RIT Environmental Education

Educating students, teachers, and the community about the importance of protecting the environment and our waterways through real-life experiences.

Environmental Education at RIT allows students in K-12 to visit the Erie Canal on the Sam Patch, Irondequoit Creek, the Genesee River, and other waterways to learn about the importance of protecting our environment. We offer volunteer opportunities in communications, community outreach, and fundraising. We also offer companies the chance to serve as program sponsors.

Our programs are successful because of the support we receive from our community partners and people who know the value of our work. Contact us for more information.

Environmental Educational Programs

Water Quality 101

Water quality for a particular waterway is the current condition of the water in that ecosystem.

woman holding up two plastic coffee cup lids

Plastic Pollution 101

Water pollution affects us all. Although there are no easy solutions, our hope for the future is a generation of informed and concerned citizens working together to alleviate the problem.

black female STEM professor

Bilingual STEM Programs

This list of resources helps support bilingual STEM education with hands-on programming to meet the needs of the 16% of local school-age populations (ages 5-17) that speak Spanish in the home.

History

The Wayne Harris Delta Environmental Education Endowment continues the legacy of Delta Environmental and its founder Wayne Harris. This nonprofit was originally created as Delta Laboratories in 1971 by Wayne Harris, who believed that results and evidence were the best way to show people why they needed to advocate for a cleaner environment.

Board of Trustees of Delta Environmental

Members of the Board of Trustees of Delta Environmental

 

About Kaeti Stoss

Kaeti Stoss

Kaeti Stoss is the Environmental Education Specialist at RIT. Her focus is on plastic pollution, citizen science, and bilingual education. With her hands-on curriculum built to connect students from rural, suburban, and urban backgrounds to their natural environment, Ms. Stoss uses experiential learning and enrichment activities to support E-STEM engagement and career exploration. She seeks to reconnect all students with their surroundings and spark their interest in their local environment by leveraging it into unique learning experiences.

Ms. Stoss built on her experiences as a Cultural Resource Management archaeologist in Western New York by discovering tangible ways of interacting and learning from our environment. After a few years of digging, she reconnected with her interest in science education and began volunteering for Delta Environmental. She then became Program Director for Delta Environmental and used her passion for creating community partnerships to enrich local environmental education. She is a facilitator for Project WILD, Aquatic WILD, Project Wet, and the North American Association of Environmental Education’s Guidelines in Excellence. She is a member of the Water Education Collaboration, Finger Lakes STEM Hub, New York State Outdoor Education Association, and Climate Realty Corp of the Climate Reality Project.

In 2021, Ms. Stoss joined RIT. She earned her MS in Teaching in the Geosciences program at Mississippi State, her BS in Earth Science and Adolescent Teaching from the College at SUNY Brockport, and her BA in Art History from the University of Rochester.

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