You might think a city that touts its green reputation at the drop of a sustainably-made hemp hat would have a high school curriculum to teach the next generation about all things environmental. Not quite.
The district's traditional high schools offer a variety of individual classes on the subject, but only one alternative school allows students to study environmental issues throughout their high school career.
But that may change. As Portland dives deeper into the redesign of its high schools, environmental education could become a stand-alone magnet program or a comprehensive part of the curriculum.
The idea coincides with Oregon's move earlier this year to establish environmental literacy standards for all K-12 students. About a third of all states have or are working to create such standards.
Most school districts in the metro area are like Portland Public Schools -- high schoolers typically have access to a class or two focused on natural sciences. In Beaverton, Gladstone and David Douglas, for example, students can study environmental systems, ecology and horticulture. But they don't yet have multi-year, focused programs.
National leaders in the environmental education movement say the purpose isn't to tell kids what to think about climate change or fuel emissions. It's to give them tools to find their own way, said Brian Day, executive director of the North American Association for Environmental Education.
"When most people think of environmental education, they think we're training tree huggers or fish kissers," Day said. "The goal of environmental literacy is help students know enough to make their own personal lifestyle decisions and make their own public policy decisions."
Way of thinking changes
Desiree Rutherford, for example, has spent two years in the natural resources vocation at Joseph Meek Professional Technical High School in Portland's Concordia neighborhood.
She makes her own clothes or buys them secondhand. It's one way she's taken what she's learned in class and applied it to her life. Over the summer, the 18-year-old senior helped adults learn how to build kayaks and distinguish edible plants from poisonous ones.
"Here, teachers allow us to be creative, to speak out and our opinions are never shot down," she said.
Only two years ago, Rutherford was more interested in skipping classes and smoking. But her experiences at Meek and her work with natural resources teacher Misty Scevola have helped her trade bad habits for extra homework and summer internships.
Many of the other kids in the program have similar stories about how the classes changed the way they thought about shopping at the mall, leaving the television on and taking long hot showers.
On a recent afternoon, the kids were engaged in a heated debate about the need for cars and trucks in a city that's a national leader in mass transit. They researched electric cars and hybrids, biodiesel fuel and gasoline.
They didn't come to a resolution or even a consensus. But Scevola and environmental education experts say such discussion is key to students understanding their impact and power on the world around them.
In Oregon, a state known for its recycling, aggressive renewable energy goals and pioneering land-use planning, a school with an environmental theme would garner widespread community and business backing, supporters say.
That factor is one of several that district officials will consider as they evaluate ideas for high school programs.
Through environmental lens
If the line to get into Sunnyside Environmental School is any signal, environmental education is hot.
Every year, more than 200 families pick the K-8 school as one of their three choices, with about 25 percent of the applicants getting spots at Sunnyside, where students learn academic standards and concepts through an environmental lens. The focus isn't on creating additional classes about the environment, but teaching math and sciences through growth cycles of flowers, bugs and even pumpkins, said Principal Sarah Taylor.
That's the same approach that national experts want to see for high school environmental education, too.
Sunnyside's popularity has prompted the district to consider creating another grade school environmental program in the district, and Taylor and her staff have developed a curriculum that can be shared.
Parent Neely Wells said the prospect of having her-fifth grade daughter build on what she's learning at Sunnyside is one reason she's excited that the district is redesigning its high schools.
"When you acknowledge an environmental high school is not just looking through a microscope, and talk about it as a way of teaching grounded in community and service, then I think you have one robust high school," she said.
Next year, Portland may get part of the way there. Benson High School received a federal grant that will allow the school -- focused on career technical education -- to work with Portland Community College to create a green focus in the school's construction program.
That, in turn, would develop a workforce for the more than 200 companies in Oregon involved in green-focused industries.
Still, the Portland discussion is just beginning about how to grow environmental education at high schools and throughout the school district. It will be several months before the district makes decisions and at least two years before new programs emerge.
Meanwhile, students like Rutherford and Meek junior Taylor West will continue debating alternative energy, visiting self-sustaining communities and unplugging appliances at home. West wants to be a mycologist (someone who studies fungus) and discover new kinds of mushrooms.
"I think I'm on a more friendly basis with the environment," West said. "Most people don't have classes like this. It's really interesting stuff once you get into it."