WEI EDUCATION PROGRAM: Third Quarter 2008 Update:
Organic Farming Education: This coming year we will focus on the development of a more comprehensive organic farming education program for our farm interns and students in the 2009 Organic Farm School, as well as a farmer training program for farmers interested in converting to organic farming. If you are interested in an internship in this area, please contact us.
Environmental Education: We hope to work in collaboration with Wild River State Park to complete the development of our Prairie Studies Certificate Program. Watch for spring opening. If you are interested in an internship in this area, please contact us.
EcoAware Project:
The Women's Environmental Institute EcoAware project staff serve on the steering committee for Healthy Legacy, a coalition which includes over 30 organizations advocating for safe products, made safely. Healthy Legacy was instrumental in passing the Public Health Omnibus bill in both houses of the Legislature. The bill would have phased out phthalates, a known hormone disrupting chemical from children’s products, such as rubber duckies, vinyl bibs, and teething rings. It would also have banned deca-PBDE, a toxic flame retardant, from home electronics, mattresses and textiles. Deca is a developmental neurotoxin that is chemically similar to PCBs which were banned in the 1970s. In peer reviewed science low dose exposure to deca has been linked to damage to the brain, liver and thyroid in addition to hormone disruption. Unfortunately, the bill was vetoed. Healthy Legacy is in the process of choosing policy priorities for the 2009 legislature.
The EcoAware project will continue to hold discussions in people's homes, schools, community gatherings, and workplaces to inform and engage people to make consumer choices that will protect the health of their families and to advocate for safe products, made safely. For more information, contact Emily Moore, EcoAware Project Coordinator send message through contact us.
Environmental Justice Education: We planning to offer two distant learning adult education 3-credit courses in the Fall of 2009 in our new Earth Justice Studies Program which currently includes the highly successful Organic Farm School. These courses will be offered as distant learning classes with on-site discussion and workshop days to accompany 15 weeks of educational material. If you are interested in an internship in this area, please contact us.
Scholars-Under-Fire Programming. Paul Wotzka continues his term as WEI's 2008 Scholar-Under-Fire for his work on atrazine in Minnesota waterways and land systems. Watch for special lectures and receptions forthcoming this fall and winter.
Independent Educators: WEI is open to educators who would like to use the WEI facility to offer educational programming which is consistent with our mission. Reminder: you must be a WEI member to rent space at the facility. For more information, contact us or call 651-583-0705.
WEI Publications and Reports forthcoming in 2008
-- An Environmental Justice Analysis of Phillips Neighborhood, prepared by Dr. Cecilia Martinez and research team
-- Get Personal, Get Political: Women's Environmental Health (How Everyday Products are Polluting Our Bodies and What We Can
Do to Detoxify) prepared by Janelle Sorensen, ed. Jacquelyn Zita
-- The Arsenic Triangle Update, prepared by the Arsenic Triangle Working Group
-- PFC Fact Sheet: A Citizen's Right to Know
-- Atrazine and Rural Environmental Justice