Statement of Purpose

The Environmental Education Program seeks to encourage a strong local land ethic, sustainable communities, and stewardship of the natural environment by citizens throughout Oregon.

Funding Goals for the Environmental Education Program

The program will support four general goals:

• Strengthening and developing programs that provide outdoor experiences for youth from early childhood through grade 12.
• Creating, expanding and improving programs that connect schools with their communities and provide students with practical hands-on experience in addressing environmental issues both locally and globally.
• Programs committed to comprehensive, significant, lasting change in educational systems and fostering improved understanding of and interaction with our natural systems.
• Encouraging programs that explore and integrate boundaries between art and science, and connect creativity with the natural environment.

Grants will be made to schools, government agencies, and nonprofit 501(c)(3) organizations. Up to $800,000 will be available for grants in the 2008 calendar year. The fund will award grants in each of the six categories listed below. The amount allocated to each category may vary with each funding cycle and is up to the discretion of the fund advisors; however the intention is to fund multiple grants in each category regularly.

Six Project Categories

The Gray Family Fund Environmental Education Program invites proposals focused on:

• Early Childhood Environmental Education
• Outdoor School Programs
• Outdoor Exploration and Community Field Trips
• Service Learning Experiences and High School Expeditions
• Greening Educational Facilities
• Environmental Professional Development for Teachers and Volunteer Mentors

Discrimination Policy

OCF does not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, sexual orientation, physical circumstances or national origin. Grant applicants must hold similar standards. Grant applications from organizations known to have discriminatory policies will not be considered. 

Information on Application

For 2008, application deadlines are February 1st and August 1st. Applicants will be notified in June and December. A project Evaluation is required at the completion of the grant, or one year after the grant is made. Please apply electronically, if possible. Electronic materials are available under Programs at: www.ocf1.org. Please contact Lara Utman at The Oregon Community Foundation 503-227-6846 with further questions.

Early Childhood Environmental Education

Children ages 0 to 5 and their parents and primary caregivers should embrace opportunities to experience the natural world. 

The fund will prioritize:

• Parenting and other programs that encourage parents of young children to embrace the natural world.
• Daycare field trips to natural spaces.
• The development of natural play spaces, and directories of outdoor play spaces and natural areas.

Outdoor School Programs

Every fifth and sixth grader in Oregon should attend a residential, experiential, interdisciplinary, outdoor-oriented educational experience that engages the senses, and employs recognized best practices.

The fund will prioritize:

• Programs that give scholarships to students in need or to the programs of schools in need.
• Programs that engage college or high school students as mentors.
• Programs that incorporate pre-trip orientation and post-trip follow up sessions.
• Programs that assess both short- and long-term changes in participants’ understanding of natural systems.

Outdoor Exploration and Community Field Trips

By 8th grade, all students should visit a wastewater treatment plant, a water source, and a landfill.

The fund will prioritize:

• Organizations and schools that provide field trips to learn about community infrastructure designed to protect our communities and ecosystems.
• Creation and maintenance of community natural places within public transportation, bikeable, or walkable range from schools.
• Projects that help students, families, and their communities understand, interact with and support school and community gardens, and local farms and food systems.

Service Learning Experiences and High School Expeditions

Every high school graduate should have the opportunity to see Oregon and engage with the environment through local stewardship experiences (e.g. water quality monitoring, tracking land use decisions, mapping, science management, or observing local governments’ work to protect natural systems). Also, high school students should have the opportunity to influence their community (e.g. monitoring and participating in land use and other government decisions, involved in curriculum development at schools).  

The fund will prioritize:

• Initiatives to improve curricula about land use planning, Oregon history, and Oregon geography.
• Programs that help students understand local geography and travel the entire state.
• Youth-initiated projects that support stated goals.
• Youth involvement in stewardship projects.

Greening Educational Facilities

School and other educational facilities should serve as a workshop or learning laboratory to experience the natural world and to understand ways to better protect it.

The fund will prioritize:

• Capital projects that privilege the greening of pre-K through 12th grade school facilities.
• Development of sustainable systems in schools and educational facilities (i.e. solar power; school gardens; composting; bioswales and green machines).
• Creation of outdoor, experiential learning spaces on or near school grounds or educational facilities.

Environmental Professional Development for Teachers and Volunteer Mentors

Teachers and volunteer mentors should have access to education about sustainability in ways that strengthen their communities and encourage them to experience the natural world.

The fund will prioritize:

• Projects that introduce teachers and volunteer mentors to and further educate them about the field of sustainability.
• Training teachers and volunteer mentors so that they can effectively employ experiential, outdoor focused, place-based, and inquiry-based learning.
• Programs that encourage teachers and volunteer mentors to lead and mentor projects promoting sustainability in their schools and communities.
• Programs that strengthen civic responsibility in communities, especially around issues of environmental sustainability and restoration.

Return to main Environmental Education Program page