Northwest Education: Compound Interest : Business and Philanthropy in Education Reform
WORLDVIEWS: TENDING TO THE HEARTS AND MINDS OF CHILDREN
Winter 2003
Longview, Washington—One September day in 1969, U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson announced from Seattle that the first Earth Day would be celebrated come springtime. That same month, a thousand miles away in chilly Anchorage, the state of Alaska took historic bids from the world's oil companies for the right to drill in Prudhoe Bay.
These two events radiated from their Northwest epicenter into a national furor that continues, 34 years later, between environmental activists and those who push for development of the nation's natural resources. But a decade into the debate, during the litigious 1970s, many began to refine their approaches to the issue. On the part of the resource development industry—timber, mining, and oil companies—this meant investing considerably in creating educational programs to teach the public about natural resources and their beneficial uses in modern human life.
While it's unlikely that the person on the street would single out British Petroleum, ExxonMobil, Boise-Cascade, or Weyerhaeuser as major contributors to education today, that is precisely the case. Working in conjunction with the Washington Forest Protection Association (WFPA) and the Alaska Mineral and Energy Resource Education Fund (AMEREF), natural resource industries are laying out philanthropic dollars to develop and disseminate environmental education materials, student learning activities, and teacher training.
It's no secret that these companies have a vested interest in the work done by their industry associations. For that reason, skeptics might assume that the materials they create are merely propaganda aimed at influencing future voters and consumers. However, the materials are used enthusiastically by many teachers, and workshop participants surveyed are overwhelmingly positive, saying that the materials are objective, engaging, relevant, and tightly connected to state academic learning requirements. Moreover, supporters of the curricula point to the close partnerships that industry associations have formed with state and district education leaders, collaborating on the development of curricula to ensure that materials meet the learning needs of students.
While detractors say such industry-sponsored curricula must be inherently biased, written with the intent to sway young minds in favor of development, others say that school materials and textbooks, in general, overwhelmingly favor an environmentalist point of view. Paul T. Hill, director of the Center on Reinventing Public Education at the University of Washington, observed that "value-laden areas" of the school curriculum, such as environmental education, reproductive health, and civics, are inevitably going to be tugged this way and that by politics.
"It isn't true that business [alone] is feathering its nest and others are just acting in the public interests—they're also feathering their own nest," he said. "I think there's no way around it, it's going to be turbulent."
These are also turbulent economic times for schools. By directing corporate philanthropic dollars and expertise to the development of education programs, industry is providing full-service environmental education curricula to K-12 classrooms and many grateful teachers.
In 1982, the Alaska Mineral and Energy Resource Education Fund and the state's education department formed the Alaska Mineral and Energy Education Program. Its mission: "to provide Alaskan teachers and students with the knowledge and skills to make informed and objective decisions relating to minerals, energy, and forest resources." It's also the aim of the organization to help students meet state standards in science, math, geography, civics, government, language arts, and technology.
Industry members contribute a total of about $60,000 to $100,000 each year to AMEREF, providing most of the funding for the organization's environmental education materials and teacher training programs. The Alaska legislature, until recently, allotted $50,000 per year toward the salary and travel expenses of a liaison from the state's education department. This year, however, that allocation was axed because of a $200 million state budget shortfall.
Alaska is the only state in the union that has neither a sales tax nor an income tax—oil revenues generate 80 percent of funding for state government. But oil production dropped from about 2 million barrels a day in the early 1990s to 1 million barrels a day today. The state's deep reliance on oil revenue raises the question: How beholding is it to give industry unhindered access to the state's classrooms—to the hearts and minds of students?
Jason Brune, director of AMEREF said emphatically, "We pride ourselves on the objectivity of our materials and training. Even if the public decides to oppose resource development in certain situations, at least their decisions will be based on facts, not just pure emotion."
The cornerstone of the AMEREF program is the Alaska Resources Kit, developed in cooperation with the state. The kit contains maps, curriculum modules, videotapes, charts, specimens, and pamphlets. Although hundreds of Resources Kits are distributed each year to schools across the state, Brune noted that effective teacher training is the real key to the program's success. "Giving teachers a huge kit of supplies is one thing. Giving them strategies for using that kit effectively is something else."
