Alex Coolman
NEWPORT-MESA -- Fifth-grader Cynthia Felix raised her small hand when the
teacher asked if anyone in class could recite a few vocabulary words from
a recent lesson.
"Acid," she announced. "Sewage. Turbidity. Phosphate. Biochemical Oxygen
Demand."
Biochemical Oxygen Demand? Most adults would be baffled by the scientific
term. But for the kids in James Martinez' class at Killybrooke Elementary
School, this kind of environmental terminology is standard stuff.
Martinez' class has been participating in the Watershed Education Plan,
one of several programs in the Newport-Mesa Unified School district that
bring a strong environmental element into elementary education.
These types of programs, educators say, are helping young people develop
a much more sensitive understanding of the environment than kids have
ever had before.
"The purpose of a public school education is to prepare citizens to
survive and thrive in the greater society," said Bonnie Swann, director
of elementary education and kindergartenthrough sixth-grade curriculum
for the district.
"Given that mission, what could be more important than making sure that
every student understands the importance of the environment?"
BUILDING AWARENESS
Not all of Martinez' students mastered environmental vocabulary as well
as Cynthia did, but most of them gained a somewhat better understanding
about the sources of water contamination over the course of their unit on
the subject.
Gradually developing such awareness, Martinez said, is the whole point of
such lessons.
"They're going to be the marine problem-solvers of the future," he said.
"Fifteen years from now, they'll know what it means when we say 'coliform
bacteria."'
In fact, today's students are exposed to a wide variety of environmental
information. The district has programs at several grade levels that try
to communicate information about earth-friendly topics.
"At the sixth-grade level," for example, Swann said, "They learn about
land masses."
When they do so, a unit on the dangers of erosion is included.
In other lessons, students are taught about basic ecology and about the
delicate balance of creatures who exist in an ecosystem.
Swann compares this kind of taken-for-granted environmental familiarity
to other changes in societal attitudes that have evolved over time.
"It's sort of like wearing seat belts," or realizing that throwing
garbage out the window of a car isn't a smart way to handle trash, she
said.
Nobody used to give such things a second thought. Today, they do.
