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Show ' T ,.., ' - ,,.... ' . V.', J : M ,. i ; -IfL X V- ' i r- - Mrs. Louise. Hctcl, 2nd qradc teacher at Helen M. Knight Klenu-ntary School in Moab, looks out of the door of the cabin with part of her 2nd grade class. The cabin schools the environmental education program. pro-gram. j The "Why " of Things Explained in Program To a sprouting seven year old girl, ants can be a very pesky problem. They crawl on your, legs, your doll, and oven your peanut butter and jelly sandwich which Mamma packed for school lunch. Ants can be pesky things. So its not so surprising for an elementary school teacher tea-cher to hear a child ask with some tone of disgust, "Teacher1, why are there ant hills?" Only a short time ago a question like this might have been quickly answered answer-ed and then sidestepped in favor of more traditional academic ac-ademic subjects. But according to Mrs. Louise Hetzel, 2nd grade teacher at the Helen M. Knight School in Moab, Utah, it's questions like these that open up a new-world new-world of pupil - teacher commit nication. Somehow in growing up we lose the view of the immediate im-mediate soil we're standing on, indicates Mrs. Iletzel. A child, while being two to three feet closer to the ground , is immeasurably closer to the leaves, the .grass, and the sand and earth in which he plays. A skillful and creative teacher teach-er can use this as a way to teach the give and take that is characteristic of nature's balance. Mrs. Iletzel, in Moab, is one of many Utah teachers now involved with a program prog-ram of environmental education. edu-cation. Many of the students stud-ents who daily fill her flassroom come from rural area surrounding this southeastern sou-theastern Utah community. However, says Mrs.. Hetzel, .this is no reason to believe they don't need instruction on their environment Most youngsters from the farms and ranches around Moab are just as much in need of this type of training as are children from urban . ' areas . Because there are no .course manuals or currieu- lum guides, Louise Hetzel has built her own course of instruction. She feels many of the ecological problems facing us now are much too complex for children to .understand. Shte has taken situations such as air, water, wat-er, and noise pollution and broken them down to elementary elem-entary principles and visual visu-al exhibits. Most of those exhibits are located on the grounds of the Helen M. Knight Elementary El-ementary School. A certain cert-ain area of the school yard is set aside as a sort of ecological eco-logical reserve; an area where the children let nature na-ture take its course. Within this section there are salt bushes, Juniper trees and a multitude of plants common com-mon to the Moab area-There area-There are also ant hills, one of which the youngsters young-sters have encircled with a metal fence to further protect the area's natural state from outside encroach- ment. H'ere the children can see firsthand how every element ele-ment plays its part in nature's na-ture's scheme ... and if .you remove one element how the 'balance is upset. An old cabin also occu-pys occu-pys part of the school's ecological eco-logical reserve. Th'e cabin, cab-in, which was brought in from an outlying area and reassembled, is used by the childi-en in recreating what living in Moab was like during dur-ing the early years of settlement. set-tlement. In iaddition to the cabin on the grounds, Mrs. Hetzel Het-zel and othfers working with the National Park Service have succeeded in establishing establish-ing an Environmental Study Stu-dy area at the site of the JVole Cabin in nearby Arch'es National Monument. This area is specifically used us-ed for environmental instruction. in-struction. The Grand School District, Dis-trict, sparked by Mrs. Het-zel's Het-zel's example, has embarked embark-ed on an expanded program of environmental education. educa-tion. The district is mak-. ing extensive use of the JVoiltfe Cabin. . area and has instituted an outdoor education ed-ucation summter school class for junior and senior high school students. Young people peo-ple enrolled in the class visit vi-sit Mesa Verde National Park, Canyonlands National Nation-al Park, the Texas Gulf Sulphur and Atlas Minerals Miner-als Plants; all with a view toward learning about the ecological aspects of man and his environment. , The Grand School District's Dis-trict's program of environmental environ-mental education is one of the more advanced programs prog-rams in. Utah. Credit for this, according to School District Superintendent C. Robert Sundwall, is due to the district's Environmental Environment-al Education Advisory Committee. Com-mittee. The committee is composed of school personnel, person-nel, representatives of the .National Park Service, Forest Service, Soil Conservation Con-servation Service, Bureau of Land Management, and others of the community having an interest in ecology. ecol-ogy. Committee members have not only given guidance, guid-ance, hut have actually helped help-ed in establishing the program pro-gram and supplying materials mater-ials and exhibits, said Superintendent Su-perintendent Sundwall. . About 50 miles to the .south, the San Juan, School District is opening its first School for ecology education. educa-tion. The district's' Blue Mountain Environmental School is being sponsored through an $8,000 grant from the Four Corners Regional Re-gional Commission and is3 j designed to- acquaint rrigh school students from all over ov-er the U. S. with the ecology, ecol-ogy, geology, and anthrop-"ology anthrop-"ology of the Four-Corners area. Several 1 othfer Utah ' School Districts are instituting insti-tuting environmental education edu-cation programs, either through summer school programs pro-grams or by integrating .them into the regular cur-ricul-ujms. , The Alpine School District, Dis-trict, three years ago, began be-gan a itegular program of identifying certain geological geologi-cal and ecological sites in the district. Children are .being bussed to the sites and given firsthand experiences exper-iences to see their back door .environment from a view rthey had never seen before. . Granite and Iron School Districts have areas in canyon's, can-yon's, close to their schools, that are set aside for environmental envir-onmental education purposes. purpo-ses. Jordan, Rich, Ogden and Toolele Districts also have environmental education educa-tion programs. Finding teachers knowledgeable knowl-edgeable about their environment envir-onment and able to handle these kinds of programs has nosed some interesting situations. sit-uations. Granite District recently re-cently bussed more than 50 of ts teachers to Moab to get an on-the-spot look at Louise Hetzel's outdoor classroom. In addition, under the direction di-rection of the Office of the jSflate Superintendent of Public Instruction, since 1966 a yearly teacher training train-ing workshop in environmental environ-mental education in Eph-raim Eph-raim Canyon in central Utah. Here teachers learn effective methods of teaching teach-ing in the outdoors. They splso cornfe to grips with some of the other problems yvhich may face an environmental envir-onmental education teacher; teach-er; not the least of which may be learning to hold a live snake or lizzard some youngster has just brought into the classroom. Louise Hetzel attended .one, of the workshops at Ephraim Canyon. Her experiences ex-periences there led to the kinds of learning activities he now provides for her .2nd graders. Many times during the school day she fields questions ques-tions ' about trees, grass lizzards, squirrels, cactus, and clouds. She tells the .children they're all interacting inter-acting parts of our environment, envir-onment, just as much as ant hills. TMrs. Hetzel knows that these youngsters will ,have to be knowledgeable about nature's creatures and its delicate balance, if they are going- to-, make sound decisions in the future. |