Palm Desert Schools

Desert Sands Unified School District

The Desert Sands Unified School District (USD) is located in the Coachella Valley in eastern Riverside County, and it lies within the boundaries of six jurisdictions: Bermuda Dunes, Rancho Mirage, Indio, La Quinta, Palm Desert, and Indian Wells. Four elementary schools, one middle school, and and one high school from the district participated in the Environmental Ambassador Pilot Program (EAPP).

Desert Sands USD was selected to be an Environmental Ambassador because of its strong track record in recycling. The district's environmental services manager position has allowed for planned resource conservation programs to be established and maintained at the district level. The environmental services manager works with all of the district's school sites to encourage the establishment of recycling programs tailored for each school's needs and provides resource conservation education for the district's teachers. The district also has strong external support provided by the Desert Resources Council, made up of 25 local conservation organizations.

Desert Sands USD's education programs under the EAPP project became an integral component of a much larger Voluntary Public School Choice (VPSC) federal grant to the district. Some of the highlights of the education programs included:

• Developing a unified vision of resource conservation centered on the local desert environment for curricula, resulting in institutionalization of the programs at the six VPSC schools.
• Team planning across grade levels and subject areas, thereby allowing the teachers to create instructional units that build sequentially from kindergarten through twelfth grade.
• Developing environmental themes that unify each school site and grade-specific standards-based lessons that reflect these themes.
• Disseminating the instructional units to additional teachers each year as the program progressed.
• Fostering long-term community partnerships to provide sustainability of the field activities and student involvement.
• Linking lessons to the waste diversion and conservation practices on the campuses where possible.
• City and local partners sponsored an Environmental Art Contest for the District.

The EAPP grant enabled Desert Sands USD to meet its commitment under the Voluntary Public School Choice federal grant to develop a family of magnet schools (K-12) with a technology and environment focus.

Opportunities and Obstacles

The District provided a thorough evaluation of the program in its final report for the EAPP. This evaluation will be available to view on this website soon.

Another exciting insight into efforts at this Desert Sands USD is documentation regarding the gardens created in the program. This documentation will be available to view on this web site soon.

Diversion Successes

Desert Sands USD's diversion-related achievements during the EAPP grant period included:

• Adopting a formal district wide integrated waste management policy.
• Implementing a pilot food waste composting program in collaboration with local jurisdictions, the hauler, and a local compost facility.
• Developing a cooperative recycled-content product purchasing consortium in collaboration with local jurisdictions.
• Establishing a collaborative working relationship with the hauler to meet increased diversion needs.
• Establishing a school recycling competition and recognition program.
• Developing a district wide program for classroom paper recycling.
• Expanding the types of material diverted from the Food Service Department.

Lessons Created

The family of six schools in the VPSC/EAPP team developed an overarching K-12 learning theme: How do the natural and social systems of the Coachella Valley interact? This formed the basis for each school team to develop a theme, and then grade-level- appropriate standards-based lessons were developed. So for instance, the focus of a 5th grade lesson at Carter Elementary focus was "to view the plants within their natural environment (the dune) and observe the changes and adaptations of the plants as man intrudes." The students studied a portion of the Coachella Valley natural/social systems on and near their campus at Carter Elementary: the sand dunes.

The Palm Desert High School Staff and Curriculum Development program initially included five teachers who created an interdisciplinary unit across these subject areas: English grade 9, biology, English language development, chemistry, mathematics, and social studies. The overall focus of the unit is "Saline Lakes: Local and Global Perspectives." The service-learning experience for students was a trip to the environs of the Salton Sea, and wetlands development and salt cedar removal. Data for the students' research project was shared from monitoring of New River wetlands, New River waters, and 29 Palms tribal U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) work.

  Charlene Whitlinger
Assistant Superintendent, Business Services
(760) 771-8508

Kathleen Emmerling
Executive Assistant, Business Services
(760) 771-8509

Estella Perez
Office Specialist, Business Services
(760) 777-4200 X5104

         BACK/ HOME