Tag: education

Killer Whale Shows Reconsidered

  • Animal rights activist Will Anderson says there is nothing healthy about the relationship between captive marine mammals and their keepers. (Photo Courtesy of Milan Boers CC-2.0)

People who want to watch marine mammals like dolphins often head to
theme parks such as SeaWorld. But after a killer whale at one SeaWorld
killed its trainer last month, critics are calling for a reevaluation
of keeping these huge animals captive. Ann Dornfeld has the story:

Transcript

People who want to watch marine mammals like dolphins often head to
theme parks such as SeaWorld. But after a killer whale at one SeaWorld
killed its trainer last month, critics are calling for a reevaluation
of keeping these huge animals captive. Ann Dornfeld has the story.

In the wild, a killer whale’s world sounds something like this:

[Killer whale calls in British Columbia]

But most people see killer whales in an environment like this:

[Electric guitar at SeaWorld show, chanting of “Shamu! Shamu!
Shamu!”, audience claps in time]

SeaWorld calls all of its performing whales “Shamu.” Millions of
people have visited SeaWorld over the decades to get splashed by
Shamu’s tail and watch trainers leap off the killer whales’ noses. The
trainers hug and kiss the animals between high-flying stunts.

But animal rights activist Will Anderson says there is nothing healthy
about the relationship between captive marine mammals and their
keepers. The waters around Seattle, where he lives, are home to wild
killer whales. Anderson has worked to free captive killer whales for
40 years.

“The relationships they have with their trainers are
nothing less than ‘Well, what else is there to do?’ If you’re starved
for what you innately need – social bonding – you’re gonna settle for
whatever morsel you can get.”

Killer whales are actually huge dolphins, not whales. Anderson says
tanks are no place for animals which roam up to 100 miles each day in
their native waters.

“Their bodies and their minds, and their behaviors,
their needs and their huge size, they are all adapted for the wild.
They are not adapted for tanks.”

At SeaWorld, Julie Scardina is the Animal Ambassador. She handles
public relations for the theme park. She says just because killer
whales can roam 100 miles a day in the wild doesn’t mean they often
do.

“The 100 mile statistic there is actually just a
capability. They have the capability of roaming that far, just like
humans have the capability of walking 20 miles or more per day. We
provide opportunities for exercise, for play, and of course during our
shows they get plenty of exercise.”

Scardina used to train killer whales. She says the tricks show the
public what the animals are capable of. And she says keeping killer
whales in a more naturalistic, aquarium-like environment wouldn’t
serve the animals well.

“I’ve worked with animals for over 30 years. There’s
no way you can convince me that it would be better to let an animal
kind of hang. That’s kind of like saying it’s okay to let a person sit
on the couch if they’d like. You need to provide stimulation, you want
to get them up and moving.”

Scardina says the goal of SeaWorld’s Shamu shows is to encourage
marine conservation.

“Well, certainly our mission is to educate people
about the oceans, to inspire them. And that’s what obviously our hope
is, is by seeing these animals and how incredible they are – I know
that’s how I became inspired when I was a child.”

But in a promotional video for SeaWorld’s main killer whale show,
called “Believe,” SeaWorld employees suggest a different theme… more
conquest than conservation.

“How do we get in the water with the top predator in the ocean, y’know. that kills and eats anything it wants at any time.
I thought for a moment right there, y’know what, this is really crazy
what we do. But we are doing it!”

The video, and the “Believe” show itself, focus on the power of the
human spirit – not the marine environment.

Activists like Will Anderson are calling for theme parks like SeaWorld
to return killer whales to their native waters, protected by huge
enclosures. There is general agreement that captive killer whales
wouldn’t survive if released into the open ocean.

For The Environment Report, I’m Ann Dornfeld.

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Seeing Snakes as Worth Saving

  • Biologist Tobi Kiesewalter takes out a black rat snake at the visitor's center at Murphy's Point Provincial Park in Ontario. (Photo by Karen Kelly)

As kids, many of us come to see
snakes as frightening, evil creatures.
In some places, that ingrained fear
has taken a toll on the snake population.
Karen Kelly met up with some folks
who are trying to improve one snake’s
image – before it disappears:

Transcript

As kids, many of us come to see
snakes as frightening, evil creatures.
In some places, that ingrained fear
has taken a toll on the snake population.
Karen Kelly met up with some folks
who are trying to improve one snake’s
image – before it disappears:

(sound of truck, bumping on a road)

George Sheffield drives his truck along the dirt path that leads to his family’s
vacation cottage. He keeps an eye out for long, black snakes.

