it all back to Utah.

Jason is presenting on USEE's Certification Program as well as a session about the different online tools that are available and useful for small non-profits. We are both presenting our findings from last year's Utah Project for Excellence in Environmental Education at the conference and helping other states use these findings in their own programs. Yesterday we met with all of the other NAAEE affiliates to find out what we are all doing to make our communities stronger and how to incorporate those ideas in Utah.

We are having fun meeting up with old friends, making new ones, and meeting the faces that go with all of the emails. I am also learning a lot as this is my first NAAEE conference! Today I attended a workshop on Project Learning Tree's new and upcoming Green Schools program, which is very cool and exciting, and some various round table discussions, with more discussions, sessions, and exhibit fairs to go!

Upcoming Green Bag Series

Utah Project for Excellence in Environmental Education
Tuesday, October 13, 12:00pm - 1:30pm
Salt Lake City R.E.I., Wasatch Room

Come learn about the Utah Project for Excellence in Environmental Education (UPEEE), a research project funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to help bridge the gap between formal classroom teachers and non-formal Environmental Education (EE) providers. The project identified the needs of teachers pertaining to EE, and assists organizations in forming best practices to meet those needs. The specific goal of the UPEEE was to strengthen the capacity of quality and effective environmental education programs in Utah through non-formal environmental education provider and teacher partnerships. Hear the results of the project and join us for a discussion of how you can improve your EE outreach.

Questions? Email nicole@usee.org. An RSVP is required by Monday, October 12. To reserve your spot, register here! Cost is $5 for members, $15 for nonmembers, and includes a light lunch. (Cancellations must be made 24 hours in advance. Any no shows will be invoiced $5 to cover food costs.)

Our Newest USEE Member

A big WELCOME to our newest USEE member, Olivia Gisella Bravo!


Little Olive was born on October 3 at 10:18 am.
She weighed six pounds, six ounces and was 19" long!


If we're lucky, Little Olive might be making a guest appearance at
USEE's 20th Annutal Environmental Education Conference.
Don't miss out on this special event: Register Today!


Congratulations Andree' and Joe! We can't wait to meet Olive!

Welcome New USEE Interns!

We have hired 3 new interns for the Fall semester to help out with some of the many things we do here at USEE. One is from the Environmental Studies program at the University of Utah, one is from the Communications department at Westminster College, and one is from the Communications department at the University of Utah. Two of the interns have been here for a couple of weeks, and one started just this past week. It's been great having them so far and we looking forward to working more with them over the next several weeks. Instead of me going on about them, let's have them introduce themselves:

Danny Trujillo:

My name is Danny and I am the new environmental education intern here at the Utah Society for Environmental Education! I am a senior at the University of Utah and am majoring in Environmental Studies. I am very excited to be working here at USEE and to have the opportunity to learn as much as I can while I am here. The staff here are awesome and I am excited to be working with them.

Ernesto Negrete:

Hi! My name is Ernesto Negrete. I was born in Utah, but I grew up in the hot sun of Phoenixm Arizone during my early years and have been in the cold winters of Salt Lake City for the present. I am a senior at Westminster College majoring in Communications. I enjoy wriging, so while at USEE I am looking foward to learning to write newsletters and other documents to help USEE reach and teach other educators and the general public about the environment. I feel USEE is a good opportunity for me to learn about the environment and how a non-profit organization functions. With the guidance of the great staff here I am sure I will learn a lot!

Katie Maguire:

Hi everyone! My name's Katie Maguire and I am the new conference intern here at USEE. I am a 22-year-old student at the University of Utah and I will finishe my double major in Journalism and Anthropology in December. I am planning on attending law school with an emphasis in environmental law. I am also interested in the world of non-profit organizations, so interning at USEE will be a good fit for me! I recently got back from spending four months in Spain improving my Spanish, and I was able to see Rome and Portugal as well! I have far too many interests and hobbies for one person, but you can usually find me doing homework, arts & crafts, playing with my dog, Sombra, or waiting for the waiting for the Where the Wild Things Are movie to come out.

Help USEE Member Wasatch Community Garden

Please take a few minutes to provide Wasatch Community Gardens with some feedback about their programs and services through this short on-line survey. They will use this information to help meet the growing need for Utahns to have access to fresh, locally grown, organic produce. Once you are done, please forward the survey link to your family, friends and colleagues so we can hear from them too.

This survey should take less than 5 minutes to finish and is completely anonymous. Please complete it by October 23, 2009. Thank you!

