Education Environmentalists through Field Trips
the first question
um during the time you taught at lg how
did you address
environmental education
so um in terms of environmental
education
we started this trip called the
catalina island field trip and it was
the
kind of big thing that happened
in my ap bio class which i taught for
since 1989 and it was that particular
course
where i was able to take kids out into
the field
and get them to experience in a real way
environmental education
and another thing that i did was when i
was department chair
of the science department i
asked one of our teachers our young
teachers amelia de la paz
if she would be interested in starting
an ap
environmental science class and so that
was
201
10 was the first year we started
an ap environmental science class and
that was awesome
because you know the whole class
is environmental science and she’s such
a popular teacher she’s such a great
teacher
that it filled up and she has five
sections
of um ap environmental science which
we’ve
it’s been running now for 10 11 years
which is fantastic
how did you initiate the catalina trip
and how long has it been
so i began teaching uh in 1980
in los angeles at a little private
school and
for two years and they that’s where i
first went to catalina island with we
went for an entire week actually
because they believe so strongly in
environmental education
and then when i came up to los gatos
high school
i started in 84 and in 1989 i finally
started teaching ap bio
and that’s when i initiated the ap the
catalina trip
and it started out um very small just i
think 12 kids
and we took a couple of cars down drove
down to l.a
and um did the trip so what is the main
focus of the trip
and how does it relate to building
awareness of climate change
so the main focus of the trip has always
been
in my mind uh two
several folds first of all um number one
i think the best way for kids to learn
is to get out of the classroom
and so whenever i can take kids on field
trips
i know that those will be the most
memorable things that happened to them
in high school
and so that was number one let’s get
them out of the classroom let’s get them
out into the environment
and one of my missions
in doing this trip is um
because i had such a wonderful
experience when i took kids down there
in my first couple years teaching i knew
how magical the place was
and i knew that it would allow kids
to fall in love with nature with the
environment
and to me if you can get someone to fall
in love
with the environment with nature then
you’ve got an environmentalist for the
rest of your life
and so you don’t have to specifically
teach
like climate change because when i
started teaching when i started taking
kids down to um catalina island
even though climate change was an issue
it was not the issue that is today it
wasn’t a big
so it was not really on the horizon but
now it’s a big issue
well we’ve taken kids down to cali
island for so many years now
that we have thousands of kids who are
environmentalists
and so even though we didn’t
specifically teach them about
climate change i am sure they are all
voting in a way
in doing things in their lives that will
help promote
awareness of climate change and best
practices in terms of
helping our climate being a sophomore
i’ve already heard it from multiple
students about the trip those who have
gone
have special memories and others look
forward to when they’ll be able to go
what makes it so special well
i mean first of all it’s
three it’s a three-day trip um we
two classes go ap bio
and ap environmental science and
probably about
60 of each of those classes go
and we take two airplanes because
there’s so many people now
we have to fly two airplanes down and
this whole weekend is just a bonding
experience with
all these different kids because you
have juniors and seniors
you have ap bio and ap environmental
science and we mix
everything up so it just becomes a very
inclusive
family atmosphere and we really
encourage you know juniors to mix with
seniors and ap biology mixed with
mixed with environmental ap
environmental science
um you know there’s the dorms they get
to live in the dorms which is really
cool we all eat together in a dining
room
um the instructors are just fantastic
they’re super enthusiastic
and we do so many things it’s like at
the end of the
weekend you you can’t imagine you’ve
only been there for three days it feels
like you’ve been there for like two
weeks
because we’ve done so many amazing
different things
um so to say any one special thing it’s
hard to say
but it’s the whole experience is i would
say it’s magical
and then we were wondering uh how many
students do you think you’ve
taken to on the trip over the years you
know it’s hard to say
um i’d have to sit down and calculate
like i said i think the first year
i took about 12 kids from hippie bio i
think i had one ap bio class that year
it was my very first year of teaching ap
bio i
took 12 kids in a couple cars and then
it just kept growing and growing and
growing as ap bio i got more ap
biosections
and then amelia uh you know she
we take her kids down so
most recently we’re taking around
somewhere between around 130 to 140 kids
every year now and um you just
multiply that by well we’ve been doing
that for almost
10 or 11 years because the two classes
combined and then before that
maybe half the amount so you know
certainly
we’ve taken uh at least you know over a
thousand
you know several thousand kids maybe
and i would say to you guys you you know
things can begin like a little mustard
seed and then they just get bigger and
bigger and bigger and bigger
and you have no idea i had no idea
that my first year of teaching in 1980
and i went with this little private
school
down to this you know place on catalina
island that
someday i would be leading
almost 140 kids every year
down to this place um with you know it’s
just
it’s amazing and it has had such an
impact on so many kids
i mean like one of my students for
instance um
what my one of my very first students i
had she
ended up working at the children’s
discovery museum
and started a program which is called
bio site
where you bring fourth graders and have
the
high school teachers teach the fourth
graders
stream ecology i knew that she was doing
this
and of course she was inspired to go
into environmental science because of
the catalina trip and then when we
started
ap environmental science i asked mrs de
la paz
would you like to meet my friend and she
said absolutely
and so that year she started a biocide
program at last gas high school so we’ve
been doing that now
since 2010 and bringing in fourth
graders
and now those fourth graders are now
high school students
uh so and they’re teaching fourth
graders as well so there’s another piece
you know that this it’s just amazing
what you can do you start out small
and you never know you know they say a
teacher never knows where their
influence will stop
and i believe that’s really true and um
this this i just gave you a little
example of
you know how that how that works
can i read a quote to you yes please
yeah so this is a quote um you may know
rachel um carson is a um
she was really the one that started the
environmental movement
back in the late 50s early 60s she wrote
a book called silent spring
super famous and she has this wonderful
quote i just want to read to you
i mean this is kind of an inspiration
for
you ask you know why do you take this
trip to catalina island and this is one
of the reasons
she said if a child is to keep alive his
inborn sense of wonder
he needs the companionship of at least
one adult
who can share it rediscovering with him
the joy excitement and mystery of the
world we live in
and that’s a quote from rachel carson
and i just think it really
explains what i was doing when i was
teaching
and what amelia kathy messenger jim
bryant are now doing
as they continue this trip into the
future