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Julie Gustafson of Boulder, regional education program manager of the National Wildlife Federation, writes:

In line with the RMN’s suggested overhaul of No Child Left Behind-it is important Coloradans recognize that reauthorization of this bill has brought the opportunity to advance environmental education in Colorado and on a national level.
Environmental education (EE) is good education. Guidelines for excellence in EE mandate students learn how to think, not what to think.
An unintended yet common consequence of NCLB has been loss of instruction in subject matter that is not tested-including the environment. These ‘lost’ subjects are often of greatest interest to students. For students to succeed, learning must be relevant and interesting – and the environment is.
Today’s students will soon become adults responsible for making increasingly difficult decisions regarding Colorado’s natural resources. Environmental education will help ensure they are prepared for the challenges that lie ahead. To learn more about the call to include environmental education in reauthorization of NCLB visit: http://www.eenclb.org NWF’s mission is to inspire Americans to protect wildlife for our children’s future.

This letter has not been edited.

READER COMMENTS

Educating the kids is good, however, please ensure that such education does not include the idea that acting like groups from ELF or the like is not correct. Teach them that setting fires to car lots or lumber yards or the like is not a good way to protect the enviornment and that doing such acts as these groups have done, that even more dmamge is committed and that is is considered a federal felony and can be considered a terrorist act. Protecting the enviornemt is a nobel idea, but one mst find a responsible balance point between protecting it and using it to continue the evolvement of mankind.

Protecting the enviornemt is a nobel idea, but one mst find a responsible balance point between protecting it and using it to continue the evolvement of mankind.

There's nothing noble about it, it's plain common sense. Without a healthy environment, there will be no "evolvement of mankind."

Or is your definition of "evolvement of mankind" drilling in ANWR, increasing urban sprawl, and generally turning our planet into a parking lot?

I guess dumpster diving will be the next class offered to help save the enviroment and our resources.

Just Joking.

I do think our children need to be educated better on reading,writing,math,science,etc...

Adding a enviromental curriculum to what they are already trying to learn is ridiculous.

Let's stop with the PC courses.

Well, Can I get an Amen, I'd rather my kid was spending time out in the environment and learning about it then glued to a video game for hours on end, getting increasingly fatter and more vacuous by the hour.

If we spent as much time teaching kids how to interact with and understand nature and the outdoors as we spend teaching them how to use the computer, we might see this nation actually go back to some healthier habits, both physically and mentally.

There is more than one kind of intelligence. Sure, some kid could be a whiz at math, and then scream at the top of his lungs if he encountered a lady bug because he spent most of his time indoors.

Check out the book "Last Child in the Woods." We're essentially raising a nation of soft, overindulged kids who can only be entertained via electronic devices. One kid quoted actually said, "I like being inside the best because that's where all the electric outlets are."

Ms.Amen said ” I do think our children need to be educated better on reading,writing,math,science,etc.”

Ok, let’s give them, for example, an environmental course that involves researching the carrying capacity of land, calculating the land area and species types needed to sustain a viable ecosystem, and then present findings in the form of a report that complies with academic and scientific standards.
It would need reading, writing, math, statistics, science, biology, etc.

Or how about a project identifying the increase in pollution, incidence of respiratory illnesses, and cancers due to adding a new coal-fired power plant in a given location. They can also calculate the costs in healthcare, lost production, and weigh this against the benefits of the electricity and lives saved and productivity increases, and jobs created.

The only limit to how well this supports the core subjects you listed is the imagination of the person designing the curriculum and the teachers applying it.

And mailing anthrax to newspeople isn't noble either. So what's your point? Groups like ELF have no real standing in the environmental movement.

Learning about the environment that keeps us alive, is science. What do you people think it is, mythology? Voodoo?

Forget ELF, and side issues. It will help all of us to learn just how fragile the life support system on Earth really is.

What, you think our existence comes with a guarantee?

My children are always out playing.They go hiking,long bike rides,conservation classes through the Museum and The Zoo.They have been on bat hikes into the mountains at dark,they go to the Zoo and Museums alot, Dinosoaur Ridge,They have been to animal shelters to donate food and toys,we recycle,and we teach them about polution and what it does to the enviroment. They often see the haze and brown cloud over Denver and the mountains and we have explained to them why it is there and how it goes away sometimes.

My kids are taught at home about the enviroment. My point was the schools can barely teach the curriculum they have now.I don't think adding enviromental classes wil help. If they can work it into their lesson plan fine.Adding it to the curriculum is to much.

I honestly don't get you sometimes, Amen. On another thread, you complain because teachers are told what to teach and are basically restricted to teach inside this box. You are outraged when you are told that if you want your daughter to learn more advanced math, you will have to teach it to her at home.

Yet on this thread, you mock the idea of a change to the public school system's current curriculum. You imply environmental studies are best learned at home.

I really think your political prejudices are clouding how you are perceiving the letter-writer's suggestions. Environmental studies is not a debate against global warming - for goodness' sake, it's a science...which you said in another post that kids need to be taught more of!

In this PC world if we add a specific curriculum titled Enviroment 101,they will be teaching Al Gore's book and PETA's and ELF views.

I know science involves the enviroment.However the original letter writer wants a new whole curriculum on the Enviroment and implies that this somehow will harm our children if we don't.

This is not needed in the schools.

I think science classes can cover it without adding a whole new curriculum.

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