For more than 20 years, Keep Chicago Beautiful has successfully taught the program known nationwide as the ‘Chicago Model’ of the “Waste in Place” curriculum to thousands of school teachers and those studying to be teachers, in the Chicago area, who, in turn, have taught hundreds of thousands of children the key concepts of the benefits of eliminating litter and reducing solid waste through conservation, reuse and recycling. As a result, an entire generation of children in Chicago are familiar with these key concepts, which we believe is a key factor in the success of the environmental and beautification programs launched by Mayor Daley for the City of Chicago, and in surrounding communities.

Three years ago, in partnership with the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies (www.arava.org) and the Jewish National Fund, Keep Chicago Beautiful launched an internship program for two graduate students in environmental science. The Arava Institute’s program is unique in that it brings together students from Israel and Jordan, Egypt, Morocco, and the Palestinian Territories, where they will not only learn about dealing with environmental challenges, but they also learn that people with differing political views can learn to live and work together when they address common problems. Each year, one Israeli student and one Arab student have spent six weeks in Chicago learning about public policy and technical environmental issues. The students have worked with major Chicago-area corporations (including Kraft Foods, Waste Management, Commonwealth Edison, ITW-HiCone), law firms (including Sidley Austin and Quarles & Brady), environmental engineering firms (including ERM and Conestoga-Rovers), and government agencies (U.S. EPA, Illinois EPA, Chicago Departments of Environment and Streets & Sanitation, Metropolitan Water Reclamation District, Chicago Park District, Cook County Board).

In 2008, Keep Chicago Beautiful presented the interns with a challenge: Could the principles that worked so well in the delivery of the Chicago environmental curriculum be applied to school children in Israel and Jordan? Although the most significant environmental challenge in the Middle East is the scarcity of water, litter and pollution problems are substantial. The interns reviewed the key components of the curriculum and prepared an outline of how the materials could be adapted for use in their home countries.