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Students participate in nature restoration

Posted at 6:18 PM, Apr 19, 2016
and last updated 2016-04-19 18:18:10-04
Warmer weather has allowed for people to go outside and enjoy some fresh air. Some high school students got an opportunity today to leave their classrooms and engage in learning exercises in the environment. 
 
It's Environmental Education Week and students from Benjamin Franklin High School participated in a restoration project at Masonville Cove in Baltimore. The students were plating greens and trees through the cove to help restore the shrubbery there. 
 
Lessons like this are possible thanks to a new education bill passed in December allowing educators to use federal grants to create opportunities for students to learn outside the classroom walls. Congressman John Sarbanes introduced the bill as a provision to 2007's No Child Left Inside Act. He feels Baltimore is a great place for students to learn because Baltimore has environmental opportunities that others don't. 
 
"Baltimore's leading the way if you think about it," Sarbanes said. "Here at Masonville Cove, this is the first urban wildlife refuge partnership in the country. It shows how even in urban areas, we can connect the beautiful outdoors to what kids are doing in the classroom and make sure that they become stewards of the environment. 
 
Workers from the National Aquarium were also working with the students to teach them how sustainable nature can be.