The Learning Room
The Learning Room will be a center of environment science learning and civic action that reaches urban children, teens, families, educators. Using honed hands-on science exhibits we’ll engage youth and adults in environment challenges and tasks to make a difference, creating science literate people taking action for the planet.
About You
Section 1: You
First Name
Dr. Ricky S
Last Name
Stern
Website URL
Organization
“e” inc.
Country
United States, MA
Section 2: Your Organization
Organization Name
“e” inc.
Organization Website
Organization Phone
617-227-1522
Organization Address
337 Summer Street Boston, MA 02210
Is your organization a
Non‐profit/NGO/citizen sector organization
Organization Country
United States, MA
Your idea
Name Your Project
The Learning Room
Country and state your work focuses on
United States, MA
Describe Your Idea
The Learning Room will be a center of environment science learning and civic action that reaches urban children, teens, families, educators. Using honed hands-on science exhibits we’ll engage youth and adults in environment challenges and tasks to make a difference, creating science literate people taking action for the planet.
Website URL
Innovation
What makes your idea unique?
“e” inc. seeks to solve the huge need for citizen involvement in the environment challenges and sacrifices of our time by launching a storefront science center to engage a broad swath of Greater Boston children and adults in environment science and action. Regardless of size, science centers have proven to be amazing draws across communities. By using informal methods, they engage children and adults in the sciences and so, are able to both inspire and inform. “e” inc. will harness this familiar format for an imperative social good. There is a singular need for dynamic public education on the state of the planet yet, to date, we have found no local places devoted to teaching both the science that underpins environment issues and the civics needed to effect immediate and long-range change. The Learning Room (TLR) will place equal emphasis on science and on the social imperatives of civic engagement and personal responsibility, teaching all visitors how to make an immediate difference in the issues they are exploring. This approach is the natural extension of our current work bringing hands-on science and action activities to low-income children and youth in sites throughout urban communities -- with 800 youth seen this year. TLR is unique in its intention: using a science center framework to teach and inspire the lay public, its underlying premise: introducing the environment as an ethics dilemma, and its proposed outcome: creating a populace with a deep appreciation of the issues at stake and the answers that are possible.
Do you have a patent for this idea?
Impact
This Entry is about (Issues)
What impact have you had?
For the past six years, ‘e” inc. has been deeply involved in bringing science and community action to low-income children and teens. We have carefully honed both singular teaching techniques and wonderful models for green teen teams, after school systems, workshops on climate change, and summer explorations. All our work is created with the twofold aim of engaging young people (and their caregivers) in the excitement of the sciences and the importance of conserving the planet – both its resources and beings. To date we have been responsible for thousands of young people learning in-depth science and taking on actions that make a difference in their neighborhoods. This year alone, small teams will be lowering carbon, engaging adults in their communities about the rainforest, petitioning other countries to protect animal habitats, building gardens, educating fellow students, etc. All projects are year-long, are the result of science understanding, and are created by the children or teens themselves. In the sciences, our children achieve a 40% rise in pre- to post-test scores on the topic they have explored. Our programs have been awarded the “Promising Practice” Award by the International NGO Academy of Educational Development.
Problem
I believe that, in general, the American public is detached from the serious problems and challenges facing the planet – to the detriment both of ourselves as a species, and all other living things as well. In addition, we see that science is seen as too difficult to absorb, even though it holds the understanding to the problems and solutions facing the planet. It is this ‘out-of-touch‘average person—whether child or adult-- that we seek to engage and involve in change making.
Actions
As I write, our staff is creating science and action exhibits by hand, with the intent of opening the room to public review and involvement by end-May. To shore this up, we are inviting different audiences to visit and discuss with us, we are sending press to local media and, in general, creating an audience for TLR while we hone our skills at teaching and engaging the public in this new way. Our obstacles include lack of funds, not enough ability to build this audience, overcoming the barriers to learning about and being responsible for the planet.
Results
We expect that, in a year’s time, we will have caught the attention of a wide variety of adults and children via our great style of teaching, the excitement we will generate for folks getting involved and the positive outcomes that will be felt in our communities. These will be in the form of projects, discussions, teachings, etc. that have visitors engaging with their neighbors and with local educators on the imperative of learning and doing in this arena.
What will it take for your project to be successful over the next three years? Please address each year separately, if possible.
YEAR 1: We will needs to find funds to keep the room open. We will need to capture the interest of principals, science educators, and parents. We will need to expand our board to help us channel funds to this program. We will need to work extremely hard to gain the trust of low-income families in this new area and find ways to continue to support their involvement and get them to visit this new community.
YEAR 2: We will continue to seek longer term funding and to upgrade some of the exhibits. We will need to add staff and pay them adequately to manage the numbers of families (weekends) and school groups (weekdays) attending. Most importantly, we will work to initiate teen programs from this new central base and export new ideas to their communities through their efforts.
YEAR 3: Ongoing work for funding and finding a long-term home for TLR which is now at a wharf space that is slated for urban renewal in two years. Strengthen programs at TLR, create some new exhibit areas, start a speakers bureau for adults.
