Mark Twain School has been chosen as one of three teacher teams selected from the Montgomery County Public Schools and Baltimore City to participate in EnviroHealth Connections. The project is coordinated by Maryland Public Television in partnership with the Johns Hopkins University (JHU) Bloomberg School of Public Health.

The project helps secondary teachers of all curriculum areas develop and deliver lessons based on environmental health concepts, integrate quality technology resources, and improve technology delivery to students.

The 2004 teacher team from Mark Twain School includes lead teacher Jennie Discepolo, a science/staff development teacher, and participating teachers Marie Guerrero, English/Spanish, Carol Bates, biology, and Melanie Haste, special education. These teachers will receive professional development training and resources to support them in creating environmental health, technology-infused lesson plans, and learning activities for their students.

The project is funded by the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences. Each team, composed of four teachers from various curriculum areas, was selected from applications submitted from the project's partner districts of Baltimore County, Baltimore City, Montgomery County, and Prince George's County public school systems.

The new teams join the six 2003 EnviroHealth Connections teacher teams, including Cabin John and Tilden middle schools from Montgomery County.

The new teacher teams began work in the project January 9-10 at the JHU Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, where they attended Winter Colloquium workshops led by the school's public health scientists addressing local, national, and international environmental health issues.

Of the 28 teachers from the current 2003 and 2004 teams, eight will be selected to serve as mentor teachers for the second annual EnviroHealth Connections Summer Institute, to be held at the JHU Bloomberg School of Public Health in July 2004. Up to 100 middle and high school teachers from all curriculum areas will be able to register for this event at www.thinkport.org beginning March 1.