“It might be a good day to see a snake. It was cold last night so they’ll be
looking for sun today to heat back up.”

Sheffield’s land is one of the few places where black rat snakes still thrive in
Ontario. They’re a threatened species here, partly because people have moved
into their habitat.

But also, because they’re often six feet long, so people get scared and kill them.
The black rat snake is the longest snake in Canada. It’s not poisonous, but it’s a
constrictor that eats small animals.

(sound of walking towards cottage)

Once we’re at Sheffield ‘s camp, he checks out one of the snakes’ favorite spots
– the roof of his cottage.

“The one time, there 3 or 4 out on the roof, with portions of others, with their
heads or tails sticking out of soffits. So they do inhabit the cottage. I wish they
didn’t, but until I fix it, I can’t blame them.”

Sheffield is one of a growing number of landowners who are trying to protect
the black rat snake. They’re putting up nesting boxes in fields and wooded
areas to give the snakes a warm and safe place to spend the winter.

But the biggest challenge is just convincing people not to kill them.

Kiesewalter: “Do you want to hold the snake?”

Children: “He’s pretty heavy.” “He feels kind of like rubber.”

Tobi Kiesewalter is a biologist at Murphy’s Point Provincial Park in
southeastern Ontario. It’s used by as many as 500 black rat snakes – as well as
a lot of campers, swimmers, and boaters.

It’s a perfect chance to teach people about the snake. So every day, Kiesewalter
takes a rat snake out of a cage in the visitor’s centre and tries to persuade people
to leave them alone.

“I hear about it all the time, people coming and telling us about how their dad
had killed snakes before. Kids will tell you anything. And, as with many
reptiles, the loss of even one mature adult can cause a dip in population because
we know they’re only reproducing every two years.”

There’s a lot of effort to help this snake. Culverts are dug under highways to
give them a safe route back and forth. There are road signs that say, “Please
brake for snakes.” There’s even an adopt-a-snake program.

But the fact is, the black rat snake isn’t in danger in other parts of North
America. So why save it here?

For George Sheffield, the answer is simple.

“I grew up with them here, I think it would be a shame if man’s activities
caused the end of another species in another area. We’ve already done way too
much to degrade the environment and the number of species, so anything
anybody can do is good.”

For The Environment Report, I’m Karen Kelly.

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Migrant Workers: Reaping Education

  • The migrant children spend a lot of time with their families. In their culture, life revolves around family and community events. (Photo by Gary Harwood )

Lots of farm workers in the U.S. are migrants from Mexico and other southern places.
Many farm owners say they couldn’t be profitable growing food without these migrants.
But the workers are growing something of their own: children. The children are often uprooted. Julie Grant reports on the challenges of educating children whose lives are dictated by the growing season:

Transcript

Lots of farm workers in the U.S. are migrants from Mexico and other southern places.
Many farm owners say they couldn’t be profitable growing food without these migrants.
But the workers are growing something of their own: children. The children are often
uprooted. Julie Grant reports on the challenges of educating children whose lives are
dictated by the growing season:


In this farm town another house or trailer empties nearly every night. The growing season
is over and migrant workers are leaving, headed to Florida, Texas, Mexico, or someplace
else. That means their children will be pulled out of school. Cyndee Farrell is principal
of the elementary school:


“They’ll just not show up. Sometimes we get word, ‘Oh, we’re leaving tomorrow.’ Other
times, if the weather changes over the weekend or whatever happens and they just decide,
oh, we’re going to leave, they pack up and go. They know they can count on us being here when
they return, and we make it work.”


The migrant children leave as most students are just settling in to the semester.


For some migrants, it’s the only schooling they’ll get until they return to Ohio in April or
May, just a few weeks before the end of the school year.


Lisa Hull teaches reading to 4th and 5th graders. She says the migrants add a whole new
culture to this rural school. They laugh a lot and almost always seem happy.


But she says they don’t treat the classroom like the American kids:


“They don’t value education as well as i would say a normal, typical American would.
They have a different lifestyle. They’re easy going. We’re into all the possessions and
stuff, whereas they don’t really care if they have anything.”


The migrant children spend a lot of time with their families. The families are close and
they stay close. In their culture, life revolves around family and community events. One
person’s birthday is usually reason enough for an entire migrant neighborhood to
celebrate.


(Sound of knocking on door)


“Where is everybody?”


