Deb Perryman, one of the guiding lights of Edens Lost & Found, has been named one of the 2006 Ten Outstanding Young Americans by the United States Junior Chamber (Jaycees). The Ten Outstanding Young Americans program (TOYA) is one of the oldest and most prestigious recognition programs in America. Annually since 1938, The United States Jaycees has sought out the ten young men and women who best exemplify the finest attributes of America’s youthful achievers. Each nominee’s accomplishments and contributions are judged in relation to the Jaycee Creed: “… that service to humanity is the best work of life.”

Deb is featured in the Chicago segment of Edens Lost & Found and has been instrumental in creating a curriculum that incorporates the Edens book and multi-part series produced for PBS.

Courtesy of JW Sears Photography

A Michigan native and a Chicago area environmental educator and, Deb has taught biology, chemistry, and environmental science at Elgin High School for the past 10 years. Seeing that the campus included an oak woodland, flood plain, creek, and fen, she transformed the school’s Great Outdoors class into a more academic-based program.

Deb created a habitat restoration plan for the 30 acres of campus open space and rewrote the curriculum to provide hands-on, multi-sensory labs that would utilize the natural area; a project that exemplifies "service-based learning". Since 1996, more than 21,000 younger learners have taken a field trip to Elgin High School's Nature Trail and Outdoor Classroom, and Deb has trained her students act as the teachers. She believes that service based learning provides leadership experience and the confidence to get involved in local, state, and national areas of concern.

She was one of three in Illinois to win the national Izaak Walton Good Neighbor Award in 2002. She was named Illinois Conservation Educator of the year in 2003 by the Illinois Association of Soil and Water Districts, and the same year was in the top five national finalists for National Conservation Educator of the Year. In 2004 she was chosen Illinois State Teacher of the Year and was presented with an Elgin Image Award. In 2005 the River Network named her one of five National River Heroes.

In addition to her teaching, Perryman has volunteered for various habitat restoration projects, served on the Board of Directors for a Chicago Wilderness Education Program, founded and co-chairs the Poplar Creek Watershed Planning Committee, and has collected data, written reports, lobbied the legislature, fundraised, and served on the public education and outreach committees of several local environmental efforts.

Welcome, new Outreach Partners!

WGBY, public television for western New England, is proud to announce their partnership with Eden's Lost and Found. Stemming from an award by the National Center for Outreach, WGBY plans to work with a local urban school to revitalize a dormant greenhouse. This project hopes to inspire students to take an interest in ecology as well as inspire children to learn about agriculture and healthy lifestyles. WGBY prides itself on its abilities to work with the community and provide various kinds of educational experiences for all lifelong learners -- two areas of activity heartily encouraged by Edens Lost & Found.

Keep Texas Beautiful, a statewide grassroots organization and affiliate of Keep America Beautiful, strives to educate and engage Texans to take responsibility for improving their community environment. KTB and its network of more than 360 affiliates mobilize volunteers to clean and beautify Texas through programs that focus on litter prevention, beautification, and waste reduction. KTB programs include the Great American Cleanup, Don¹t Mess with Texas Trash-Off, Lake and River Cleanup Program, and Texas Recycles Day. For more information about Keep Texas Beautiful, call 1-800-CLEAN-TX.

NAAEE screens LA: Dream a Different City,
discusses sustainability/environmental curriculum

The North American Association for Environmental Education held its annual conference in St. Paul in October, and Edens Lost & Found was there to promote practices that build sustainable societies. Edens director Harry Wiland and Deb Perryman, former Illinois Teacher of the Year who is featured in Edens Chicago segment, presented a screening of the LA segment and talked about the importance of environmental education to the future of our cities.

Building on last year's theme, the NAAEE conference focused on exploring how sustainable education fosters learning that is essential to transforming our thinking, decision-making, and daily living. Edens Lost & Found is an enthusiastic participant with educators who seek to explore the social and natural sciences that form the core of the sustainability movement.

Edens Lost and Found promotes a multi-disciplinary approach to sustainability that includes an environmental studies curriculum based on the four-part PBS documentary series and companion book. The curriculum is being created in partnership with the Illinois Sustainable Education Project (ISTEP), an education program of the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity (IDCEO).

The Edens Lost and Found curriculum will use the topics explored in the documentary to present lesson plans in accordance with national academic standards for science and social studies, as well as cross-curricular tie-ins with other subjects including math and language arts.

“This curriculum will not only be about environmental studies,” explains IDCEO Director Jack Lavin, “it will foster critical thinking abilities, build multi-disciplinary problem solving skills and develop the students’ capacity for decision-making as both individuals and as part of a larger community. We feel it’s a unique opportunity to motivate students and teachers with such a highly visible and prestigious television production.”

Edens' curriculum guide is in its final stages of preparation and testing. Release is anticipated later on in the year through the Media and Policy Center Foundation website and other distributors.

Edens joins partners to present
national "green" symposium on sustainability

The Pennsylvania Horticultural Society and the University of Pennsylvania co-sponsored with Edens Lost & Found, a national symposium on urban environmental issues. Entitled "Growing Greener Cities," the symposium promoted the role community-based participation plays in the social, economic, and environmental revitalization of our cities.

In panels, plenary, and concurrent sessions, experts from Edens' four featured cities (Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and Seattle) addressed green infrastructure, networking across geopolitical boundaries to achieve shared goals, holistic approaches to environmental health and social equity, energy conservation through green design, brownfield redevelopment, stormwater management, economic benefits of sustainable practices, municipal planning for access to open space and natural amenities, and social networking to advocate for sustainable communities.

A screening of Philadelphia: The Holy Experiment was featured during the three-day symposium. The documentary is part of a multi-segment series created by Wiland-Bell Productions and presented nationally by PBS. The four segments are available on DVD, and many of the individual stories are featured in a companion book published by Chelsea-Green.

Get involved with Edens Lost & Found!

Books and DVD's are available online through the
Media and Policy Center Foundation.

Download our free teacher and community action guides

Register to become an Outreach Partner.

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