N.E.S.T.T. Program
Utilizing environmental education as a catalyst to foster changes in the local school curriculum, professional development for teachers, class instruction, and even how our local schools are structured and form partnerships with local environmental educators, the Deering Estate at Cutler will launch a pilot “school within a school” that encourages environmental stewardship and methods of using sites to teach.
The Nurturing Environmental Stewards of Today and Tomorrow (NESTT) Program will be offered during the 2011-2012 school year at Perrine Elementary School and bring best practices in using sites to teach into the formal classroom setting and serve as a replicable model across the school district and the United States.
By means of a science based curriculum that includes lesson plans, activities, fossils, specimens and materials for studies in ecology, biology, marine biology, geology, archeology and environmental science, the primary goal of our educational programs has been to educate community members, particularly youth, about providing solutions to critical urban problems. The NESTT Program educates our community about preserving our biodiversity through environmental stewardship, environmental sustainability, and overall resource management. Ultimately, we hope to teach people that we can conserve the life sustaining resources of our planet.
The curriculum used in the program will be collaboratively developed between the Education and Interpretive team at the Deering Estate at Cutler and teachers and administration at the host school. Twice weekly for thirty weeks during the academic school year, students will receive onsite and inclass instruction from the Deering Estate at Cutler Education and Interpretive Staff, which includes an onsite field study and lab trip to apply many of the science, math and reading topics learned during that week’s curriculum unit. The lessons and activities correlate to Department of Education standards of Learning ant the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test objectives.
To request more information on hosting a NESTT Program at your school, please contact yburgos@miamidade.gov.