It’s Friday night and neighbor Pat Moore drops in on the Soto Family. They’ve just come
in from weeding lettuce in the fields. They’ve been migrating to rural Ohio from outside
Mexico City for more than a decade. The three ‘boys’ are all grown now and have
become U.S. citizens. They all graduated from Mexican high schools. 21 year-old
Alberto Soto also wanted a diploma from an American high school, so he stayed in this
town of Hartville on his own one winter:


“That year, I saw the snow for my first time. Here, it was too cold.”


The whole family is gathered in the living room: all three brothers, two younger sisters.
The mother and father don’t speak English, but they sit and listen, as Alberto Soto
explains why he stayed in Ohio that year:


“To finish my high school, I was in 12th grade. So I think that was important for me.
To get my diploma so I can get a better job, so they can pay me more. An easy job. Not
too hard like in the fields.”


Soto says he cried when his family left. He was lonely. But even after staying that
winter, he still hadn’t learned enough to graduate. He quit school and he’s been working
in the fields with his family since then. His 19 year-old brother Marco Soto has also
become an expert at weeding lettuce. Marco says it’s hard, boring work and he wants to
do something else:


“I think everything is going to be the same every year. And you are not going to learn something to do something because here, is almost the same. Like what you do everyday is going to be the same, like if you want to stay here for the rest of your life, it’s gonna be the same thing and you are not going to learn anything.”


Educators say most migrants need more schooling to improve their lives, but foreign-
born Hispanic students have the highest dropout rate in the U.S. The migrant
neighborhoods in the Hartville area are looking dark these days, but they’ll spring back to
life when the growing season begins again. The public school teachers say they’ll do
their best to keep working with the students who return.


For the Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

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School Districts Encouraging Urban Sprawl?

  • School districts tend to like bigger homes on larger lots because the districts rely so heavily on property taxes. (Photo courtesy of USDA)

Each year, Americans build a staggering one and a half million new homes. A lot of environmentalists say too many of these houses are big, single family homes on spacious lots. They say that wastes farmland and natural areas. But suburban planners say they’re forced to build that way by local governments, such as school districts. The GLRC’s Shawn Allee has more:

Transcript

Each year, Americans build a staggering one and a half million new
homes. A lot of environmentalists say too many of these houses are big,
single family homes on spacious lots. They say that wastes farmland and
natural areas, but suburban planners say they’re forced to build that way
by local governments, such as school districts. The GLRC’s Shawn
Allee has more:


Jamie Bigelow makes a living building houses in suburbia. He takes a
dim view of his profession. For Bigelow, most suburbs don’t let
neighbors be… well, good neighbors. After all, homes are too far apart
for people to really meet one another and everyone has to drive far for
work or to just go shopping. According to Bigelow, families are looking
for something better.


“We believe there’s a growing market for people who want to be
interconnected and live in interconnected neighborhoods and housing,
primarily in the suburbs, no longer supplies that.”


So, about ten years ago, Bigelow and his father tried building one of these
interconnected neighborhoods in a Chicago suburb. They wanted shops
and parks nearby. They also wanted to close some streets to cars, so kids
could play safely near home, but one detail nearly derailed the project.


Under the plan, houses would sit close together on small lots. The local
zoning board hated this idea. According to Bigelow, they said small houses
would break the local school district’s budget.


“They want large houses on large lots, because for the school district,
that will give them a lot of taxes with not as many kids because there’s
not as many houses.”


The planners wanted Bigelow to build bigger, pricier houses. Bigelow and his
family fought that and eventually won. They did build that compact suburban
neighborhood, but victories like that are rare. Often, the area’s local
governments try to protect schools’ tax revenue by promoting large homes and lawns.


“They’re actually behaving, or reacting, very rationally.”


That’s MarySue Barrett of the Metropolitan Planning Council, a
Chicago-based planning and advocacy group. She says growth
sometimes overwhelms schools, and it can catch taxpayers and parents
off guard.


“They don’t have the revenue from their local property tax to pay for
hiring new teachers, so their class sizes become thirty-two, thirty-three.
And that family who said, Wait a minute, I came out here for good schools, now
I’m going to an overcrowded school? It’s the last thing I thought was
going to happen.”


From the schools’ perspective, larger lot sizes solve this problem. Big
lots mean fewer kids per acre. Larger houses bring in more property
taxes. That means higher taxes cover costs for the few kids who do
move in.


Barrett says the trend’s strongest in states like Illinois, where schools rely
heavily on property taxes. She says in the short term, the strategy keeps
schools flush, but it also pushes the suburban frontier outward, into rural
areas. That wastes land and hurts our quality of life.


(Sound of kids coming out of school)


The day’s over for this high school in Northern Illinois. A throng of
teens heads toward a line of thirty yellow school buses. Some of them
spend up to three hours per day riding between school and home.


