NATURE STUDY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 8 October 1941, Page 6

NATURE STUDY

CONSERVATION LESSONS. Contributors to “The New Zealand Education Gazette” are helping appreciably in the campaign for soil-saving which really means country-saving. In a recent issue Mr L. W. McCaskill stresses the importance of conservation lessons for school children. “A teacher,” he writes, “has suggested as a simple definition of conservation, ‘a wise application of the results of true nature-study.’ The suitability of such a definition is very obvious when we consider the problems of the conservation of vegetation in New Zealand. We cannot understand the major problems affecting forestry without an understanding of the structure and life-his-tory of the individual trees —we cannot discuss intelligently the conservation of tussock or other grasslands unless we are familiar with the characteristics of the individual tussocks, grasses, clovers, and other plants in the various communities. Even the infant classes can accurately observe trees and grasses and learn to identify the commoner ones at all seasons. By means of a properly graduated course it is possible for pupils entering Form 1 to be suitably equipped for a study of the problems of the conservation of forestry and grassland.”