Common Ground | Where We Come From

WHERE WE COME FROM

In the late 1980’s a group of educators, parents, and environmentalists began to meet to design a new organization to provide environmental education in New Haven, Connecticut. The founders envisioned programs that would use local parks to teach key ecological concepts and to connect youth to natural resources in their own communities. The founders believed in the power of place-based education and in the importance of food as a central environmental and social issue. The group incorporated as The New Haven Ecology Project in 1990. The long-term goal was to promote healthy lifestyles and model environmental practices at a working demonstration farm, school, and environmental center in New Haven.

In 1994, a full-time staff of one ran pilot programs in teacher training, service learning at several middle schools, and ecology summer camp at the West Rock Nature Center. The Ecology Project negotiated with the New Haven Department of Parks, Recreation, and Trees to lease 20 acres of abandoned park land at 358 Springside Avenue, at the base of West Rock Ridge State Park. With national interest in charter schools growing, Connecticut passed enabling legislation and approved the first ten charters in 1997, requiring the schools to open by September. The Ecology Project’s proposal for Common Ground High School was approved in this cycle, and the school opened in late August. In its first ten years, Common Ground High School has grown into a rigorous high school, as well as a model of place-based environmental learning.

As the high school program grew, so did community environmental programs -- building the current symbiotic relationships among an innovative college-preparatory public high school, a demonstration farm, and a non-profit environmental education center. To emphasize the environmental education and advocacy focus of the organization, the board is now planning the next phase of development of the organization as the region’s center for environmental learning and leadership.


	Where we come from WHERE WE COME FROM In the late 1980’s a group of educators, parents, and environmentalists began to meet to design a new organization to provide environmental education in New Haven, Connecticut. The founders envisioned programs that would use local parks to teach key ecological concepts and to connect youth to natural resources in their own communities. The founders believed in the power of place-based education and in the importance of food as a central environmental and social issue. The group incorporated as The New Haven Ecology Project in 1990. The long-term goal was to promote healthy lifestyles and model environmental practices at a working demonstration farm, school, and environmental center in New Haven. In 1994, a full-time staff of one ran pilot programs in teacher training, service learning at several middle schools, and ecology summer camp at the West Rock Nature Center. The Ecology Project negotiated with the New Haven Department of Parks, Recreation, and Trees to lease 20 acres of abandoned park land at 358 Springside Avenue, at the base of West Rock Ridge State Park. With national interest in charter schools growing, Connecticut passed enabling legislation and approved the first ten charters in 1997, requiring the schools to open by September. The Ecology Project’s proposal for Common Ground High School was approved in this cycle, and the school opened in late August. In its first ten years, Common Ground High School has grown into a rigorous high school, as well as a model of place-based environmental learning. As the high school program grew, so did community environmental programs -- building the current symbiotic relationships among an innovative college-preparatory public high school, a demonstration farm, and a non-profit environmental education center. To emphasize the environmental education and advocacy focus of the organization, the board is now planning the next phase of development of the organization as the region’s center for environmental learning and leadership.