The Coastal Bend Environmental Science: Learning on the Edge (LOTE) Project is an exceptional partnership that focuses on equipping teachers with the skills, curriculum and supporting materials to strengthen science teaching as it relates to the environmental treasures that make up the Texas Coastal Bend.

The LOTE project not only provides invaluable field based science educational experiences for Coastal Bend area educators, it also enhances their ability to fulfill the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) requirements.

The Coastal Bend Community Foundation awarded the Coastal Bend Bays & Estuaries Program (CBBEP) the Foundation’s largest unrestricted grant ever to implement this area’s most unique project to date – Coastal Bend Environmental Science: Learning on the Edge (LOTE). Funding for this grant was made possible through an endowed gift from the estate of the late F. Starr Pope, Jr. of Corpus Christi, a prominent estate and probate attorney.

According to Patricia M. Eisenhauer, Coastal Bend Community Foundation Chairman, this program “.. provides an innovative and creative project to meet a critical and far-reaching educational need in our Coastal Bend communities. It will help those of us who 'live on the edge' of our bays and estuaries, and depend so much on their resources, to learn on the edge!”

The $100,000 grant from the Coastal Bend Community Foundation for the LOTE project is a highly successful initiative that seeks to bridge the gap that exists between field based science experiences and classroom science experiences. The program provides teachers an opportunity to learn about the local ecology and environmental issues by providing hands-on field experiences and curriculum addressed specifically to the local area.

The CBBEP is tasked with protecting, restoring and enhancing the bays and estuaries of the Texas Coastal Bend. Partnering with already successful educational programs of the Coastal Bend Wildlife Photo Contest – Kritters 4 Kids, Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi – Teaching Environmental Science, and the Texas State Aquarium – Keepers of the Coast, the CBBEP merged the efforts to launch the LOTE program.

DISCUSSING ADAPTATIONS

The LOTE project was first envisioned as a collaboration of already established environmental programs intertwined to provide a weeklong summer academy for elementary teachers. By combining all of these resources into one program, the Learning on the Edge (LOTE) summer academy seeks to provide teachers the tools needed to successfully teach science and promote student awareness of local ecology and environmental issues affecting the bays and estuaries.

 

 

LEARNING ABOUT PREVIOUS CULTURES
One of the program goals of the LOTE initiative is to provide elementary teachers hands-on experiences, including field trips, fieldwork, and lab activities to take back into their classrooms. To this end, the program provides field trips, led by experienced biologists and educators, to increase the participants’ knowledge base of the local ecology. These experiences and curriculum, correlated to the TEKS objectives to help teachers more readily incorporate the experience into their classroom instruction, are also supplemented by field equipment provided to each of the participating teachers.

Educators, participating in LOTE Summer Academies, exit the program obtaining added insight into the issues affecting the bays and estuaries, a sound knowledge base of the local ecology, and curriculum that translates into successful science experiences for their students.

LOTE provides all of the tools necessary for teachers to engage in successful science instruction in their classrooms: the experiences, the curriculum, the pedagogy for teaching field based science, and the equipment necessary for student field experiences.