Between those two systems

Between those two systems, the water cycle and the food chain—even though one's inanimate and the other is made of living creatures—there's an important interaction, as the rivers and oceans of the first provide the habitat for the creatures of the second. That brings us to an ecosystem, made up of interrelated inanimate physical parts and subsystems like rocks and water, as well as all the living parts like plants and animals. Again there are systems within systems. The earth's biosphere—another word for the planet's entire ecosystem—is a system that exists inside of that much larger thing that we call the solar system.

As early as second and third grade, children learn about the earth’s environmental problems. They can explain the demise of rainforests, the plight of endangered species and the damage of oil spills.

Clemson’s Youth Learning Institute agrees with author David Sobel that “if we want children to flourish, we need to give them time to connect with nature and love the Earth before we ask them to save it.”

Since 1991, the institute has reached more than 70,000 teachers and students through Teaching Kids About The Environment (KATE) programs at Camp Bob Cooper in Summerton. Now, a gift of forestland by The Cliffs Communities and its foundations will enable the program to expand to the Upstate.

During the three-day/two-night adventure, third- through fifth-graders are exposed to more core outdoor education than they experience in three weeks of traditional classroom instruction.

The program was developed by the Youth Learning Institute and the S.C. Coalition for Natural Resources. It utilizes science-based curriculum that covers water ecology, wildlife

No amount of prayer seemed to answer it. But something started to lift inside Vickie as she sobered up in the Duval County jail. It was as if an angel nudged her spirit off rock bottom.

For Jessica, there could be justice. For herself, Vickie only craved some sort of peace.

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Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; For you are with me.

A year to the day after Jessica's slaying, a gold-framed version of the 23rd Psalm was on the dining room wall at Ralph and Lynne Green's home on Jacksonville's Westside. A montage of about 50 photos of Jessica surrounded it.

Below, her ashen remains rested inside a 2-foot-tall urn. Shaped like an angel, it had a "Jessica" nameplate with a blue stone that had adorned a necklace she wore as a child.