A VALUABLE LESSON

by Nancy Sefton

One fall day, members of our little homeowner’s association gathered to clean up the brush along the sides of our gravel road. A small row of alder saplings had dared to sprout in our drainage ditch, threatening to disrupt the flow of rainwater from our hillside neighborhood into Puget Sound.

My husband was about to start up his chain saw when a 12-year-old boy from down the street came by on his bicycle. He stopped, his eyes wide with astonishment. "You can’t take those trees away," he said. "Didn’t you know? Trees are the lungs of the earth!"

We all stopped working. There was a long silence. Finally I spoke, curious to know whether this young man was simply repeating a phrase heard in class, or if he really understood the concept. "How do you mean, Sammy?" I asked.

"Well, trees breathe carbon dioxide from the air. Then they breathe out oxygen. We all need oxygen!" he replied with self-confidence, and an air of satisfaction; after all, he'd just given 6 attentive adults a mini-lesson about our planet’s life processes.

Why do I remember this so well? Although I’ve long believed in education as one solution to the earth’s environmental woes, that was the first time I’d seen it so graphically at work.



Since then, I’ve seen it repeated time and time again. At places like Islandwood and the Poulsbo Marine Science Center, kids are finding adventure in discovery. A six-year-old learns that some sea stars have 20 arms; a nine-year-old learns that leaves falling to the forest floor are part of a cycle on which the entire forest thrives. Children exploring a beach with a naturalist learn even more, because they’re actually immersed in a natural habitat, watching a variety of marine creatures trying to make a living on a muddy, sandy, cobble or rocky shore.

Decades ago, there was no such thing as "environmental education". Today it’s all around us, in the classroom, in the field, in community youth programs, and on the TV screen, an effort born of necessity. Altogether, we’re creating better stewards of the natural environment that sustains all life.



Now, I must confess that the alder saplings rising in our drainage ditch were ultimately sacrificed in the name of more efficient runoff. But the incident left me with better feelings about our planet’s future, thanks to a young neighbor and his concern for trees and their precious gift of oxygen.