Three curriculum modules were developed in the mid-1980s: Alaska's Mining History, Alaska's Geology, and Alaska's Minerals and Mining. Since then, three more modules have been added: Ecology/Economy, Energy and the Environment, and Alaska's Forestry. Teachers who request a Resources Kit or take the AMEREF training receive the kit, worth $300, at no cost; AMEREF members pick up the tab. Thus far, the materials have reached nearly 300,000 students.
Jennifer Coggins, AMEREF's program director, has been instrumental in making sure the curriculum addresses current needs of teachers. "Some of the materials are being revised for the third time," Coggins said. Each revision makes the materials adhere more closely to the state's recommendations for assessments, standards, and grade-specific materials. While focused on science, the materials include connections to reading, writing, and math. This integration allows teachers to address multiple objectives with a single instructional unit.
"It's imperative that we focus on state education standards," said Jason Brune. "If our curriculum doesn't help prepare students for the math, language arts, and science tests they must pass as a result of the No Child Left Behind legislation, we can't consider ourselves effective."
The majority of the state's future resource development proposals will involve rural Alaska, Brune says, so it is especially important that students in those areas are well informed about the pros and cons of development regarding their environment, economy, and culture. "Teachers in rural Alaska are ecstatic when we fly experts in to provide training and materials, since this is something they don't typically have access to," he said.
Michelle Roller is one of the people Brune relies on to train rural teachers in the use of the materials. Roller visits villages all around Alaska, taking the AMEREF curricula to such remote places as Unalakleet, south of Nome; Huslia and Nulato on the Yukon River; and Dutch Harbor in the Aleutians.
Roller involves students and teachers in hands-on lessons. She points out to teachers how specific activities correlate with state standards and how reading, writing, math, and history can be integrated with AMEREF science lessons. She said teachers are often surprised that the AMEREF materials aren't biased. "I tell them that we're not interested in teaching kids what to think. We're interested in teaching them to think."
One of Roller's most popular lessons for very young students is "mining a cookie." The main concept of this activity is the importance of protecting watersheds and restoring land that has been mined. After distributing chocolate macadamia nut cookies, she coats them with frosting and tops them with sprinkles. She gives each student a pair of toothpicks. Their assignment: "Mine" the chocolate chips and nuts that represent silver and gold. But, because they are surface miners, they must avoid the blue sprinkles that stand for waterways and the green sprinkles that signify protected land. And, she tells her miners, once those chips and nuts have been extracted, they will need to restore the cookie's surface to its original state.
Because teachers at small, rural schools are often called on to teach out of their field, it is common for science lessons to be taught by teachers with no science background. "The teachers without science training are usually the most happy to see me," Roller said, noting that the number of teachers enrolling in AMEREF training sessions each year continues to increase.
One such teacher is Joy Hamilton, who teaches Athabascan students at the Innoko River School in Shageluk on the Iditarod Trail. The village of Shageluk has a population of 130 and is accessible only by plane, snowmobile, four-wheeler, or dogsled.
"The AMEREF training changed my teaching life," Hamilton said. When she first began using the Resources Kit, she anticipated that it would supplement her earth science textbook. However, she has had so much success with the kit that the textbook is now the supplementary material. Because textbooks are too expensive to replace regularly, they often become outdated and irrelevant. Conversely, AMEREF materials are constantly revised to provide students with current information about resource development and the environment. They are also free.
"The Resources Kit encourages kids to be curious about earth science and the rich history of mining here where we live, close to Iditarod, Flat, and Donlin Creeks," Hamilton said. Because the AMEREF materials are integrated, they provide students with extension activities in reading, writing, and math. And because the materials are specific to Alaska, students can relate concepts and issues to their own lives.
The AMEREF teacher advisory board has been very receptive to making the materials culturally appropriate for Alaska Native students, said Hamilton. "They've been very open to integrating information about Native issues, Native corporations, tribal concerns, and traditional stories."
The Washington Forest Protection Association was founded nearly 100 years ago to fight and prevent forest fires, but the association now focuses on managing timberlands for wood products development and informing the public about that mission. Today, the WFPA's environmental education program is well known to Washington teachers and students. In fact, 10 years ago, the association helped to make environmental education a required part of the curriculum in the state.
Lynne Ferguson oversees the association's partnerships with Washington school districts. She pointed to the passage of the Clean Water Act in 1972 and the Endangered Species Act in 1973 as pivotal events for her organization: "Everybody in the timber industry was spending a lot of time in court, and it was becoming very expensive. Timber companies realized that there was a large disconnect between themselves and the public and decided to change their approach."
