School Yard Science and NESTT Programs

About the Program

Category: Children and Youth (Best in Category)

Year: 2012

School Yard Science and NESTT Programs Miami-Dade County, FL Population: 2,376,014 The School Yard Science and NESTT Programs (Nurturing Environmental Stewards of Today and Tomorrow) takes the concept of living classrooms to students and teachers in their schools. The program, hosted by the Deering Estate at Cutler, adapts its curriculum from the County’s Eco-Academy, a 30-week six-module science, eco-art and history curriculum for home school youth and educators. The overall goal of these programs is to foster environmental stewardship and raise public awareness among youth, parents, and educators on prevalent community environmental issues through innovative, hands-on, and multidisciplinary educational activities that are fun and engaging. The environmental programs consist of two mobile projects and stand-alone classroom projects. MarineMobile is a free-standing 150-gallon salt water aquarium stocked with a community of fish, crustaceans, mollusks, corals, urchins, and other marine creatures for student observation over a period of multiple weeks. The GeoMobile is a mobile unit full of experiments, fossils, rocks, minerals, and historical games focusing on the earth sciences with an interactive curriculum focusing on archeology, geology, social science and environmental resource conservation. These projects remain on site for an extended period of time as well, allowing students and teachers to take field trips to the Deering estate to participate in the educational programs. The School Yard Science also offers Classroom in a Box, stand alone projects from 30 different topics that can be taught right in the classroom. The School Yard Science and NESTT programs have brought a 119% increase in visitation to the Deering Estate including 804 schools. Tours have been enjoyed by 14,700 people and community-wide events drew in 16,900. The program has reach over 4,500 students.