For the past three decades, I have been an activist, a volunteer, a student and a teacher of conservation.  My activist years gave me an advocacy perspective but I quickly saw a great need to expand my own natural science education – to give some foundation and balance to my life and love of the earth.  My studies of biology as an undergrad were focused singularly on human biology and physiology.  The word “ecology” was not then part of the curriculum.  As a graduate student, I was introduced to a whole new world.  In the natural history interdisciplinary program that I designed for myself at Boise State University, I studied geology, zoology, ecology and public affairs.  And, I began to learn about conservation biology.

In 1994, I was asked to lead the Idaho Environmental Education Association (it was the Idaho Energy and Environmental Education Society in those days) and continued to lead the organization for the next nine years.  Affiliation with the North American Association for Environmental Education allowed for tremendous educational opportunities and I was fortunate to be introduced to a great diversity of educational programs taking place all over North America.  At home, I continued to hold the vision of a much expanded environmental education organization.  But I saw the environmental education community keeping very much to itself with very little interaction with conservation organizations.

In 2010, after a 20 year career as director (and founder) of the Sawtooth Science Institute in Idaho, I found myself prematurely retired.  In my search for work — volunteer and otherwise — I offered my services to a variety of conservation organizations, universities, and non-profits.  Through this process I learned many lessons about what was and was not happening in education and conservation.  It was not easy to get a response and so I began to delve a little deeper.  I went in search of answers to my questions.  I wanted to begin a dialogue about how conservation efforts might be improved through better coordination and communication. I asked questions of the leaders of conservation organizations in the hopes of hearing from them how conservation could be improved.

I believe that the barriers that exist between environmental education and conservation are calling for a new way of doing business.  Can conservation education bring together scientists, conservationists and environmental educators for a better future?  Is there a place for education in conservation?   In the interviews that follow, I’ll ask these and other questions of conservation leaders.  The dialogue we begin may help us discover new ways of working together that will have benefits for all who care about this planet.

Chris Gertschen
2011

Interview with Lance Craighead (August 2011)

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If you haven’t seen the advertising on this website, or seen reference to this document before, you should check it out… the best articles, activities, and reviews from past issues of Clearing compiled and published together on a CD-ROM. “The Best of Clearing, Volume VI” is a way to get the best of back issues of Clearing at a very low price (even less than the previous cost of a one-year subscription!).

And just so you know, we’ll soon be republishing an earlier B.O.C — Volume V — which gathers even more great articles from the recent past (think Mike Weilbacher, Jim Martin, and others) in one convenient reference volume for your resource library.

If you’re interested in helping to keep Clearing alive, this is one way to do it. Buy a copy of Volume VI in CD-ROM and keep an eye out for Volume V when it comes available. Click on the “Best of Clearing” link on the nav bar above to buy your copy!

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Kids Save a Tropical Treasure

By Kristin Joy Pratt-Serafini with Rachel Crandell
Published by Dawn Publications

Reviewed by Emily Baker LeRoux

As a home schooling mother of two, I have to admit I like books. I mean REALLY like books.  They seem to multiply in our house and I like to think of it as literary decoration. It works for us though; I find both kids sprawled in various rooms throughout the day with a pile of books next to them.

I first stumbled across The Forever Forest while browsing at the library on the never-ending search for books for my six-year-old animal-loving kid. Upon first glance, I thought this was just another book on the animals that live in the rainforest but I knew he’d love it so I checked it out.  It turned out to be so much more.

Our favorite books are those that have combine beautiful artwork with interesting text…preferably where we learn a little something we didn’t know before. The Forever Forest did this beautifully. The story line follows a young boy and his mother as they visit Costa Rica and the Children’s Eternal Rainforest (commonly referred to as the BEN).  Costa Rica’s rich and varied ecosystem is well depicted here, doing a beautiful job of transporting the readers to this lush rainforest. You can almost hear the Howler Monkey’s call.

The variety of animals and plants that thrive in Costa Rica are interesting and different enough to engage most readers, and each page highlights one or two mixed in with the story.  The author has used the sidebars to give further information about each of those species.  Every member of our family learned something new from these interesting bits. I really like that this information was presented near the references in the book so the kids had the visual to go along with the facts.  Don’t think the learning opportunities end there, the back of the book is filled with the titles of other books to expand the lessons as well as a variety of websites to explore including the coordinates to find the BEN on Google Earth.