Inside, Superintendent Charles McCormick explains what’s behind the
long rides. He says the district’s large size is partly to blame, but there’s
another reason. The area’s subdivisions are spread among corn fields,
far from existing towns and from each other.


“Well, the land use pattern itself disperses the students, so when you look
at what bus routing means, the position of one student can add ten to
fifteen minutes to a route.”


McCormick says local governments in his school district encouraged big
homes and lots, but even his schools can barely keep up with the costs of
educating new students. He says suburban planners just can’t risk
bringing in smaller homes and more kids.


“Well, if you were to run a business the way growth affects school districts,
you’d be broke because you cannot keep up with rapid growth that produces
for every student, a deficit.”


That’s because even high property taxes don’t fully pay for each
student’s education.


Land use experts say reliance on property taxes for education puts
suburbs in a tight spot. Some want to try allowing smaller homes or
even apartments, but school funding’s a stumbling block.


Like other reformers, MarySue Barrett has been pushing for an
alternative. She wants state government to kick in a bigger share of
education dollars. The idea’s to have enough funding for each kid, regardless
of how large or expensive their home is.


“And if we have a different way of paying for our schools that’s less
dependent on the property tax, we’ll begin to move away from this
problem that’s put a choke hold on so many communities.”


It will be an uphill fight, because states are reluctant to change their tax
structures, but Barrett says it’s the worth the political cost. She says, if
we want alternatives to suburban sprawl and its traffic congestion, we
need new ways to pay for education.


For the GLRC, I’m Shawn Allee.

Related Links

Sand Mine Company Restoring Dunes

Anyone who drives a car in North America likely has
an engine block molded from sand. Fairmount Minerals supplies 400-thousand tons a year of industrial sand to manufacturers like Ford Motor. Fairmount prides itself as an environmentally responsible company. Now they’re going beyond what’s required to restore land for wildlife. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Bob Allen reports:

Transcript

Anyone who drives a car in North America likely has an engine block molded from sand. Fairmount Minerals supplies 400,000 tons a year of industrial sand to manufacturers like Ford Motor. Fairmount prides itself as an environmentally responsible company. Now they’re going beyond what’s required to restore land for wildlife. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Bob Allen reports:


“Okay, we’ll go all the way to the east side of the property…”


Craig Rautiola comes from a family of Finnish rock miners in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. He looks like he could have played linebacker on his high school football team. Now he manages four sand mines for Fairmount Minerals near the Lake Michigan shore.


“You can see a front-end loader on your right, it’s just doing a little cleanup work right now…”


Rautiola’s red Ford pick-up bounces over a rough track past a network of conveyor belts, pipelines, and silos, and 100-foot-high pile of sand. The 350-acre site is called Wexford Sand.


(Sound of heavy machinery)


Previous owners dug into the gently rolling hills to remove the sand, then left the land exposed, but Rautiola says his company has a different approach.


“We have a vision of the future that we can run a responsible operation and make a reasonable profit and provide a good product to society, but we can do so in a way that we can restore land to better than original. And we really believe that. I know that sounds like some marketing statement but we really believe that we can do a better job with this piece of land than versus the way we accepted it in the beginning.”


But to get at the sand operators still have to clear about five acres of woods a year. They used to put back the topsoil, grade the land, plant some grass and call it good. Now Rautiola says they’re getting more creative.


“We’re getting a lot more sophisticated in how we define restoration. Restoration today means getting creative with our topography trying to create water features, trying to get diverse with plant species, diverse with insect life.”


The restoration includes a series of ponds kept aerated to support fish and amphibians year around.
There’s an irrigated nursery where three thousand seedlings are under cultivation to see which ones will thrive.


Rautiola used to count success by watching deer and wild turkey return, but now he sees songbirds and shorebirds as indicators of restoration that’s working. That’s because birds require diverse habitat.


“This mature forest might be great for a scarlet tanager, but an indigo bunting would rather be over in the blackberry bushes. Over to the north we had over a hundred bank swallows just a month ago. We’re trying to attract other threatened species like osprey.”


Rautiola brought in experts to show him how to get more diversity on the site. One of them is Kay Charter. She started Saving Birds Through Habitat. The group runs a small wildlife education center in northern Michigan.


Charter says native species of grasses, plants, and trees produce the most diversity. They attract a variety of insects preferred by birds and other small critters.


“You’re going to have Yellow Warblers in here, you’ll have Common Yellowthroats in here, you’ll have Willow Flycatchers in here, you’ll have all kinds of things in there… Catbirds.”


