OSSP History

 

  • Winter 2007 meeting date: February 28, 2007 at Brookhaven National Laboratory
  • Spring Student Symposium: date to be announced
  • December 19, 2006: Fall meeting with OSSP teachers. Sharing of progress in each district and discussion of funding issues, equipment needs, and transportation issues.
  • November 16, 2006: Distributed about $13,000 worth of basic equipment to teachers in the OSSP. This included GPS units, soil and water test kits, sampling nets, field books, waders, and monitoring equipment.
  • Fall 2006: Developed a Memorandum of Agreement with the Long Island Science Center in Riverhead to enable us to use funds to order equipment for teachers in the OSSP.
  • July 24-28, 2006: Open Space Stewardship Program Teacher Workshop
    Thirty teachers from 11 different school districts participated in a five-day teacher workshop. The workshop provided a hands-on opportunity for teachers to learn the protocols and to gain experience with the equipment they would use with their students in the 2006-07 school year. Topics included GPS lessons, water and soil chemistry testing, and ecological sampling techniques. Teachers also met with land stewards and finalized plans for how they will use the OSSP in their districts.
  • June 27, 2006: Third meeting with OSSP teachers and land stewards.
    This meeting was designed to discuss matching school districts with properties, to discuss the results of the protocol subcommittee meeting, and to finalize the plans for the teacher workshop in July.
  • March 31, 2006: Follow-up meeting with teachers, school administrators, school officials, state, county, and local officials, land stewards, and environmentalists.
    At this meeting, participating school districts shared and discussed their initial plans for working with open space in their communities. School districts also met with land stewards to discuss using specific properties within the district. Also discussed was the up-coming summer teacher workshop.
  • January 27, 2006: Initial meeting with teachers, school administrators, state, county, and local officials, and land stewards. Keynote address by New York State Assemblyman Steve Englebright.

 

For more information about the Open Space Stewardship Program, please contact Mel Morris.