The underlying messages of this book are of both of the importance of conservation and one of empowerment. The Children’s Eternal Rainforest (El Bosque Eterno de los Niño’s) is so named because a second grade class in Sweden saved it in 1987.  While studying tropical rainforests the children learned about the challenges many forests face, competition for land, poachers, deforestation. They wanted to do something to make a difference, and they did, organizing a series of fund-raisers their goal to earn enough money to buy and protect 25 acres.  The word traveled quickly, inspiring other students to get involved.  By the end of the first year (with the help of matching funds by the Swedish Government) the students had raised $100,000 and it didn’t stop there.  The movement continued to grow and children from over 44 countries became involved.

So often in our culture, children especially feel like their voices and actions don’t matter.  This book shows what a big difference a group of children can have not just in their own community, but in the world. We spent quite a bit of time talking about ways that our family could make a difference as a result of this book. It will become my go-to resource when I hear the echoes of “I can’t do it” creeping into the language of my children. I hope this book becomes an anchor book in children’s libraries everywhere.  At less then $10 it would make a great gift for children in your life and could be lovingly combined with a donation to a favorite organization.  With all the issues facing this and coming generations the engagement of our youth is of vast importance and this book brings that home. Kids really can change the world!

Emily LeRoux lives in Maple Grove, Minnesota with her husband and two increasingly eco-literate children.

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A school class at Colquitz River Park in Victoria, BC

Along the Cowichan River, surrounded by the smell of cottonwood resin, an elementary school student discovers that dragonfly larvae look like aliens. In a quiet wetland, a middle school teacher marvels as a guest expert shows his class how to fold cat-tails into duck shaped toys and send them downstream with wishes. In a municipal office, a bureaucrat considers a community proposal, initiated by an elementary school class, to create a new park.

Since 1994, the Colquitz Watershed Stewardship Education Project (CWSEP) has been bringing students, teachers, and the community together to experience educational turning points like those above. Headed by teacher Lenny Ross, the award winning project has successfully instilled an environmental ethic in students of all ages and their teachers by connecting them to the watersheds in which they live.

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Developing a biodiversity monitoring project at your school can help students develop many skills in an integrated manner. Here are some simple ideas that you can use to get your students started.

Children and teachers are being pulled in many directions. Children want to “learn by doing/’ but because of societal fears for children’s safety, they are very often not allowed to play outdoors and learn at will. Teachers are encouraged to meet the unique learning styles of all students but the classroom reality often means books and pictures rather than hands-on experiences. In addition, children are under considerable pressure to be thinking about their futures and what further, post secondary, education they might be considering.

Sometimes children just like science. Many are of the “naturalist intelligence” and enjoy learning how to classify their world. Activities that meet all these requirements are within schools’ meagre budgets and are indeed possible. These projects are equally possible for the teacher with little science or biology background knowledge. The science skills are readily picked up; being systematic about collecting and recording the data is the main skill needed. The curriculum integration that is possible from these projects range from field studies to computer skills, to art and literature; the entire curriculum is covered in these activities.

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Roxine dePencier Hameister is a sixth grade teacher at Davis Road Elementary School in Ladysmith, British Columbia.

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For many people, a trip to Alaska is the dream of a lifetime. Yet cost and logistics keep many people away. In 2002, a group of dedicated educators joined forces to make such a visit— if only a ‘virtual’ visit—a reality for thousands of children across the Western Hemisphere. Blending good, old-fashioned interpretation and education know-how with technology, the Winging Northward—A Shorebird’s Journey distance-learning project brought the amazing resources of the Copper River Delta, Alaska to a diverse audience. This innovative and ambitious project developed over three years. The following article chronicles the miles traveled, and those yet to come, for this effort.

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Review courtesy of Fletcher Brown, University of Montana
Author unknown

Environmental education for children growing up in urban areas is often limited to a single trip to a forest preserve or state park.  The hidden message behind such field trips is that the environment must be sought, and that their local community is not a part of a greater ecology.  Helen Ross Russell believes that environmental education can be taught in all locales, including the hard-topped schoolyards common in urban areas.  Ten-Minute Field Trips provides opportunities for students to learn about the natural processes occurring all around them, to develop a concern about the misuse of this planet, and foster a willingness and ability to initiate and support positive action on the basis of this knowledge.

