News Press

March 28, 2009

Lee County schools losing funds for field trips

by kevin lollar
klollar@news-press.com

http://www.news-press.com/article/20090328/NEWS0104/903280380/1006/

Despite a cold southeast 15-mph wind and choppy water one morning last week, 30 Tice Elementary third-graders collected biological specimens from the mudflats of Matlacha Pass at Tropical Point Park.

They were among the lucky few to participate this year in a field trip with Lee County School District's nationally famous, award-winning environmental education program.

Like many other school programs, environmental education has hit a rocky economic road - the Lee County School District recently announced that 80 art and music teachers might be cut from elementary schools as officials try to cut tens of millions of dollars from the budget.

Last year, environmental education's budget was cut by 10 percent, and by another 25 percent this year; the operating budget is now $15,227 compared to a peak of $40,000 to $60,000 in the mid-1990s.

In past years, the program had 12 full-time employees; now it has two.

"Obviously they're taking a hit, and we're disappointed," said Michael McNerney, the school district's chief administrative officer. "But we're all looking at the same situation, and this is even more of an opportunity for us to be conscious of the environment."

The district has no immediate plans to make further cuts to environmental education.

Drop in visits

Since its founding, Environmental Education's focus has been field trips into Lee County's habitats.

During good times, the program took students from all grade levels on as many as 1,200 field trips a year.

During the 2007-08 school year, environmental education took students from seven grade levels on 345 trips to seven habitats; in 2008-09, the total is 26 trips to one habitat - mudflats - for third-graders from nine of 49 schools (the schools were chosen by lottery).

After her third-graders collected plants and animals from Matlacha Pass last week, 34-year district veteran Ann Franta discussed the cuts.

"It's sad," she said. "I just had a child tell me, 'Mrs. Franta, this is a glorious day.' This kind of experience can affect students the rest of their lives. It makes them aware of their environment. It makes them want to care for it.

"This program is very important."

Environmental educator Bill Hammond started the program in 1972 while teaching at Cypress Lake High School - he had moved to Lee County from Great Kills, N.Y., in 1961 to teach at Lee Junior and Senior High School, where he started the county's first marine science program.

Hammond's educational approach has always been environmental context.

"I came from upstate New York, and Lee County was using textbooks with all the plants and animals I saw in upstate New York and nothing from here," said Hammond, now an adviser for Kitson & Partners, a West Palm Beach firm developing Babcock Ranch. "I did a survey of the students and was amazed how few had been to a beach or mudflat."

So the marine science program and, later, environmental education emphasized putting students into Lee County's various habitats, including beaches, mudflats, mangrove forests, freshwater marshes and uplands.

Seeing the environment first-hand is essential for anybody trying to learn about it, said environmental education coordinator Rick Tully, who also runs the district's science program.

"The intellectual experience of life requires a huge amount of sensory input," he said. "If you're reading about something in a book, you're missing all that sensation. You're missing a chance to really experience it. When you're locked into an artificial text, whether it's a book or video, you just don't get the depth and richness you get in the real world."

But the program is more than hauling students to a mudflat or beach and letting them poke around.

Each trip is the culmination of a specific unit about a specific subject with a well-defined curriculum. Before they go into a habitat, students learn how it works and why it's important.

"The biggest value was the curriculum that led up to the trip," said computer consultant David Yates, founder of Geeks-r-Us and a 1978 Cypress Lake graduate. "It cut across all school disciplines: math, writing skills, social aspects. When I was in high school, we'd have educators from around the world visit and study our curriculum and how they taught it because what we were doing was that good.

"I probably got more real-world experience out of the environmental education program than any other single thing I did in school."

Fewer sponsors

In addition to its school district budget, environmental education once received money from corporate sponsors, but as the economy has faded, so have sponsors.

One sponsor that has continued to finance the program is the Lee County Mosquito Control District, which pumps $150,000 a year into environmental education for an aquatic systems/mosquito control education program.

The curriculum is aimed at kindergartners, fifth- and sixth-graders and high school biology and chemistry students - this year the program reached 9,245 students.

In addition to operating costs, the mosquito district money pays for two teachers.

Florida Gulf Coast University also gets $104,000 from the mosquito district, which pays for an instructor and training for interns who, in turn, work in the environmental education program.

"The district has a vested interest in the science education of the community," mosquito district spokeswoman Shelly Redovan said. "The program helps facilitate students' understanding of science and environmental issues."

With money and field-trip opportunities drying up, environmental education has started the Green Bus Recycling Experience, a traveling event that teaches fourth-graders about the new 3 Rs: reduce, reuse and recycle.

This year, the Green Bus visited 12 elementary schools.

Even though environmental education has entered a dark time, Hammond is optimistic the economy and the program will turn around:

"Natural cycles work that way," he said.

"There are ups and downs. There is no steady state. This is a rebuilding time, like right after the hurricane with all those mangrove trees putting new sprouts out.

"That's the way it's going to be with environmental education, as long as we keep the roots and trunks intact."