Charter has documented forty species of songbirds and shorebirds nesting at Wexford Sand. She says that’s pretty amazing for an industrial site, but she insists the effort is necessary to lessen the impact on wildlife. She notes some worldwide populations of songbirds have declined fifty percent in the last forty years.


“I think it’s important for the future of our planet. We all have to be involved in conservation or we’re in greater trouble than we’re in today because mining does take something out of the land. But if you can put it back in a way that is used by many species then you don’t leave the footprint that you might otherwise have left.”


Fairmount Minerals has given Craig Rautiola free reign to restore the site at Wexford Sand, and he’s going all out with the effort because he believes it’s the right thing to do.
Kay Charter of Saving Birds Through Habitat hopes the company’s commitment catches on with the whole industry.


“I think it can give all of us hope that business and corporations and companies in this country aren’t all filled with greedy people at the top.”


On a ridge perched eighty feet above the floor of the sand mine is a stand of one-hundred-year-old sugar maples. Underneath the trees is a million dollars worth of sand in today’s market. And they say it’ll stay there. What they call “Maple Island” will be the centerpiece of their restoration.


For the GLRC, I’m Bob Allen.

Related Links

Us and Canada Partner to Reduce Fuel Waste

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has joined up with Natural Resources Canada. The two agencies are forming an initiative to help truckers save fuel. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jerome Vaughn has
more:

Transcript

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has joined up with Natural
Resources Canada. The two agencies are forming an initiative to help truckers save fuel.
The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jerome Vaughn has more:


Officials from both sides of the border gathered near the Ambassador
Bridge in Detroit to sign a memorandum of understanding.


The new partnership brings together fuel-saving technologies developed in the EPA’s Smart Way Transport Program with driver education and training programs from Natural Resources Canada.


EPA officials say the voluntary program could save up to 440 million gallons of fuel each year in addition to eliminating 5 million tons of carbon dioxide. Suzanne Rudzinski is with the EPA.


“What we’re really trying to do is something that I think is a
win-win for both business and the environment. By adopting the
programs, we’re trying to reduce fuel usage. Idling alone can
save a billion gallons a year in diesel, just from idling trucks.”


The EPA estimates there are thirteen million truck border crossings between
the U.S. and Canada each year.


For the GLRC, I’m Jerome Vaughn in Detroit.

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SCHOOL CAFETERIAS EMBRACE LOCAL FOOD (Part 1)

  • Many schools are finding that food that comes from cans... (Photo by Davide Guglielmo)

More and more schools, universities and other institutions with cafeterias are by-passing processed foods from multi-national corporations. Instead, they’re buying food from local farmers. Advocates say locally-grown fruits and vegetables are fresher. They say the food tastes better, and they’re finding kids sometimes ask for apples and tomatoes instead of candy and chips. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Julie Grant reports:

Transcript

More and more schools, universities, and other institutions with cafeterias are bypassing the processed foods from multi-national corporations. Instead, they’re buying food from local farmers. Advocates say locally-grown fruits and vegetables are fresher. They say the food tastes better. And they’re finding kids sometimes ask for apples and tomatoes instead of candy and chips. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Julie Grant reports:


(Sound of cafeteria)


In this cafeteria, there are displays on the wall asking, “What is local food?” and answering, “Foods grown and raised where you are.” Well, that makes sense, but there’s more.


“Then when you get into the lines…”


Sociology professor Howard Sacks is director of Kenyon College.


“We have these menus that talk about all the things that are being served here and it tells exactly where they come from. So the pasta alfredo with tomato and basil features noodles produced by Mrs. Miller’s noodles in Fredericksburg, Ohio, and the cream is by the Broughton Dairy in Marietta, Ohio. As you can see this is about thirty lines long and it shows about thirty different local producers.”


As recently as the late 1990’s, only a handful of colleges and universities had programs to buy locally-produced foods for their cafeterias. Today, more than two hundred are looking for local farmers for their produce, dairy, and meat products. Most of those schools, such as Kenyon, Yale University, and the University of Wisconsin among the nation’s most expensive and elite.


But even some struggling public school districts are making it a priority to buy local foods. Ray Denniston is Food Services director of the Johnson City School District in the Catskills region of New York. He says a few years ago they served produce that had been shipped from California or Mexico, or they just opened cans.


“So your fruits and vegetables, kids weren’t taking them; it wasn’t a quality item. I’m not going to say we didn’t worry about it, but it got less attention then the other items on the trays. And now that’s changed. So, instead of getting a canned green bean, which I might as well put sawdust out there as far as nutrients, instead of that, now we would have fresh broccoli.”


