Learning fo grow up green

Forest and Bird, Volume 22, Issue 2, 1 May 1991, Page 16

Learning fo grow up green

by

Cindy Baxter

As interest in the environment grows among the young, many of them are learning that what they do makes a difference.

GROUP OF Whakatane High School stu- " ©. dents protests against tropical rainforest timber being used in decking for a new school building. Their pressure results in the rainforest timber being replaced with New Zealand pine. Wairarapa College student Fiona Beardslee, 14, calls a public meeting to discuss regular cleanups of local beaches and lakes. The beach cleanups are now a part of community life. Once a month, teams co-ordinated by the schoolgirl clear litter from the Wairarapa coastline and lake shores. Three university students, Kate and Megan Graeme and David Holland, spend their holidays surveying the presence of wild ginger in the Coromandel, presenting the local council with a comprehensive report and map to help eradicate the noxious plant. These students are just some of many young people today who are acting to clean up the environment, encouraging their peers and parents to follow suit. But just how widespread is this concern among children? Are young people today taking more notice of environmental issues than their parents? Tropical Rainforest activist Ange Palmer spent last year taking the New Zealand Forest Education Roadshow to 130 schools around the country, alerting students to the rainforest issue. The focus of the group was on the older students, in the sixth and seventh form. "Children, especially of the age group dealt with by the Roadshow, are well aware that theirs is the future. They are worried about what is to be handed down to them by us, and therefore they have a strong instinct to understand what is going on," she says in her. final report. "Putting energy into young people is surely our best investment for Earth." The presentation started on global environmental problems, and came right back to the local situation. The Roadshow, although working with some of the teachers, focused on the children themselves. "I think that when the kids looked at us, in our jeans and basketball boots, speaking to them in their own language, a lot of them realised that it’s ‘cool’ to be interested in the environment," she says. Fiona Beardslee agrees. "I think that kids are much more prepared to do something about their environment today."

Parents, she says, are much more likely to back away from environmental problems, a difficulty she found frustrating in her efforts to clean up the beaches. Many of her fellow students were keen to help, but couldn't get parental support in the form of transport provided by their parents. Young peoples’ interest in the environmental movement has certainly gained momentum in recent years, says Department of Conservation education officer Bev Abbott. "One of the lessons we have learnt is that the global environmental problems worry kids a lot. It is very easy for them to start feeling that they cannot do anything about it. "What we need to do is get the ‘you can make a difference’ message out." It seems that message is getting through. Throughout New Zealand, school and university students are actively doing something to make a difference. On March 22, thousands of schoolchildren took to the Christchurch beaches to pick up litter. Organiser Leon Bertstein was amazed at the response he got when he began planning the cleanup. "I found that where I had asked a school if they had one or two classes who could take part, the entire school ended up coming along. The kids are so interested, they are really into it and they are concerned about it." The Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society's Kiwi Conservation Club, formed three years ago, now has 5000 members and the membership list is growing fast. Education Officer Chris Wratt says the Club’s aim is to empower young people to take care of their local environment, teaching

through action at the local level. "There is an incredible interest in conservation and environment issues from kids. Through the KCC, we are teaching them that there are things you can do at the local level that will make a difference," he says. Forest and Bird is hoping to link up with the Rainforests Action Group and Project X to start a newsletter aimed at secondary school and university environmental groups. It will give them the opportunity to share ideas, plus information on local issues, how to set up a group, plan action and how to increase membership. Greenpeace education co-ordinator Pauline MacDonald says that she gets about 50 letters a day from schoolchildren interested in a huge range of environmental issues. But she says the organisation is also moving to a point where young people are encouraged to do their own research. "We don’t want to just hand out information for their projects, we would like to empower kids to take their own action. For example, if their local stream is being polluted, they should find out where it is coming from and approach the companies themselves." Victoria University students Patricia Ng and Carol Stephenson last year took a course in playwriting, where they wrote and performed a play about an area of local concern — the proposed Kapiti Island Marine Reserve. Their performances at local schools included a question and answer session at the end for the audience to take part. "The questions they asked us and the interest that we generated was such that we

wanted to take it further," says Patricia. "We felt we had a powerful piece of information about conservation to take to schools." After the university year, they formed their own theatre group and gave a further 16 performances to schools around the Wellington region. The quest by.young people for information on the environment is catching up with an education system which does not adequately cater for the subject. Natural Heritage Foundation executive director Delyse Springett is concerned that teachers do not have sufficient resource material for their classes. "The kids are aware and they are interested. But teachers often feel out on a limb because their own environmental education was so slight," she says. The Foundation had initiated environmental courses for teachers this year and hopes to be able to extend that education. Later in the year it will hold a conference focusing on environmental education in New Zealand. Getting the subject into school curriculums is one main aim. Ange Palmer's roadshow around New Zealand also included a quiz for students to ascertain their level of environmental and conservation knowledge. "Environmental education is seriously lacking in this country. Young people want to take action but don’t know how," she says. Chris Wratt agrees that environmental education is happening despite the subject not being taught as part of the mainstream school curriculum. "Teachers are crying out for information. The NGOs (Non-Government Organisations)

themselves are the ones who are trying to fill the gap. The Government is not providing anything, " he says. But the lack of environmental education in school curriculums has not stopped the energies of the students and many teachers. Many schools around the country now have recycling as a part of the school system. While this has often been initiated by the children themselves, teachers are also using recycling as an environmental activity that the whole school can take part in (while raising much needed funds). On Auckland's North Shore, Sunnybrae Normal School principal Kevin O’Carroll says he has cut down the use of the school's incinerator through the recycling programme. "We are trying to eliminate its use to a large extent, and encouraging the children to recycle," he says. "Caring for the environment is one of our charter goals." Not so with other schools. Hutt Valley High School pupils were horrified last year when they saw the trees on the stopbank at the back of the school being cut down. Pupils formed an environment committee to try and fight the action, but were too late. By the time they went to the council (which was, according to the school, responsible) and were in turn told by the council that it was the school’s responsibility, the trees had gone. Ironically, the committee has since raised $3000, half of which has been used to plant more trees around the school grounds. The environment committee is active, and further recycling, educational and local environmental issues are being addressed. Comalco’s "Cash for Cans" scheme of aluminium can recycling has taken off in schools and is a hit for young people. Last year’s programme collected 70 percent more cans than the 1989 programme. The school activities spread into the home and to parents. Parents are being harassed by their younger children into getting their five bins for recycling aluminium cans, plastic, paper, food scraps and glass. Leiarne Mackenzie, a Christchurch environmentalist, is often taken down to the river by her son, James, aged 10, to clean up the litter there. "Not only are we now recycling our own rubbish, but all the stuff from the river as well," she says. Mrs Mackenzie herself is involved in the environmental movement and says James is furious if he’s discovered she has gone to a meeting without her. "It’s great — he’s encouraging the other kids at school to join groups and take part, and, through them, the message is getting to other adults," she says. "It’s always been a case of kids learning from adults. Now it’s time for them to educate the grownups. I feel sorry for kids sometimes because they know what is going on and they feel that they have no say and adults won't listen to them. The tables have now been turned." Hannah Efford, 12, of Te Aro School, points to the reason. "We have to live in this world for longer than the adults do, and so do future generations. What I like about New Zealand is how green and beautiful it is. Since New Zealand is so wonderful we should try to keep it clean." With this sort of attitude amongst today’s younger generation, the future looks bright. e