opportunities for funds under an existing Federal program or programs, but would I be fair in characterizing your assessments of the effort both by State departments and the U.S. Office of Education as simply having been a lack of focus toward what goes on within each of the various categorical type programs we have?

Dr. BRENNAN. Yes, it goes right back to my daughter's statement. It is not part of the American curriculum; therefore, it is not a concern of education and it is sort of falling between the chairs and nobody has picked it up. It is not part of our program.

You people are going to make it a part of our program and unless you do, we are just going to spin our wheels and we are not going to do a thing.

Mr. STEIGER. You have been very helpful and I appreciate your help.

Mr. BRADEMAS. Mr. Hansen?

Mr. HANSEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would echo my colleagues' comments just to tell you how extremely helpful the testimony has been. It is such a pleasure to tap your very considerable experience in similar programs so that we can take advantage of your constructive recommendations in shaping this program.

I think probably my colleagues would also appreciate your comment of a moment ago on the need to look at the preschool years as the place to begin. As you may be aware, this subcommittee has been devoting much of the last several months to the development of legislation designed to provide programs at a preschool level. I think all that we have learned about the importance of early intervention is applicable to environmental education.

I have only one question which touches on your reference to the accumulation of knowledge, experience and materials, as a result of the program that had been carried on in the past.

Do you see the need in this legislation for some kind of mechanism, perhaps in the U.S. Office of Education, to draw upon the experience of all of the programs that will be stimulated by this legislation or otherwise and to make information available in some understandable and easily useable form to all who could make use of it?

Dr. BRENNAN. Yes, I think this is essential, absolutely essential. Otherwise, we have lost this great resource we have. As I said, I have four file cabinets filled with excellent curriculum materials that should be in the schools of America today and are not.

Mr. HANSEN. Would the U.S. Office of Education be the proper place?

Dr. BRENNAN. It could have been done in the U.S. office but it didn't have to be. If there was provision in title III of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act for the publication and dissemination of materials, it could have been done.

The Newark, N.J., schools, for example, did set aside some money and published the materials, but it is not entirely legal.

Mr. STEIGER. Will you yield. Is there any kind of ERIC operation? Dr. BRENNAN. Some of the ERIC materials, some of the environmental education materials have been collected by ERIC at Ohio State University.

Mr. STEIGER. Which is the Ohio State ERIC, what field?

Dr. BRENNAN. It is primarily science education. This is another of our hang-ups, of course, we have based a good deal of our environmental education in the past on science, and although we have the scientific knowledge to solve almost every environmental problem we have, the decisions are not being made on the basis of our scientific knowledge at all.

It is economic feasibility, political expediencies, our population problem will get into religion deeply, so you see it is social sciences. And if the people from the wilderness society were here, they would tell you that if the things which enoble man are those which enoble man's use of the environment, then it is the humanities that we are concerned with.

We are actually talking about all of education, every bit from the time you are born until the time you die, all of the disciplines, all levels, a total program of education. People try to categorize this. They say environmental education is just another fad. It is not any fad.

This is total education. That is for the environment for survival of man, total education, it is no category, but a total program of education we are talking about that we must develop.

Mr. STEIGER. If the gentleman will yield further, the educational media and materials center for handicapped children, one could, I suppose, argue that same concept ought to be applied in this field? Dr. BRENNAN. Certainly.

Mr. HANSEN. Well, let me thank you again and tell you that I shouldn't be surprised if we have you come back many more times. Dr. BRENNAN. I am delighted to be here. This is one of the great happenings of my life and I am so pleased to see you doing this. Pass this bill quickly.

Mr. BRADEMAS. Thank you very much. You have been most helpful. We are adjourned for this morning subject to call.

(The hearing adjourned at 12:10 p.m. subject to call of the Chair.)

ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY EDUCATION ACT

TUESDAY, APRIL 7, 1970

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SELECT SUBCOMMITTEE ON EDUCATION,

OF THE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND LABOR,

Washington, D.C.

