Release_1973-1974_1974-295.pdf

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Part of News Release (February 15, 1974) The National Science Foundation's Division of Pre-College Education in Science awards grant to TESC

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NEWS

The Evergreen State College
Olympia,Washington

98505

for immediate release
February 15, 1974

The National Science Foundation's Division of Pre-College Education in Science

has awarded a $120,433 grant to The Evergreen State College for continuation of Essentia,
a project designed to provide new instruetional approaches in the natural and social
sciences.
The Essentia project, originally entitled Environmental Studies for Urban Youth,
began five years ago in Boulder, Colorado under sponsorship of the American Geological
Institute.

The project, including its director, Robert Samples, and four other staff

members, moved to Evergreen last summer.
Created and conceived by classroom teachers, the project began in 1968 and has
since been tested and utilized in classrooms from kindergarten through high school.

The

geographical focus of Essentia during the 1973-74 school year is on the Puget Sound,
Los Angeles Basin and San Francisco Bay areas.
Three different sections of the country will be selected later_for continued
implementation of the project during

1974-75 •. Study materials developed by Essentia

staff will be introduced to elementary and secondary students in cooperation with
educational leaders and teachers in the selected areas.
More than one million students have used the materials since the project began.
The program also has been adapted for use in several foreign countries, including Australia,
England, Germany, Spain~ and Japan.

Essentia staff members are also working with Over-

s~as Dependent Schools throughout the entire Pacific Theater.
Essentia basically is a project aimed at enhancing student access to academic
content in the natural and so~ia1 sciences through creative and intuitive, as well as
intellectual and logical, processes.
Dick

Nichols. Director

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