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Gary Swick has become something of a legend--not only at the Illinois high school where he teaches science, but also among environmental educators nationwide. A winner of the prestigious Milken Educator Award, Swick regularly gets his students into the field, where they actually help protect the environment while they learn science. In one case, his students' careful observation of conditions at a nearby river prompted a City Council to adopt a construction site erosion control ordinance.

In our interview, Swick listed many benefits of environmental education. Among them: Students become better stewards of the world they inhabit; Reluctant or struggling students become much more engaged in science when they can do authentic work in the field.

Perhaps most important, Swick has turned his high school students into evangelists for the environment. They put on "energy fairs" to carry their message of energy conservation and green living to elementary school children and others across their state. He and his students travel to these fairs in a school bus (they call it a "cool bus") they have reengineered to run on biofuels--which can include grease and other waste from the school kitchen.

How cool is that?

Hear a recording of highlights from the interview (5 minutes):

Or check out the transcript below:

PUBLIC SCHOOL INSIGHTS: How would you describe the overall need for environmental education right now?

SWICK: I would say that it's paramount. Things in the world are spiraling down out of control, and I think the root of that is our disconnection with the natural environment: not knowing where our food comes from, thinking things go away when we discard them; realizing that there are lots and lots of ripples of every action that we take...

PUBLIC SCHOOL INSIGHTS: Could you describe some of the projects you've undertaken with your students in environmental education-projects that have really motivated them?

SWICK: Getting them outside excites them. For a lot of these students, as soon as they sit down in the chair, they close the door-the shutters come down. But if you get them outside and you start seducing them with some distractions and some things that are different, maybe make them a little bit uncomfortable, have them start wondering about things and, all of a sudden, the shutters come up and the doors open up and they start sucking stuff in. And then the trick is to direct what gets absorbed.

So we do a lot of data collecting outside-in the river, in the forest. We look at bloom times and how plant communities change over time. In the river, we take trend data-physical, chemical and biological data-and then we compare that over years and try and figure out how things are changing, why they're changing.

PUBLIC SCHOOL INSIGHTS: Has work you've done with your students actually been able to contribute to positive environmental impacts in your communities?

SWICK: Absolutely. And some of it is just watchdogging-being in a stream and finding out that all of a sudden the bottom is covered in sediment, and it never was that way before. Then going to a city council meeting and presenting that information. And in one case, it resulted in the development of a construction site erosion control ordinance.

PUBLIC SCHOOL INSIGHTS: Have you ever faced challenges in finding the time to do this kind of field work and really engaging work in the environment? Or does it really reinforce the science standards?

SWICK: I think it drives them. I think it nails it home. There was one particular diversity study that we did out in the field. We decided that we would just start the project, while we had them out in the field collecting data-and skip the vocabulary, and skip the application of the vocabulary and see what happens if we put them right there into the application. And they got it. They were exposed to the words, they were forced to figure out what those words were, and then they were actually using them.

PUBLIC SCHOOL INSIGHTS: Tell me about the "cool bus."

SWICK: We had this energy fair that we had been doing on a limited basis, where we had elementary schools come to our school and then we put on this show about energy. And we thought, what if we could take our show on the road? We'd need a vehicle to do that. And wouldn't it be cool if we made our own fuel, and we could get chemistry students involved with that? And we could take waste from the school and use it as a resource. The school district came through and provided a bus for us, so now we have a bus that has lettering on one side that explains the project, and then on the other side is a student-painted mural.

PUBLIC SCHOOL INSIGHTS: So you and your students have created a school bus that runs on biofuels, which you can use now to take the message of environmental science out on the road to all kinds of different fairs.

SWICK: You're a great spokesman for us! We are really busy with our energy fair now. We're kind of like firemen. We get a call from a school-"I want some energy show"-and we load up and go. And we're just getting into weather now where we'll be able to run on all fuel that we've made ourselves.

PUBLIC SCHOOL INSIGHTS: Is there a way in which environmental education, in your experience, has been spread across the curriculum?

SWICK: There are so many opportunities to do integrated things. The river has been one of my big things for a long time. And there have been some great cross-curricular projects out there. Our own Illinois Rivers Project brought together, just at a minimum, science, social studies, and English. And it's easy to weave in math, it's easy to weave in chemistry. We did big teacher training in our district for first-year teachers. We took 120 of them canoeing and showed them all different ways that they could use the river as a resource at any grade level and any subject matter.

PUBLIC SCHOOL INSIGHTS: If you had a one-sentence message you'd want to send to the public education community, what do you think that would be?

SWICK: Take a chance and go outside.