The subcommittee met at 9:30 a.m., pursuant to recess, in room 2175, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. John Brademas, presiding. Present: Representatives Brademas, Scheuer, Bell, and Hansen. Staff members present: Jack G. Duncan, counsel; Ronald L. Katz, assistant staff director; Arlene Horowitz, staff assistant; Toni Immerman, clerk; Maureen Orth, consultant; Marty LaVor, minority legislative coordinator.

Mr. BRADEMAS. Today we meet to resume consideration of the bill H.R. 14753, The Environmental Quality Education Act.

The Chair would like to announce that the witnesses scheduled for tomorrow are: Dr. Margaret Mead, anthropologist, director of the American Museum of Natural Resources, University of Michigan; and Dr. John Steinhart of the University of Wisconsin.

On Thursday, when we shall hear from Dr. John Cantlon and a number of representatives of several organizations in the field of conservation; and we shall hold hearings on Friday as well.

training, preschool through grade eight, or science materials on the Our first witness today is James Aldrich.

STATEMENT OF JAMES L. ALDRICH, ACTING VICE PRESIDENT, EDUCATIONAL DEVELOPMENT CENTER; EDUCATION ADVISER TO PRESIDENT OF THE INTERNATIONAL UNION FOR CONSERVATION OF NATURE AND NATURAL RESOURCES

Mr. ALDRICH. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I want to express my appreciation for the opportunity to present my opinions at these hearings.

With your permission, I would like to present a slightly paraphrased version of my prepared statement.

In preparing my statement, I have sought to make a contribution to these deliberations which would stress points that I felt were important but which might not otherwise be emphasized. Thus, I have not spoken in detail of the high priorities which I assign to teacher training preschool through grade eight or science materials on the biophysical environment. Instead I have addressed the need to teach the behavioral sciences in the elementary and secondary schools as part of environmental education.

Mr. BRADEMAS. I wonder if, before you proceed, you would be kind enough to identify yourself?

Mr. ALDRICH. I am the acting vice president of the Educational Development Center which is a regional educational laboratory in New England and the education advisor to the President of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources.

As I was saying, there is a real opportunity in environmental education, one which I believe could promote a significant reform of education in general. It involves not only the subject matter but the organization of the educational experience.

By definition, it goes beyond the brick and mortar school into the natural and manmade community. It also provides opportunities for the individual to explore within himself the perceptions and interpretations through which he relates to the world.

To a large degree, environmental education is assumed to be a new approach to the teaching of the natural sciences and that all that is needed are some classroom materials on the crises of the biosphere. In fact, the need is for a concentrated effort to develop the materials, eacher training, and style of classroom operation which provide the basis for exploring the vast web of relationships of man with nature, of man with men, of the partnerships which must exist if we are to re-establish a life worth living.

The curriculum material available to the student needs to relate to the world in which he lives. The science, mathematics and social studies instruction must have some bearing on the polluted river that flows near the school, the overcrowded highways, and the oil slick that has closed the local beach. But we must avoid dealing with the symptoms rather than the disease. The biophysical environment is in trouble but the roots of that trouble are to be found in our cultural attitudes toward life and nature.

Our environment is despoiled largely because our culture and the education which reflects it has failed to develop the necessary understandings of important relationships of man in the biosphere. Man is part of nature and man in conflict with nature is man in conflict with himself. The major thrust in environmental education must be towards developing the individual's ability to understand himself as a subject, both individually and in community. Inherent in this understanding must be the self-confidence that he can and does affect his environment.

A working definition of the "environmental education" that I am thinking about might be that education which provides the individual with the materials and opportunities to appreciate his relationship to his total environment or world.

In this sense, it can be conceived of as a collection of interrelated experiences which allow the individual to explore the social, physical, esthetic, and psychological worlds that he inherits. Through these experiences there should be the opportunity to strengthen or develop the student's confidence that these aspects of the environment, his environment, can be changed-and most importantly, that he can effect change.

The last decade has seen the funding and development of a rich array of curriculum materials in a wide variety of subject matter. Curriculum reform has been a significant accomplishment, but edu