Denniston used to sit in his office and look at price quotes from food distributors. Now he visits farms and negotiates the best prices for local products he can find in season. He says the change started with a few tomatoes.


“When I first met with Frank, the farmer, he stopped down and dropped off just some tomatoes. And the staff had some, we had some in the cooler and we brought some out and we cut them and there was a taste thing, and they said, ‘Don’t ever get any others but his.’ I mean, they were just so much sweeter, juicier, wonderful tomatoes and then it just kept going.”


Then came the rich green colored broccoli. It was a big change from what they offered their kids before.


Other schools say students love the taste of milk from local farms that don’t give their cows antibiotics. Johnson says cafeteria workers are excited by the fresher vegetables and meats. They like talking with the students about the food, and they like cooking again. Many schools don’t even have kitchens anymore; they only have heating trays for pre-packaged foods.


Deb Bruns is with the California Department of Education. She says those heated meals often don’t taste very good and she says they send the wrong message to kids.


“…that lunch is a time to grab something processed and hurry through it and get out to recess, and it doesn’t matter what we tell them in the classroom about nutrition if we’re not modeling that in their dining experience then we’re just missing such an opportunity to really teach them where their food comes from.”


Many schools start these programs because of nutrition and obesity concerns. By serving fresh, local food, the nutrition lessons continue when the kids line up in the cafeteria. Some schools say prices from local farms are actually lower then national distributors, but they often end up spending more money on fruits and vegetables. That’s because – believe it or not – kids are eating more broccoli, apples, and tomatoes.


For the GLRC, I’m Julie Grant.

Related Links

Neighborhood Science Lessons for Teachers

Some teachers say today’s students know very little about where their food comes from, or why they should worry about the health of local fish and wildlife. And they say that makes subjects like biology and ecology boring. It also reduces students’ interest in protecting the environment. These teachers are finding a way to bring science home. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Linda Stephan reports:

Transcript

Some teachers say today’s students know very little about where their food comes from, or why they should worry about the health of local fish and wildlife, and they say that makes subjects like biology and ecology boring. It also reduces students’ interest in protecting the environment. These teachers are finding a way to bring science home. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Linda Stephan reports:


(waves)


In the Great Lakes region, home is never far from the water…


(teachers yelling to each other)


And these science teachers aren’t far from home either. They’re at the Lake Michigan shoreline pulling out a 150 foot net to catch fish. The teachers are getting an in-depth look at environmental issues near their homes in Michigan. And in return, they’ll weave those topics into their lessons this fall.


Today, their task is to catch a sample of fish, identify them by species, and to figure out whether those types of fish can survive in polluted waters. In the end, they’ll decide whether to let a hypothetical development group build a marina here. Michigan Department of Natural Resources biologist Todd Kalish built the scenario based on proposals he’s seen.


“This is a diagram of the proposed marina. They’re going to have to dredge about eighty cubic yards of sediment, and they’re also going to construct seawalls.”


Kalish says dredging will stir up sediment that can hurt some types of fish. Simply labeling fish will get some students’ attention, but Kalish says teachers can get more interest from more students by combining that lesson with his marina proposal. And it will also teach students how the environment is affected when we build things.


This training is the brainchild of Mary Whitmore, a curriculum developer. She’s using students’ local communities to inspire them to care about science, and she’s using science to inspire students to care about their communities. Whitmore’s setting up similar trainings in a lot of towns. She says investigating each community separately is a lot of work, but it’s necessary.


“My attitude has shifted completely from focusing solely on teachers – which I did for many, many years – to suddenly realizing that unless communities become meaningfully engaged with their schools, educating young people is going to become an increasingly difficult problem.”


Whitmore says that’s particularly true with life sciences. She says the subject’s ultimately about diagnosing and solving problems. And just talking about what some scientist has already figured out or simply labeling a fish misses the critical point for students. Who cares?


Whitmore says that’s especially true today when fresh water seems to come from bottles, instead of from a stream or a creek and produce at the grocery store rarely comes from a local farm. She says these days we’re not really connected with the environment that keeps us alive. But Whitmore says with the help of local environmental groups and other community partners, teachers can fit those lessons into the standard curriculum.


“As a high school teacher, I know I have to teach about, let’s say, ecology. And so, what I’m going to do is use water as a theme for my teaching about ecology. And I’m going to still be teaching the state standards and benchmarks in science. But I’m going to be doing it in a way that is much more meaningful for my students.”


