For 17 years, Schaumburg Township School District 54 has valued energy awareness and conservation, but there’s one natural resource it hasn’t been conserving. That resource is the creator and driving force behind Project C.A.R.E. (Conservation, Awareness and Responsibility for Energy), an award-winning environmental awareness program that has become a prototype for the nation. That resource is Rich Ammentorp.
“His creation is really brilliant,” said Colleen Guccione, a former C.A.R.E. student and now a high school social studies teacher at Lyons Township High School in LaGrange.
Guccione said Ammentorp’s ideas were ahead of his time. He incorporated community service and group problem solving (teachers call it cooperative learning) before these concepts were fashionable. Other aspects of the program also impressed her.
“The level of information for the elementary school child is amazing,” Guccione said. “As a 6th grader, I knew how a nuclear plant worked, in detail. When I took college environmental science, much of the unit was review for me, because I learned it in C.A.R.E. as a 6th grader.”
Throughout the year, C.A.R.E. students attend weekly meetings after school or during lunch where they learn about energy sources, measurements and conservation through science experiments. They also attend seven full-day sessions with other schools.
One way Project C.A.R.E., which this year involves 375 students in District 54, achieves its objectives is through peer teaching, in which students teach energy concepts to other students for six consecutive weeks.
Ammentorp, a Schaumburg resident, acknowledges the idea of students teaching other students was unusual when he implemented it, but he said recent research confirmed that students more readily remember information they have taught others.
Ammenntorp said C.A.R.E. seeks responsible students, those who, for example, are self-motivated, get their homework in on time, volunteer and have good attendance. He estimated 1,400 4th-, 5th- and 6th-grade students apply to be C.A.R.E. kids each year, but only about one in four is chosen. In some schools, the competition is so stiff only 6th-grade students may apply.
“Probably the toughest job of a C.A.R.E. teacher is to select the kids,” Ammentorp said.
Heidi Kay, a 6th-grade teacher at Westdale School in Northlake, was one of the first C.A.R.E. students.
“In 4th grade, it was my responsibility to put up these `Please turn off the lights’ signs,” Kay said. “I think it gives a boost of self-esteem that, yes, this is my responsibility, and I’ve accomplished it.”
According to teachers and students, the popularity of the program stems not only from the curriculum but also from Ammentorp’s charismatic personality.
Sue Allman teaches 3rd grade at Anne Fox Elementary School in Hanover Park. “When he comes in, he just sparkles with the kids, singing with them, having fun,” she said.
“He is probably one of the most energetic teachers I’ve ever seen,” Kay said. “When he’s presenting something he believes in or feels strongly about, you can honestly tell this is something that’s important to him. He gets the kids in the C.A.R.E. program really motivated. It’s fantastic.”
Over the years, Ammentorp’s responsibilities have expanded to include coordinating the district’s social studies, environmental education and foreign language programs.
Although he cannot spend as much time with C.A.R.E. as he used to, Ammentorp remains dedicated to the project. For example, he attends at least one day of each Energy Encounter week. Energy Encounter is a five-day, four-night Wisconsin camping trip in which students on an energy budget must decide how to conserve energy throughout the week.
Allman commends Ammentorp for his commitment. “I think that’s quite dedicated to give up all of that time and effort and energy, to believe so strongly in something,” Allman said.
“I have a love for kids and also a love for the environment, and the two just go hand-in-hand.” Ammentorp said.
Ammentorp’s interest in the environment stems from his childhood. A Milwaukee native, he and his family devoted many weekends and summers to camping and enjoying the outdoors.
Outdoor education was also a part of Ammentorp’s elementary and high school curriculum. “It was second nature to me. I just assumed that was part of all kids’ education and growing up,” Ammentorp said.
After he graduated from the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee in 1973, he came to Everett Dirksen Elementary School in District 54. During his second year of teaching at the Schaumburg school, he organized an ecology club. It quickly grew to more than 150 students.
The group camped, cleaned up Salt Creek and set up nature shelves with live animals in the library. “The library media teacher didn’t like the snakes too much . . . but the kids did,” Ammentorp said.
Ammentorp earned a master of science degree in outdoor teacher education from Northern Illinois University in DeKalb and drew from his experiences with the ecology club, gifted education and schools across North America to develop Project C.A.R.E. A grant from the Illinois State Board of Education allowed him to spend the 1978-1979 school year away from his teaching responsibilities and to envision and research his dream.
“I still don’t believe I had that opportunity,” he said.
C.A.R.E. and Ammentorp have won more than 30 awards since the program began. Ammentorp received the Malcolm D. Swan Award from the Environmental Educators Association of Illinois in 1994, and he was named Energy/Environmental Educator of the Year in 1994 by the National Environment Education Energy Network.
Twelve-year-old Ray Mikula of Schaumburg was in C.A.R.E. last year at J. Edgar Hoover Elementary School in Schaumburg. He said Ammentorp knows all the students by name and helps them to feel like part of the group.
“He taught me to be more friendly . . . he introduced me around. He helped me to meet more friends,” Ray said. “He did that with a lot of other kids, too.”
Ray also enjoyed Ammentorp’s humor. “He tells lots of jokes, makes up funny songs,” he said. “We got lost at the zoo; he started making `Jurassic Park’ jokes. He makes the best out of a bad situation.”
Those funny songs are Ammentorp’s trademark. He refers to himself as a guitar-playing environmental guru from the ’70s.
Allman, who has worked with Ammentorp for nearly two decades, said the songs are often educational. Many of the lyrics have hand or body movements. The first song students learn is an Ammentorp composition:
C.A.R.E. kids are high-minded.
Bless my soul! They’re double-jointed!
They save energy. Don’t mind it.
All. Day. Long.
Karen White, a 5th-grade teacher at Hoover School, said Ammentorp’s songs motivate adults as well as children.
“I’ve watched him take a fairly quiet, conservative audience and really transform them into enthusiastic participants. . . . These are professionals, teachers and members of power companies and corporations.”
Allman and White are two of Project C.A.R.E.’s five directors. Each director oversees a region of four or five schools with one or two C.A.R.E. teachers at each school. Ammentorp heads the directors.
Although Ammentorp said he appreciates the affirmation that awards bring, he cares more about the impact of C.A.R.E. on people’s lives.
“The ideal behind an educator is to touch the life of a kid, so they will take with them for the rest of their lives some of the things you feel are important,” he said, “and to instill in them something more than just facts, but values toward saving the Earth and saving the environment.
“In teaching,” he continued, “you don’t necessarily get to reap the benefits of what you put in, so you wonder whether you were able to affect the life of a kid.”
He can stop wondering.
“I definitely try to imitate his leadership in my classroom and school activities,” Guccione said. “He has definitely influenced my style of leadership and creativity . . . treating students as adults and not as children.”
Said Allman: “He gives kids a sense they can make a difference in the world.”