About five years later, the WFPA helped to launch an environmental education program, developed by the Western Regional Environmental Education Council (now the Council for Environmental Education) and the American Forest Institute (now the American Forest Foundation), called Project Learning Tree. A nationally recognized program today, Project Learning Tree provides teachers with forest-related information, activity guides, and training in how to integrate the curriculum into their instruction across disciplines.
The WFPA also helped to launch two other curriculum projects developed by the council in partnership with federal and state fish, wildlife, and water agencies: Project WILD, which focuses on wildlife, and Project WET, which examines watersheds, wetlands, and water quality. Like Project Learning Tree, WET and WILD offer training for teachers, as well as teaching guides, testing kits, extended learning activities, and assessments—for free or minimal cost.
Additionally, in the 1990s, the association developed the Forests of Washington activity guides, Ecosystems and People and History. The guides are specific to the forests of Washington.
These curricula are central to WFPA's education program, supporting an inquiry-based instructional approach that WFPA promotes as an effective way to teach environmental education. The curricula aren't intended to be one-size-fits-all, said Ferguson, but are meant to be adapted to the specific needs of a teacher, school, or district.
The association's most important work, said Ferguson, is forming partnerships with Washington's Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction and school districts. The WFPA works with leadership teams from school districts to help the districts develop integrated reading, writing, math, social studies, art, and science curricula that use the environment as a unifying context and are aligned with state academic standards.
"One of the best things WFPA did was to hire educators, not just PR people," said Ferguson. "We went from being an 'awareness' program that disseminated information to a program that worked with teachers to get students to think critically."
Margaret Tudor, who works in the Olympia office of Washington's Department of Fish and Wildlife, serves as state coordinator for Project WILD. She's worked as a partner with the WFPA for several years. She said that Project Learning Tree has undergone important revisions. Harold Hungerford, a professor at Southern Illinois University who's done scholarly work in the area of "issues understanding," was hired to help develop a critical thinking component for the curriculum. Hungerford is a coauthor of the book, Investigating and Evaluating Environmental Issues and Actions: Skill Development Program (Stipes Publishing, 2003).
Hungerford helped create an instructional module that supports the Project Learning Tree materials by involving students in investigating and evaluating environmental issues and how they are viewed by myriad stakeholders, Tudor said. Furthermore, she said the WFPA is working with assessments expert Catherine Taylor, an associate professor of educational psychology at the University of Washington, to help them articulate performance benchmarks.
This process involves students in studying the components of an ecosystem and how ecosystems influence humans. They study how culture and politics affect environmental resources. They examine problems affecting the health of ecosystems. They determine who the human stakeholders are, their various viewpoints, and their proposed solutions to environmental problems. Students are even asked to pose alternative solutions to the problems.
Tudor likens this process to the way in which her agency and other environmental agencies prepare environmental impact studies.
"This is complex work. We want students to understand why we do what we do, including why the timber industry does what it does. They need to understand this to be good civic participants," she said.
Woody Franzen is one of the educators the WFPA has hired to take the curriculum into districts and schools. A former fifth-grade teacher from Lacey, Washington, Franzen had found that his own students responded enthusiastically to activities that took them outdoors. He's impressed that the teaching materials engage students in outdoor hands-on activities such as analyzing a tree's history by studying its roots, testing soil saturation capacity, charting the feeding habits of birds, conducting wildlife treasure hunts, researching waste-water treatment procedures, and debating land use planning policies.
Franzen believes that it is imperative for WFPA to provide training and materials that are objective. He encourages teachers to cover the positives and negatives about the role humans play in the environment and the role the environment plays in human life. "What WFPA does is education," Franzen insisted, "not activism."
On the Washington side of the Lower Columbia, Franzen is working with teachers and administrators of Longview Public Schools to help them develop a plan for Wake Robin, the district's 82-acre outdoor learning center. Ann Cavanaugh, executive director of student learning for Longview, said, "WFPA came in and looked at our district goals and told us how their materials and expertise could help." Not only were the materials and consultants provided at no cost, the association also offered $100-$150 stipends to teachers who attended the sessions.