Whitmore says teachers who attended her first training last year changed how they teach. They’re doing projects that mean something to students. One’s working with students to build rain gardens, others are raising salmon.


Teachers here today say it was already their goal to incorporate local issues in the classroom, but some say they couldn’t effectively teach on local issues because they didn’t understand those issues themselves. Christie Jenemabi Johnston teaches seventh through twelfth grade. She was impacted by a tour of the local wastewater treatment plant.


“Yes, I know how water treatment is done, and the essentials and the mechanics of it. But I never really took it to heart as far as what it meant in my immediate surroundings. And it just – it makes a big difference now.”


And she says knowing those things can help her students to get involved in their community. Of course in the end, if this model is to be truly successful it has to grab the attention of students, not just teachers. While the teachers were taking fish from the nets, a couple elementary-aged children were swimming nearby and they came over to see what was caught.


“Come on and look!”


“Wanna see ’em?”


“How big?”


“Oh, just little baby ones.”


“I don’t know are they all baby fish just because they’re little?”


If these kids are any indication of student response in the classroom, the programs just might work.


For the GLRC, I’m Linda Stephan.

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Kids Get a Hands-On Outdoor Education

  • Instead of a traditional classroom, the students of Goodwillie Environmental School are learning outside. (Photo by Michel Collot)

Most 5th and 6th graders right now are enjoying outdoor activities during their summer vacation. But at one public school, the outdoors is part of the curriculum, year round. The school aims to turn kids who love the outdoors into lifelong stewards of the earth. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tracy Samilton reports:

Transcript

Most fifth and sixth graders right now are enjoying outdoor activities
during their summer vacation, but at one public school, the outdoors is
part of the curriculum, year-round. The school aims to turn kids who love
the outdoors into lifelong stewards of the earth. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tracy Samilton
reports.


(Sound of sawing wood)


Sawing logs is hard work, especially for fifth graders like Amelia, Leoni,
and Taylor. The results can be seen in this rustic, but sturdy log cabin
overlooking the Goodwillie Environmental School. The cabin was built almost
entirely by the fifth grade class in half hour shifts, because the work is
so demanding.


“We worked on the chinking, the floor inside here – I did that
chinking! And then we worked on the floor inside here – and
when we get enough bricks, that’s what the fireplace is going to look like.”


The students get most of their instruction in science, math, history, and
other subjects as they hike through the woods or work on an outdoor project
like the cabin. Of course, they spend some of their time in the classrooms
in the southwest Michigan school. But today, volunteer George Stegmeyer is
building a kiln, where he will fire raw bricks for the cabin’s fireplace. The
bricks were made by the students with mud they dug from the grounds.
Stegmeyer explains how the hot air will move through the kiln and then blast
through the chimney.


“Just like firing pottery, it reconfigures the molecules so that they are no longer water-soluble.”


The students call Stegmeyer “grandpa,” an example of the extended family
atmosphere of the school. Only about fifty children are selected each year:
the ones who show a passion for the outdoors. Parent Peter Chan says it’s
not for every kid, but he wishes all school districts had an option like
this.


“I spent from sunup to sundown, most of the time, I can remember playing outdoors, if not exploring

the fields, the farmer orchard, or the woods by my house. Unfortunately
today, children don’t have that experience.”


Chan went to a similar school when he was young. He’s now a meteorologist.
He’s enthusiastic about his son having the same opportunity. Some of the
parents might worry that their child could fall behind in traditional
coursework here. But fifth-grade teacher Rick Gillett says there’s nothing
to fear. Students consistently score one hundred on the state’s annual standardized
test, all without “teaching to the test.”


“For instance, in the science test, when you get into the physics, in inclined planes and pulleys,

when you’ve actually used them in building the log cabin, it makes sense. You really understand how

the physics work.”


Gillett says he doesn’t expect every student in the outdoor school to become
a biologist or forest ranger, but he does expect the school to make a
lasting difference. He says some of his former students have come back
to see him when they’ve reached college age. He says that’s when it really
seems to sink in how much they learned here.


“I really do… I think that once it’s in your heart you’re never going to get it out of
there.”


That already seems to be the case with most of the students. Fifth-graders
Spencer and Evan can’t wait until sixth grade, when they’ll have a chance to
tackle a project in the Native American village that’s tucked into the woods
below the log cabin. They show off the two buildings that previous sixth
graders built: an Ojibwa smokehouse and a winterhouse.


“This is the inner bark of basswood it basically ties whole thing together, holds it up. These go

down about five feet into the ground, these go down about ten feet into the ground, so as you can

see it’s very, very sturdy.”


