Schoolchildren Glean The Green Message
Sydney Morning Herald
Friday February 28, 1997
Youngsters are cottoning on to conservation. LISA BJORKSTEN reports on the surge of environmental education.
CHILDREN have well and truly caught the green bug, thanks to the strong emphasis being placed on environmental issues in school curriculums.
They drop terms such as habitat, biodiversity and global warming with all the aplomb of a seasoned environmentalist.
This surge in environmental education, particularly in primary schools, has gathered momentum over the past decade.
Picture a school of the '70s. Do recycling, pollution control and Stream Watch come to mind as key classroom studies? It's unlikely.
In the school of the '90s, not only are environmental studies prominent in the primary school curriculum, they are now being combined with extracurricular activities and special projects. Environmental vans - which visit schools to promote the green message - are the 1990s version of Life Education.
"Kids are more and more keyed in; they have grown up with environmentalism as a major issue in their experience," says Felicity Wade, NSW campaign co-ordinator for the Wilderness Society.
Ray Reed, of Rotary and Greening Australia's Trees for Survival Shadehouse Program - which involves planting and cultivating trees for projects such as Olympic venues - finds children are often "aggressively aware" of green issues.
The children at Mosman Preparatory School are a perfect example. Jeny Shepherd, the learning extension support co-ordinator at the school, began a Stream Watch group of 12 Year Five boys last year.
(The Stream Watch and Sea Watch projects were created by Sydney Water to help clean up our rivers and oceans.)
The Mosman students involved in Stream Watch test pollution levels in and around their local Reid Park stream, keep an eye on soil quality and observe insect life.
Cleaning up the Reid Park stream and Belrose river is only the first step in what the Mosman students plan for the environment.
"It is good to find out what's around. If we can get the stream fixed up, there's nothing stopping us," says John Hartman, 11.
How old are children when they become aware of the importance of being green? The youngest children involved in the Mosman environment group are eight years old, though younger children at the school are asked to bring in cartons and toilet rolls for craft, all in the name of recycling.
Even pre-schools and day-care centres are becoming green. Despite their lack of green surroundings, inner-city centres such as the Wattle Lane Children's Centre at Broadway are keyed in. Children, some just two years old, are growing their own organic vegetables.
Rural schools have also got the green bug. Kempsey Pre-School and Child-Care Centre has made full use of its country surroundings. It is home to chickens, ducks and rabbits, which all benefit from the peel and scrap recycling by the children.
"We bring things down to the grassroots of how children can care for the earth. They are very egocentric at this age, so we promote what they can do for the environment," says Kempsey Pre-School teacher Jane MacDonald.
Many environmental organisations, community groups and schools are coming to the conclusion that the state of the environment rests in the hands of children.
"Children are driven by compassion, by a love for all living things," says Bronwyn Rice, co-ordinator of the Trees for Survival Shadehouse Program, explaining the surge in educating children to be environmentally aware.
Hence the establishment of such co-operative organisations as the Environmental Education Officers Group, which meets monthly with representatives from the three education sectors (Association of Independent Schools, Board of Studies and Catholic Diocese) and all major community groups with an interest in environmental education.
Craig Gordon, education officer for the primary curriculum at the Catholic Diocese of Broken Bay, believes such groups are the answer to the effective environmental education of children.
With assistance from teachers, organisations are able to create resources - they may be pamphlets, videos, teacher resource books, testing equipment and strategies - to increase awareness which complement requirements of the school curriculum.
Alan Brel is one of the new breed of educators. In association with Clean Up Australia, he tours schools in and around Sydney promoting the motto: "Reduce, recycle, re-use."
Brel feels his work, and the success of Clean Up Australia, which has spread to become a global institution, inspire children to "believe they can do something". His philosophy is: "Think globally, act individually."
It seems environmental change will be a by-product of generational change.
The children have begun to outshine their parents in the environmental awareness stakes. Whereas an adult may stare blindly at litter in the gutter, the boys at Mosman Prep School, for example, rush to pick it up, worried that it might end up in one of the streams on which they keep watchful eyes.
Primary children of today "are more switched on to how things connect than many adults", says Rice. But what happens when children become teenagers.
While some are compelled into dedicated action, others find "it's not cool to be enthusiastic", he says.
The strong emphasis placed on environmental issues in primary schools "needs to be maintained in the school curriculum throughout a child's schooling", says Rice. "As they head towards the senior years, the focus changes, with the HSC, on to achieving."
© 1997 Sydney Morning Herald