Volume 10, Issue 03
October 2007
bulletin
français
| Subscription information If you would like to subscribe, have any questions or if would like to contribute a news item, please contact Yann Vergriete, newsletter editor or David Gailbraith, CBCN executive director: yannvergriete@fastmail.fm dgalbraith@rbg.ca |
| EMAN programmes under threat From Tim Grant: Greetings all. Please consider taking a moment to send John Baird, the federal environment minister, a letter about this important issue. You will find below the email I just sent, and below that a Queen's U professor's plea for letters from the scientific community. As you will read in his email or by visiting the EMAN website at www.eman-rese.ca, this is one federal institution that we as Canadian educators can ill afford to lose. I thank you in advance for any help you can provide. Unfortunately, I cannot post this request to our national French and English email lists, as they are sponsored by Environment Canada. So if you can forward this to colleagues outside your home province, this will enable us to gradually elicit responses from across the country. Cheers, ---- Original Message ----- From: Tim Grant <mailto:tim@greenteacher.com> Dear Minister, It is with great sadness that I learned recently that it is your intention and that of Environment Canada to eliminate its Ecological Monitoring and Assessment Network. While others will address the scientific deficit that the loss of this program will cause the scientific community, I am writing to you as an educator, someone who is particularly concerned about the loss of the wonderful education programs that Canadian teachers and other youth educators have taken advantage of through EMAN over the past decade. As co-editor of Green Teacher magazine for the past 17 years, I have spoken to and worked with more than 5,000 Canadian educators. Over the years, at least 100 teachers and other youth educators have told me about their participation in EMAN educational projects like PlantWatch, Frog Watch and Worm Watch. Many have written in our magazine about the innovative learning strategies they have developed to make good use of these and other EMAN programs. For example, our most referred-to article in 2006, was entitled "Learning with Lichens" and subtitled "Using Epiphytic Lichens as Bio-indicators of Air Pollution". It offered a brilliant educational strategy to engage Canadian teenagers. Many US readers asked "why doesn't our federal government develop great programs like this?". The educational programs that EMAN has nurtured over the years, have impacted tens of thousands of Canadian youth, and enabled them to see the importance of science in both their lives and in Canadian society more generally. It is my understanding that the coordination of these educational programs required relatively small federal expenditures. So my question to you is: why kill such an important program? I ask you to expand the resources dedicated to EMAN programs, rather than eliminating them, and thank you in advance for your consideration of this request, Sincerely yours, Tim Grant, Co-editor, tim@greenteacher.com Ecological Monitoring and Assessment Network (EMAN) partners
and friends: It appears to me that Minister Baird may be unaware of the number, nature and breadth of mutually beneficial projects the EMAN Coordinating Office accomplishes in collaboration with other agencies, organizations and individuals across Canada as well as internationally. He needs to hear from the EMAN network that cutting monitoring capacity in Canada is not in the government's or public interest. I am asking all of you who can do so to send a civil message as soon as you can to Minister Baird with your opinion on these cuts. If possible, outline what EMAN CO has accomplished with its small staff and declining budgets from your point of view, and what you perceive Environment Canada (EC) gains from your collaboration through the network e.g. "we obtain timely information on ecological changes in our watershed while contributing valid and comparable data to EC on Canadian ecosystems". The Minister should understand what the government and Canadian public obtain through EMAN as well as what EMAN means to Canadians. I attach some areas of EMAN CO leadership below. Messages from the broadest possible spectrum would be helpful. If possible, get your family, Scout Troop, class, boss, workplace, non-governmental organization etc. to send in something in addition to your own contribution. Send e-mail, send pictures, send letters and please copy your MP, Environment Canada ADM Cynthia Wright, the EMAN Coordinating Office and me. Contact information is below. The EMAN Coordinating Office needs our help and without it, will soon cease to exist. Dr. Graham Whitelaw Contacts: Honourable John Baird Cynthia Wright, Associate ADM EMAN Coordinating Office Some background text on EMAN EMAN CO Collaborative Activities
|
