CONSERVATION EDUCATION

(By Al Cline)

In a recent Bulletin, Lloyd Tupling made the sage observation that action frequently makes a mockery of words. So does inaction. The California State Legislature two years ago in a move heralded by some politicians and educators as a "magna carta" rewrote a large section of the Education Code, a difficult and controversial chore removing reams of useless verbiage. The goal was an educational process more closely related to reality.

Conservation education was mandated for all the grades-not suggested, but required from the first grade through high school to give students a sense of man's relation to his environment.

Wonderful! Another first for California.

The hitch was obvious. No funds were provided. So, to quote the Conservation Advisory Committee to the State Board of Education, conservation education remains a stepchild in the crowded family of education, "a bright and promising child, but ignored or neglected, with little nourishment of any kind."

The food that exists comes from individual teachers and a district or two relying on their own resources. The lack is particularly apparent in those vital early grades. A 114-page bibliography of free and inexpensive conservation publications compiled last year by a committee of educators listed nothing for first graders, a few namby pamby cartoon coloring books for second and third graders. "Smokey's Forest Fire Prevention Song Book, Snappy Songs for Youngsters," is one example. "Sniff and Snuff, the Super Fire Safe Snoopers," another. A sorry diet, indeed. Mrs. Louise Brown, a science teacher at the Jefferson Elementary School in Berkeley, refuses to accept such fare. She teaches only first graders. They spend an average of 21⁄2 hours a week with her, and Sniff and Snuff are not a part of the classroom. Ecology is. Eco-systems are. Pollution is, along with polluters. The six year olds delve into smog and DDT; organisms and habitats; water problems and the conservation of African animal life. No subject concerned with planet Earth is taboo.

The major goals to Mrs. Brown, a vivacious woman with 20 years experience in the classroom, 18 in Berkeley, are scientific leteracy and environmental education. Trained in the University of California Berkeley-developed Science Curriculum Improvement Study (SCIS) technique, a system stressing exploration, invention and discovery, Mrs. Brown emphasizes the diversity of organisms, both plants and animals. Her students observe the life cycle-birth, growth and death. They learn what makes water turn green what the black stuff is at the bottom of the fish bowl, what sustains life and what causes death.

When the students bring something from home, and they do this consistently, it is discussed with enthusiasm. The science room is covered with articles of interest: a news story and pictures of a Minnesota fish kill; an article on a new and complex system of converting salt water to fresh; that not so scenic Sierra Club poster depicting the rape of a redwoods stand.

"I try to make the children aware of what's going on around them," Mrs. Brown says. One lad spelled out his theory for eliminating smog, a simplistic idea perhaps, but to the point. "Make difrent ingin for cars, trucks and motor cicles." Others in a free-wheeling discussion on air pollution called for development of an electric auto, a steam driven car, and a return to the use of feet. In a discussion of pesticides a girl gave a lucid explanation of the role of DDT in the demise of the pelican. Using the Redwood poster as a takeoff, another girl left no doubt that she understood the cause and meaning of erosion.

This is Mrs. Brown's second year of working with first graders and she acknowledges that no one really thought her program would succeed to the extent that it has. The argument was that the kids just weren't ready for such advanced material, that their attention span could not be held for such a long (one hour) period.

But it is working.

"There is a terrific increase in vocabulary, in the ability to describe things," the teacher reports. "I get tremendous feedback from both parents and teachers. And the second graders continue to be as enthusiastic as they were last year."

An eighth grader and budding oceanographer who helps Mrs. Brown an hour a day expresses amazement at the goings on at Jefferson. He says those first graders are involved in subject matter he did not hear about until the sixth grade.

Despite her obvious enthusiasm, her conviction that youngsters must become aware of the world around them, Mrs. Brown does not consider herself an ecology or a conservation fanatic. "It is important, and I certainly am interested in it," she says. "But my major interest is in what I consider America's No. 1 problem, the survival of black people." Mrs. Brown is black.

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"Conservation doesn't mean just saving birds and trees. It means saving people, all kinds."

She is disturbed by what she considers a consistent policy of pushing urban problems into the background. To her, there is something ominous about the plain fact that something always seems to come along claiming priority. "First it was Vietnam," she says. "Then it was inflation. Now it's the environment. I'm not saying anything is less important. I can't see why we can't tackle both at once. I hate being put in a position where I have to choose. That bothers me particularly as a teacher."

As do many teachers, she cares about her profession and the several hundred youngsters that come to her classroom. She provides many small items for the room in addition to supplementary SCIS materials, but knows she could offer much more if she had microscopes (the children do use magnifying glasses), and outdoor area "left undisturbed where youngsters could see for themselves the interrelationship among organisms," a pond and a small garden.

The hope for financial help to purchase such things appears to rest with the State Legislature where, at present, rhetoric is the major conservation commodity. Assemblyman George Milias has a pending bill (A.B. 1050) to establish a Bureau of Conservation Education within the State Department of Education with operating funds coming from a severance tax on crude oil, timber, natural gas, cement and gravel. "If we can spend $15 million each year on driver's education to teach our young people how to survive on the highways," he says, "we ought to be spending a comparable amount teaching them how to survive-period."

Milias, chairman of the State Assembly Committee on Natural Resources and Conservation, is optimistic, reading the "current tide as being deeper than rhetoric." Others in Sacramento are more cynical. The oil and timber and natural gas and cement and gravel lobbyists never have allowed severance tax bills to go anywhere. They are not likely to change now, tide or no tide.

However, a chance does exist for some other kind of financing, something akin to the driver education collection of extra traffic fine money. A bill is pending to preempt all highway litter fines for conservation education. The sum would be nothing like the $15 million Milias talks about.

Another assembly bill appropriates $176,000 to implement a statewide conservation education program. The figure is from the Administration. Governor Reagan spoke out for the conservation education at his Los Angeles conference on the environment. The budget contained no funds for it. The record, it seems, leaves little room for optimism.

In 1968, the California Legislature created a Conservation Education Service empowered to make grants to local districts. A sensible way for Jefferson to get its microscopes, pond and garden. Although the Service was established, no money was appropriated. Last year a master plan representing three years of effort was presented to the State Board of Education. The plan detailed programs and funding. The nine advisory committee members pleaded for prompt action. The report was accepted with great thanks. The ensuing silence has been deafening.

"Here is the State of California with a blueprint when the environmental crisis is being recognized nationally," says Committee Vice Chairman Peggy Wayburn. "We're talking on a far more profound level than pollution. That is just a symptom. There's a far more profound ill we have to deal with."

The State Departments of Fish and Game and Parks and Recreation both have education specialists and many worthwhile films and other types of useful material, but this cannot be considered a statewide program.

Mrs. Wayburn points out that other states, Colorado and South Carolina to name two, are progressing much faster. California does have a developer of conservation education programs. He is Rudy Schaefer, former National Park Service ranger, school administrator and conservation education specialist for Los Angeles, a position never filled, incidentally, when Schaefer left. He is in Sacramento doing his work with a $35,000 federal grant. It expires in June. The theory is that the State takes over when the federal money runs out.

What is more likely is that Schaefer's output-his reputation as a capable, knowledgable planner is outstanding-will find a convenient home on some dust covered shelf, and, due to lack of funds, may not even be published.

Mrs. Wayburn notes a master catalog of all available materials for teaching conservation education exists in Sacramento, but no money is available for printing. There also is a Handbook on California's Natural Resources written two years ago for teachers. It is out of print.