Sixty-five miles north of Longview is the Tumwater School District, near the capital city of Olympia. At Black Hills High School, teachers Art Hoover (English), George Rother (social studies), and Pat Lisoskie (science) developed an environmental education course with the help of the WFPA. The association paid for training, planning time, and materials. The course has been a success, and a public symposium at the culmination of the course draws upward of 300 community members. "The symposium allows students to showcase their knowledge in a 'real world' forum that puts them in charge," said Rother.
All across the state, the WFPA has established partnerships with colleges and universities, enabling pre-service teachers to work with K-12 science and math teachers who are seasoned users of the association's environmental education program.
Additionally, the WFPA and its higher education partners have teamed with the state's Department of Fish and Wildlife, Department of Natural Resources, and Department of Ecology, along with the Audubon Society, state education service districts, and school districts to create a number of environmental education "hubs" around the state. These hubs will provide materials, training, and other resources to schools.
This consortia of agencies has recently formed the Pacific Education Institute, to be housed at WFPA's Olympia office with Lynne Ferguson and Margaret Tudor as co-executive directors. The institute will take on much of the work of the WFPA's education programs, said Tudor, with the focus shifting away from conducting workshops to working indepth with a few school districts that serve as demonstration sites. At present, Tahoma, Cle Elum-Roslyn, and West Valley school districts are demonstration sites where the institute is helping to create a scope and sequence for integrating environmental education into the curriculum at all grade levels.
It can be tough for industry organizations to convince every skeptic that the curriculum they promote is objective and science-based. Michael Sanera, coauthor of the book Facts, Not Fear, asserts that most environmental education programs rely on slogans at the expense of critical thought. Ironically, even though Project Learning Tree was funded by the timber industry, Sanera believes the materials overly reflect the views of environmental groups. He expressed similar concerns about Project WET and Project WILD.
At the other end of the spectrum is John Borowski, an environmental and marine science teacher at North Salem High School in Salem, Oregon. In his article, "Project Learning Tree: Education by Omission" (www.commondreams.org/views03/0922-02.htm), Borowski criticized Project Learning Tree for failing to address the environmental impact of short rotation forestry, monocultures, and habitat fragmentation. He refers to Project Learning Tree as "a pet to timber interests." Moreover, environmental organizations should be wary, he said, of being co-opted by resource industries that develop environmental education programs.
Nevertheless, the Audubon Society in Washington recently deepened its partnership with the WFPA, helping it to establish the Environmental Education Partnership Fund. The fund will provide financial support to "proven and innovative environmental education programs across the state."
"Our partnership with WFPA raises eyebrows for some folks," said Audubon Field Director Heath Packard. Packard acknowledged that the organizations sometimes differ over policy issues and that WFPA's materials contain "a few omissions." However, he stressed that those factors do not preclude working together to facilitate environmental education programs.
"Audubon and WFPA both focus on high-quality, inquiry-based education that emphasizes critical thinking," Packard said. "The bottom line is that WFPA's materials get students and teachers engaged and improve student learning."
It's evident that AMEREF and WFPA have strong support among educators. "I don't think we can do without the help of organizations like WFPA," said Ann Cavanaugh of the Longview School District. "They're doing a great job."
The Washington Forest Protection Association's Web site (www.wfpa.org) includes a newsletter, information about workshops and activities in individual school districts, and a detailed outline connecting Project Learning Tree to Washington's Essential Academic Learning Requirements. Under "WFPA Environmental Education Web Site," click on "District Partnerships."
For example, the Peninsula School District has an environmental education matrix showing how environmental education can be integrated into core disciplines in grades K-8.
You can find out more information about the WFPA's major projects by visiting these Web sites: Project Learning Tree (www.plt.org), Project WILD (www.projectwild.org), and Project WET (www.projectwet.org). You'll find curriculum materials, contact information, research findings, and teaching resources.
The Web site of the Longview Public School's outdoor learning center, Wake Robin (www.longview.k12.wa.us/wr/), has information about plant identification and, soon, will feature live Webcam links and 24-hour readings of temperature, barometric pressure, humidity, and wind speed. Coordinator John Gross can be reached at jgross1@longview.k12.wa.us.
From the Alaska Mineral and Energy Resource Education Fund Web site (www.ameref.org), click on "Teacher Resources" to go to the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development Resource Education Program Web site. There, you'll find information about the history of the program, updates, contacts, and connections between program materials and Alaska's academic standards. AMEREF Director Jason Brune can be reached at jbrune@akrdc.org.
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