Earth B.E.A.T.

Basic Environmental Awareness Training

During the 2007-2008 school year, KRB coordinated Earth B.E.A.T. events at 18 elementary and middle schools, engaging over 6000 kids in fun, informative environmental education activities.

  "Thank you HSBC Bank and Provident Bank for supporting Earth B.E.A.T.!"

Dear Teachers, School Principals and PTA Volunteers,

Earth B.E.A.T. is a day dedicated to fun, interactive, environmental education. This program is designed for elementary and middle school students. Students rotate through “eco-stations” where they explore a range of topics, such as the effects of litter and pollutants on our watershed, the intimate connections in the web of life, and the benefits of reducing, reusing, and recycling.  Many of the activities provide examples of the native species and habitats of Rockland County.

Each Earth B.E.A.T. is uniquely tailored to the wishes of each school.  The program can involve the whole school or just one or two grades.  It can run a half or a full day.  The day often includes a morning Kick Off and/or afternoon Wrap Up that can be used to launch a school-wide initiative, such as recycling in the cafeteria, and to encourage participation in the county-wide fall and spring cleanup campaigns.

This is how it usually works:

Keep Rockland Beautiful's environmental educators design Earth B.E.A.T. programs to meet your needs and budget. Typically, programs consist of the following:

• We meet with you and your colleagues to choose 6-10 fun environmental activities to set up as stations in the school gym and/or playground area. Groups of 8-12 students will rotate through the activities throughout the day.
• We train teachers, parent volunteers and/or students to act as activity leaders during Earth B.E.A.T.
• We loan you a colorful event banner to display prominently during the week before your event, helping to create excitement and anticipation.
• For the big day, we provide all necessary equipment and on-site coordination and supervision, as you bring groups through our learning stations.
• We also provide follow-up classroom activity instructions, posters and other support materials as needed.
• Of course, we are happy to coordinate smaller events and classroom visits, free of charge. For example, you may want to have a watershed presentation for a single class, a nature walk or neighborhood cleanup.

Environmental activities we typically include in Earth B.E.A.T. events:

Getting to know local ecology:

• Pyramid of life
• Local wildlife bingo
• Survival tag
• What animal am I?

Protecting our natural resources

• Enviroscape tabletop watershed model
• Carrying capacity
• Bugged about water quality

Reduce, reuse, recycle

• Environmental jeopardy
• Garbage relay with litter grabbers
• The Litter Wizard

Schoolyard and neighborhood cleanups, storm drain study and marking, recycling contests, trash can painting, slideshows on Rockland County environmental issues are other activities we routinely provide to schools.

We encourage you to take advantage of this fun and educational program to ensure that your students have a memorable "Earth Day" experience any time of year. To partially defray the cost of producing these programs we ask for a donation of $350 per event, with appreciation for your support of Keep Rockland Beautiful's efforts to promote hands-on environmental education in Rockland County.

For more information, please contact Sonia Cairo at Keep Rockland Beautiful, 845-708-9159 or Email: krbpc@aol.com

Photos of Earth B.E.A.T. activities by Shelly Oberman Ross.

Wildlife Bingo...

Earth B.E.A.T. banners hung at school entryways create a festive atmosphere for school-wide events.