North Florida EEKO Kids

Funded through a grant from the National Center for Outreach, WFSU-TV partnered with Oak Ridge Elementary School, a local 21st Century Community Learning Center, and various state and federal wildlife agencies to offer 4th grade After School students a unique opportunity to engage in hands-on environmental learning activities.

Led by an Oak Ridge Elementary teacher and supported by a diverse group of community experts, students learned to appreciate and understand their own habitat and learned how their actions affect the environment in which they live. The project offered the students a chance to go beyond the virtual world of learning to a place where they could actually find, touch, feel, taste and smell the natural world around them.

Throughout the 2005-2006 academic year, the 4th grade students joined together twice a week during the After School Program to engage in Eeko activities. The PBS Kids Go! website EekoWorld provided the students with critical understanding of how creatures of all types impact their environment by creating an interactive experience that invited them to explore, experiment, and collaborate as they learned about conservation. PBS programs, community partners and field trips were used throughout the program to help foster a further understanding about the environment.

The purpose of this website is to offer lesson and activity ideas to other teachers or parents who are desiring to teach their students about the environment. We have outlined all of the lessons that were used, who the community partners were, what field trips were taken, books that were read, videos watched and more. Please feel free to take ideas and use them as is or cater them to fit your audience.