I will step in to give Project Wild and Project Learning Tree at least a partial defense. A posting yesterday indicated that Steven Van Matre proposed some real alternatives to current environmental education. I haven't seen these alternatives so I cannot say whether I think they are good or bad, but I will say that since I haven't seen them they probably aren't widely available to teachers in a way that teachers find they can be used effectively. I have helped organize both Project Learning Tree and Project Wild workshops in Tennessee and Michigan and there are definitely some pro-timber, pro-harvesting parts to all of the workbooks. However, I don't think it is the books themselves that make the difference, it is the people who use them. I have been at workshops where the leader was a kindergarten teacher who spent most of her time showing how to get children involved in learning and focused most of her energy on animals in their habitats. Even at the workshop with 75% of the instructors directly employed by the timber industry, the instructors did the exercise with the dangers of toxic pollutants to birds of prey. The teachers who I know who have used the exercises like them and find it makes children enthusiastic. I have also been involved in some hands-on science workshops for elementary school teachers. The real plus for Project Learning Tree and Project Wild when compared to anything else I have seen is that it is simple for teachers (who are overworked and underpaid) to pick these workbooks up and use them without a lot of preparation. The guides show how the exercises fit into the curriculum. This may not be the ideal world, but it is the world teachers have to work in. If something is complicated or expensive, most teachers can't do it. Ask teachers how often they pay for classroom materials out of their own pocket. Yes, teachers should have better resources, but they don't. They pay for some supplies out of their own pocket because local school systems can't or won't buy materials. So, Project Learning Tree and Project Wild are a step forward. Also, there are other activities. Los Angeles County has a camp for their schools. Here in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan we have some people at Headwaters who have done a lot of good projects locally and they have a deep ecology perspective. The City of Toledo has some pretty good information for teachers and Environment Canada has been putting together some educational packets. But, they still don't reach people cheaply and effectively. It takes more than a perfect idea to reach teachers and therefore reach students, and there are no widely distributed, easy-and-cheap-to-use alternatives to Projects Wild and Learning Tree. Until alternatives are being widely used by teachers, they aren't "real alternatives." Blair Orr [EMAIL PROTECTED] Michigan Tech Univ.