What would prevent your project from being a success?
issue will be whether we will run out of adequate funds before we build a critical mass of support, being unsuccessful in gaining a steady school audience, being unsuccessful in implementing action projects for all visiting classes, being unsuccessful in achieving a perspective change within the city about how to alter the outcomes for our communities vis a vis the state and needs of the environment. These would include shifts in habits, purchasing, transit usage, green space commitments, etc.
How many people will your project serve annually?
101‐1000
What is the average monthly household income in your target community, in US Dollars?
$1000 - 4000
Does your project seek to have an impact on public policy?
Yes
Sustainability
What stage is your project in?
Operating for less than a year
In what country?
United States
Is your initiative connected to an established organization?
Yes
If yes, provide organization name.
How long has this organization been operating?
Less than a year
Does your organization have a Board of Directors or an Advisory Board?
Yes
Does your organization have any non-monetary partnerships with NGOs?
Yes
Does your organization have any non-monetary partnerships with businesses?
No
Does your organization have any non-monetary partnerships with government?
No
Please tell us more about how these partnerships are critical to the success of your innovation.
“e” inc. has always been proud of its partnerships with inner city centers that serve children teens, and families. Through this network of programs we have been successful in creating a sense of environment ‘consciousness’ in communities where adults often believe that the state of the planet is not a pertinent issue/concern. Our capacity to surmount this hurdle is a credit to the sheer commitment of the young people who work at “e” inc. and who are devoted to the children and youth they serve.
What are the three most important actions needed to grow your initiative or organization?
I believe that The Learning Room can succeed if (1) we gain the support and attention of important supporters in our city, (2) we succeed in engaging the nearest school systems, beginning with the Boston Public Schools and then reaching ‘across the river’ to Somerville and Cambridge, (3) we create compelling exhibits that get better and better over time and that excite people about specific ideas and finally (know you want there but there are four), (4) we create a serious action process so that all visitors leave with tasks to do and we have all sorts of return systems that help folks build success in their communities or for their ideas.
The Story
What was the defining moment that led you to this innovation?
During the last three years of my doctoral work on inter-group hatred at Harvard I ended up working with several primatologists. At the beginning of this academic adventure, my time was spent simply trying to understand and master evolutionary biology and the theories that seemed so interesting to my own research. Over time, however, as I began to understand more about our primate ancestors, and more about the workings of the animal kingdom and the interrelatedness of beings and their ecosystems, I began to shift my entire set of thinking. The lens through which I made sense of the world underwent a fundamental change. This new understanding was so galvanizing, so fascinating, so filled with wonder, that I was amazed at my own prior ‘ignorance’ of it. How had I missed the excitement that was science?
At the same time, I slowly began to understand that much of what I was learning about i.e., the planet’s systems and beings was totally at risk. What one saw on television regarding wilds and their inhabitants were almost disingenuous. These places and animals were at risk throughout the planet. Hardest of all to believe was that the culprit was us -- humanity. This too was mystifying. How could so many well-intentioned people in our country – decent educated people just making their living and raising their children – not see the tragedy that was coming through human overpopulation and concomitant overuse of resources.
Finally, the nail in the coffin, as it were, was the understanding I was gaining that all the researchers I was getting to know and study with, all of them were now becoming, not the dispassionate/detached researchers of their many years of training, but, rather, wildlife and wild lands conservationists, No longer were their animals the subjects and the focus of a study. Instead, these animals were simply disappearing and the only ones who were in their world and could therefore make an accounting and a difference were these same researchers. Their lives were being turned upside down.
For me, I struggled with this knowledge. How could I play a part? Eventually, I came to see that my next task/role was to teach as many people as I could about what was going on, and what they needed to do to change this ‘severe decree.’ No small job indeed.
Tell us about the social innovator behind this idea.
I have a confession to make. This “e” inc. is not my first non-profit. I have already started one that is now 27 years old and still bringing positive outcomes to many. So taking the lead on a problem and trying to use what knowledge and skills I have is not entirely new. I believe that this ‘streak’ in me is the result of coming from a family of Jewish Holocaust survivors. Perhaps it is the sense that those with little should be protected. Perhaps it is the desire to push back at a world that can steamroller over things, information, people that are historically inconvenient. Of course, who really knows what the concerns are that motivate us, in the end. For myself, I can just make guesses that seem plausible and see how they fit and feel.
Nonetheless, what I certainly do understand is that individuals can take a stand, can work to have their lives be not only a pass through but an opportunity to make a point, make a shift, make a difference. For this reason, over the past years, I and my colleagues here at “e” inc. have worked hard and long to make a shift in the perspectives and understanding, and most of all, the actions of those we teach. Not a bad day’s work.
How did you first hear about Changemakers?
Through another organization or company
If through another, please provide the name of the organization or company
Boston Worldwide Partnerships
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Comments
The website for "e" has wonderful information on our work.
That can be found at: www.e-action.us
http://bit.ly/98Eu1q
Follow the link above to view photographs from "e" inc.'s Planet Protectors programs, ceremonies, summer Urban Wilds adventures, Teen Green Team and more! With so many smiling faces how could you not support this "e" inc.'s interactive science and service programs.
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