GreenGuardian.com

This northern Dakota County ECFE program developed an environmental issues curriculum for its family education classes. Information on toxicity reduction, recycling, and reuse was incorporated into eight hours of ECFE lessons during the year. 280 parents and 350 children received information that encouraged them to develop action steps to reduce waste. Sixty of these families are Spanish speaking (the lessons were shared in Spanish with these families). Activities such as keeping track of what is being thrown away in a typical week took place between lessons. The program reports that the grant has had a significant impact on the ECFE program, and that due to parent interest, lessons related to toxicity reduction, reuse, and recycling have been incorporated into the regular on-going curriculum. The curriculum has been posted to the Minnesota Association for Family and Early Education website.