The book begins with a short chapter making a strong case for schoolyard field trips — they are available to all schools; are conducive to repeated trips throughout a day, week, or school year; can easily and spontaneously be integrated into a daily lesson, even in a tightly structured teaching environment; and can be the springboard for a greater depth of inquiry by students.  Before launching into field-trip ideas, there is a short chapter emphasizing the importance of fostering curiosity in learners of all ages.  Russell believes that:

If schools are going to have a meaningful role in today’s world, they
must be more than dispensers of information and places to read; they
must keep alive the natural spark of curiosity, they must nurture the
ability to think, they must permit a child to grow.

The remainder of Ten-Minute Field Trips is filled with ideas for providing students opportunities to do the above.  The activities are divided up under the headings of “Plants,” “Animals,” “Interdependence of Living Things,” “Physical Science,” “Earth Science,” and “Ecology.”  Each section is divided into several subsections.  For example, “Animals” is broken into Vertebrate Animals, Birds, Animal Tracks, Insects and Other Arthropods, and Earthworms.  Each section and subsection provides background for the teacher about the general subject, classroom activities that may be taught in conjunction with the field trips, suggestions for teacher preparation, and field trip possibilities.  The field trip ideas are intentionally fairly vague, so as to be relevant to a wide variety of age groups, skill levels, and school environments.  For example, one of the Earth Science field trips suggests observing nearby waterways, including gutters of city streets.  In this field trip, students are asked to observe the difference in the load carried by rapidly flowing water compared to slowly moving water; to find waterfalls, deltas, canyons, or outwash plains; to build a dam and observe the change in water flow and siltation.  Students in urban or rural schoolyards, from kindergarten through high school, could engage in this activity, focusing on anything from an aesthetic appreciation of water systems to the physics of water dynamics.

Although originally published in 1973, Ten-Minute Field Trips is as relevant today as it was thirty years ago.  It is full of great ideas for teachers who may not think that their teaching environment is conducive to hands-on environmental education, as well as for those who do.  With stories and obvious excitement for the topic, Russell creates both a useful manual and an interesting read.  Although written in the context of schools, most of the activities could be integrated into day and residential camp programs, nature centers, or family experiences.  As Russell points out, Ten-Minute Field Trips is not a complete teaching guide, it merely “suggests possibilities which the teacher can select and adapt as a starting point.”  Whether teaching in a hard-topped city school, or wild and green summer camp, this book can be a valuable resource for educators of all subjects who want to infuse their curricula with experiential activities that bring the local environment home.

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How rearing salmon in an elementary classroom can foster powerful teaching and learning in the content areas, environmental awareness, and good stewardship of the Earth

By Daniel S. King, PhD

My transition in January of last year to a new position teaching science, math, and technology to 5th graders at STARBASE ATLANTIS on Navy Base Kitsap has caused me to reflect on my 11 years as an elementary school teacher.

There is no doubt that my work as a public school teacher was rewarding in countless ways; however, the most profound, meaningful, and enjoyable experience for me during my years as an elementary school teacher was participating in a Salmon in the Classroom Project. Likewise, I believe the project has had a positive and enduring impact on the hundreds of students that participated along with me.

For 10 years my students and I raised salmon in the classroom and then released them into Clear Creek in Silverdale, Washington which is located on the Kitsap Peninsula.

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by Zoe Weil

In 1987, I offered several courses in a summer program for middle school students at the University of Pennsylvania.  The courses met from 9-5 and lasted 5 days.  One of the classes I offered was on our treatment of animals and another was on the environment.  In each course, we went on field trips.  In the class on the environment, we visited a recycling center, a wildlife rehabilitation center, and held a Council of All Beings on a protected beach.  In the course on animals, we visited an animal shelter, a farmed animal sanctuary and conducted a critical review of conditions for animals at the zoo.  We watched videos about what was happening to animals and the environment, wrote letters to elected officials and CEOs of polluting companies, and created campaign, slogan and T-shirt ideas for activism.

When the two weeks were over, I was astounded by what had taken place.

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Zoe Weil is the co-founder and president of the International Institute for Humane Education (IIHE) which, through and affiliation with Cambridge College, offers a distance-learning M.Ed. in humane education which is the first and only program of its kind in the U.S.  IIHE also offers its acclaimed Sowing Seeds humane education workshops monthly around the U.S. and Canada.  Zoe is the author of The Power and Promise of Humane Education and Above All, Be Kind: Raising a Humane Child in Challenging Times.  For more information about IIHEís training programs and Sowing Seeds workshops, visit www.IIHEd.org.

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