Toyota - Driving Environmental Education

Around the Region

OMSI educators drive across the region to deliver hands-on, exciting education. We also work to minimize the climate impact of our travels and to demonstrate making sustainable choices.

Toyota partners with OMSI Education to help us deliver interactive, hands-on, fun and educational outdoor science programming to youth and adults in the greater Portland-Metro area and throughout Oregon. Not all kids can take a trip to the museum so OMSI educators bring our top-notch education to young learners, traveling over 50,000 miles any given year. That’s a lot of travel!

Toyota’s partnership doesn’t stop with financial support. Because working to reduce our carbon footprint is important to Toyota and to OMSI, the newest vehicle in our fleet is a Toyota Rav4 hybrid, decked out in a special wrap that ensures communities can see us coming!  The hybrid technology allows our educators to drive long distances without needing to plug in or gas up…saving resources and reducing our impact on the planet. 

Sustainability is an OMSI core value: public-facing exhibits like help visitors make informed choices about sustainability; science films explore the scope of climate change across the globe; continuing staff and educator training are part of an institution-wide commitment to sustainability. Our educators, exhibits, and programs teach the public how technology can be used to address the most pressing problems of our time, including climate change. 

OMSI and Toyota share a dedication to equipping the youth of the Pacific Northwest with the tools they need to understand STEM-related issues and grow into STEM careers. OMSI provides education support around climate-change and environmental issues to students, teachers, and communities across the region. Four classes in particular get students excited about the science: Energy Options asks students to explore different choices and draw conclusions about how we can best meet our energy needs; Precious Planet address climate change through scientific clues found in air, water, and ice while asking students to consider the relationship between human activity and the future of our environment; Sustainable Choices uses hands-on activities for students to examine choices they make and their societal, economic, and environmental impacts; Wild Weather examines weather and its variables through students’ senses and homemade forecasting tools.

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Collaborating with OMSI means going deep, working hand–in-hand as we develop exhibits and experiences that bring STEAM to kids in and out of the museum.

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