This fall, a brand new group of fifth graders will arrive at Goodwillie
Environmental School. They’ll take up where the last class left off and
build the fireplace for the cabin. Along the way, they will also pick up
the knowledge, experience, and passion for the outdoors that will help them
be lifelong stewards of the earth in years to come.


For the GLRC, I’m Tracy Samilton.

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Keeping Age Old Farm Skills Alive

  • Dick Roosenberg, founder of Tillers International, has made it his business to teach people how to farm without expensive farm equipment. (Photo by Tamar Charney)

Ox-team driving, blacksmithing, and timber framing might seem like really out of date skills, but there is a place that is still teaching them. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tamar Charney pays a visit to Tillers International near Scotts, Michigan:

Transcript

Ox-team driving, blacksmithing, and timber framing might seem like
really out of date skills, but there is a place that is still teaching
them. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tamar Charney
pays a visit to Tillers International near Scotts, Michigan.


The sun is blazing straight down and the humidity is oppressive, flies are
buzzing left, right, and center, and I’m standing next to two enormous oxen
named Marco and Polo. Marco’s horn is right next to my eye. I’m told he
won’t try to gore me.


“I mean you have to give them leeway, because their head weighs 150 pounds,
and if they going for that fly and you happen to be in between… yeah.”


(Sound of ox snorting)


Dick Roosenberg hands me a stick called a goad and I’m supposed to now
drive them.


(Sound of clinking)


ROOSENBERG: “Come up easy. Whoa.”


CHARNEY: “So if I want them to go forward I bring it up here?”


ROOSENBERG: “No, that’s stop. You keep it back here and say Marco, Polo, come!”


CHARNEY: “Marco, Polo, come! Wahhh… As they step on me.”


They take off, but they’re not heading where I want them to.


CHARNEY: “Whoa, whoa, whooooaaa…”


ROOSENBERG: “Marco, Polo, whoa.”


They make a beeline off the path.


(Sound of laughing)


CHARNEY: “Oh this is good grass.”


ROOSENBERG: “They say, ‘We see alfalfa blossoms and we are going…'”


CHARNEY: “And we have a novice in charge.”


ROOSENBERG: “‘Cause we can tell we can get away with this.”


CHARNEY: “How would I get them to back up?”


ROOSENBERG: “Probably, from the alfalfa, you have a challenge.”


Dick Roosenberg had a similar experience back in the 1960’s when the Peace
Corps sent him to West Africa. His job was help people there move from farming with a hand hoe to

farming with animal power.


Tse tse flies had infected cattle there with blood parasites. Those parasites
kept the oxen from having the endurance to do work. But new medicines changed that. However, by

that time, no one knew how to use an ox team.


“We certainly didn’t know how to train them to respond to gee and haw
and all of those things and you know, the harnessing and everything was a
big challenge for us, and we didn’t understand the fine physical dynamics
of something like that.”


There weren’t books about it and ox driving sure wasn’t taught in ag
school. Small groups of people who did historical reenactments still had the
skills, but there was no place to go to learn the old ways. Dick Roosenberg decided to change that.

So he started Tillers
International.


ORR: “I’m going to go check for eggs.”


(Sound of clucking and peeping)


Maurya Orr is an intern at Tillers. She’s been learning how to plow with
an ox team, take care of animals, and build a barn. And she helps to keep
Tillers demonstration farm going.


“Not enough for an omelet.”


Students and visitors can come here to see that farming can be done with
out modern expensive equipment. Tillers also runs formal workshops and
classes. People from all over the world come here to take an ox driving
class, learn how to forge their own tools, and build things by hand.


Chuck Andrews is one of those people. He had been a chemical engineer but
was always fascinated by blacksmithing. He took a class about it, and today
teaches it at Tillers. He says there are a variety of reasons people want
to learn what Tillers has to teach.


“We have people interested in reenacting. We have people from low-capital agricultural environments

like homesteaders, we have
international students, and we have people that are interested in these
skills for organizations like the peace corps and for missionary work.


“Many of these skills like we see the oxen being driven up the lane
right now even 100 years ago that particular need in this area was fading,
but yet we here are capturing that knowledge base and somebody has to be
there to preserve them and to keep these traditions going in a sense.”


Dick Roosenberg has his head pressed into the side of a cow. He’s milking
her by hand. But not everything at Tillers is old fashioned.


Roosenberg is always looking for modern techniques that are inexpensive
and sustainable – things like solar water pumps – that they can combine
with techniques of yesterday and use to help small farmers.


For the GLRC, I’m Tamar Charney.

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