Survey Link http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=xnXoZMlj3okNvgpdgMkN6w_3d_3d

Salt Lake County Jail Horticulture Program

Last month I posted an article about the Green Job Training programs that the Washington State Prison system has been running. I was very excited to hear about the program, and after posting it reader Justin quickly pointed out that we have a similar program here in Salt Lake. I hadn't heard of it before, but I have since been looking into it.

The Salt Lake County Jail Horticulture Program is directed by Maggie Shao, who is an assistant professor of horticulture for Utah State University Extension. (She is also an enthusiastic member of USEE's PLT steering committee.) The program's purpose is to use gardening as a tool "sow the seeds of change in troubled men in the jail system. They learn the economics of gardening as well as nutrition."

The inmates sell the produce that they grow in the gardens at the Salt Lake City Farmer's market every Saturday. Last year they made $20,000 in vegetable sales and donated several hundred pounds of garden produce to local homeless shelters. Channel 2 news ran a story about the program, which you can watch here. The rest of the story text is below.

For years, Check Your Health has encouraged Utahns to “eat healthy and be active”. And there is no better way to do that than through growing your own fresh fruits and vegetables. But these days, the Salt Lake County Jail is using gardening as a way to sow the seeds of change in troubled young men.

“This is a golden opportunity. I can say that for pretty much all of us out here.” Tony Walker, and inmate at the Salt Lake County Jail, is talking about the three-acre garden at the Salt Lake County Jail, where he and several other prisoners grow chemical-free tomatoes, melons, berries, pumpkins, herbs, and more. The garden is one of the education programs offered at the jail and is a collaboration among the county and the Utah State University Extension program.

Horticulture Professor Maggie Shao is their instructor. She teaches these new gardeners the economics of gardening, as well as nutrition. “Today I asked all the guys to do an oral presentation on one of the vegetables we grow here in the garden. As part of that presentation, they talk about the nutritional value, about the amounts of calcium and vitamins and antioxidants in some of the vegetables.”

Tony says learning about nutrition and tasting all the different vegetables has been an inspiration. He dreams of becoming a chef. “It's going to help me a lot. I'll know a lot more about the vegetables I'm using to cook with, I know how to grow them and that's going to save me money.”

Working in the garden has been an opportunity to learn a life skill for Torese Mosely. “When I get out and get back to Louisiana, hopefully I will be able to learn a lot and take the class back with me and hopefully able to say ‘hey kids, come on out let's grow a garden!’ And I'm really excited about that because I'll actually know what I'm talking about.”

For Sgt. Cathy Romero, watching these inmates grow and develop into responsible citizens is the greatest reward of all.

“This is a very rewarding, giving back type of program,” says Sgt. Romero. “I couldn't be more proud. I've been here over a year and a half and I was sold in my first week - seeing how this program works, why it works, what it can do, talking with these prisoners, and seeing them outside in society.”

Romero says one of the main reasons they started the program is to get away from just 'warehousing' prisoners - to give them an opportunity to learn a trade, and reintegrate into society in a positive fashion. One test of their social skills includes going to the Pioneer Park Farmer's Market on Saturdays, where their fruits and vegetables have developed a following among the locals.

“We donate a lot of this food,” says Sgt. Romero. “Last year we sold at the Farmer's Market almost $20,000 worth of produce and we donated several hundred pounds, as well, to the homeless shelters. This is giving back to the public.”

A good bargain for taxpayers, says Maggie. “There are studies that show that when you invest a dollar in an educational program you get back about $1.60 because they benefit from the program, they are less likely to come back to jail, and they become employed, which just adds to the economy because by being employed you are much more of a benefit than being in jail.”

Unstructured Play or Medication?

More and more research is showing that kids need unstructured play:

Jarrett and her team found that recess helped children keep their bodies still and minds on-task while in the classroom. "On the days the students had recess before class, the children were more focused and less fidgety," explains Jarrett. "Following a recess break, the children were more likely to be doing what they were supposed to be doing—whether it was reading or writing, looking at the teacher, or listening to another child recite."

Unfortunately recess is being eliminated or cut-back in many schools:

"Recess started to decline in the late 1980s, when so many educational mandates started coming down," explains Jarrett, who is president of the advocacy organization, the American Association for the Child's Right to Play (IPAUSA).

"It got worse with No Child Left Behind. With the pressure on testing, schools found little time left for anything like art, music, or even science that wasn't being tested. And recess was considered a waste of time."