The center's teacher resource building contains environmental resource materials and publications dealing with soil, water, plants, wildlife, and minerals. Thousands of instructional aids are produced in packet form each year for teachers to help relate conservation to the state textbooks. Two thousand earth-science kits of investigational materials for children are assembled and distributed each year.

Through the years Monlux has had only one laboratory-type environmental classroom staffed by a qualified teacher. Now there is a second classroom staffed by trained volunteers. The new facility is

enging, and economical conservaion study project in Los Angeles, Calif.

It was developed by Ralph Turner, elementary science specialist in charge of the Monlux Science and Conservation Center for the Los Angeles Unified School Districts.

Conservation in Miniature is only a part of an innovative conservation program developed 7 years ago within the limitations of budget and personnel common to many urban school systems.

Turner contends that any school district can duplicate the Monlux program at little expense. Conservation in Miniature cost only $150 to $200 in basic materials. It can be adapted to fit local conservation patterns of any part of the country. Volunteer personnel can be recruited and trained from within the community.

The center's outdoor environmental area totals about 1,200 square feet. One part contains "working" and "living" examples of scientific conservation on the farm. The visiting school children develop an awareness of the value of farm practices such as contour farming, terracing, waterways, windbreaks, and conservation grazing. A model of the Los Angeles basin flood-prevention project adds to their understanding of water conservation and management.

investigational or experiencing level.

Directors of the San Fernando Valley Soil Conservation District have made the Monlux Center part of their program in conservation education by preparing a giant-sized, full-color postcard which pictures the Conservation in Miniature area. It is distributed, with additional information about the center, to conservation districts in California and other states.

The San Fernando District, which was formed in 1944, now includes densely urbanized segments of Los Angeles. This means that the Monlux Center is a useful conservation program for the city-dwelling childen of the area's school districts.EURSELL S. CORDELL, district conservationist, SCS, Lancaster, Calif.♦

Pines planted 20 to 25 years ago

on school-forest land are ready

to prune and thin.

Sc

chool forests in western Ottawa County, Mich., have for more than 30 years proved their value as renewable, instructional resources.

They are part of an outdoor education program initiated by the West Ottawa Soil Conservation District soon after its formation in 1938, when the County Board of Supervisors leased 2,000 acres of land to the district for long-term stabilization work.

The original forest in western Ottawa County had been cut or burned over between 1840 and 1900 -some of it to rebuild Chicago

after that city's great fire. Later farming operations depleted organ: matter in the sandy soils and dune areas. Families moved away when the soil began to blow.

Many of the teachers and schoo children who stayed in the are helped the district cope with drifting sand by planting new trees. The dis trict leased 17 tracts within its 2,00 acres of county land to schools for 50 years. Students and teachers ther planted mixed pine seedlings fur nished by the district's nursery each school's forest of the future.

Clarence Reenders, chairman d the district board of directors (wh has served on the board continu ously since 1938), recalls:

"I drove many miles with my olc Ford hauling kids and trees. We furnished the ice cream and they planted trees."

Most of the small schools have been annexed by larger systems, bu they are still involved in the project

"Each year we expand our outdoor education program," Reender said. "At the present we are work ing with 44 schools in Ottawa County. Each signs up as a coopera

Rea

"As we work with schools, we njoy the enthusiasm of the admin:trators and teachers involved. The ide range of activities possible in n outdoor classroom seems almost nlimited," Reenders said.

Trees in most of the school forests re now large enough for pruning nd thinning. Several summers ago, Grand Haven schools sold 5 cords f pulpwood per acre after they had worked on their forests. The income aid for most of the timber-stand mprovement.

The Ventura School for handiapped children makes good use of he Beechwood School forest, a 35

acre pine plantation. Older boys prune crop trees selected by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources forester. Pruning limbs off trees up to 17 feet makes it possible to eventually harvest sawlogs that can be cut into lumber free of loose knots.

"It gives the boys something to do as well as a feeling of accomplishment," says Harold Knoll, who is in charge of the program.

Each year Christmas trees are harvested and sold from the Robinson School forest operated by the Grand Haven schools. The project Grand Haven schools. The project is carried out by the senior high school marketing class. Students cut, bundle, haul the trees to Grand Haven, and set up sales lots. They determine prices and make sales. Proceeds are used by the school to finance other conservation activities.

"We try to relate conservation of natural resources to as many subjects as we can," Jack Barendse, Peach Plains School principal, said. "The school forest is an excellent place to teach children about their environment. It is valuable in teach

ing esthetic appreciation as well as responsibility for maintaining natural areas for erosion control and wildlife habitat."

Last year Grand Haven, West Ottawa, Hudsonville, and Coopersville schools planted 100 wildlife packets of 100 plants each on their school grounds under district supervision. These will provide wildlife food and cover and add to the value of the outdoor classrooms, too.

Indoor support for these outdoor programs can be found in the visual aids library of the Ottawa Area Intermediate Schools. Urban and rural schools throughout Ottawa County use the library's wealth of material on conservation and other subjects.

Since 1942, students from urban and rural schools have toured the county to see conservation practices.

One year as many as 1,200 students took part. The tour is sponsored by the district in cooperation with the Ottawa Area Intermediate School District, the Ottawa County Extension Service, and the Soil Conservation Service.

With the support of these agencies and continuing interest on the part of the schools, the district's school forest program will probably continue to grow as sure and strong as those first trees set more than a generation ago. ♦

Signs like this mark school-forest sites in the West Ottawa District.

T

o a child in a city's center, environment is pavement, traffic lights, and the smell of auto exhaust.

At Mildred Green Elementary School in Washington, D.C., the students now know environment of another kind, where they learn about soil and water, and where they walk a nature learning trail to touch, smell, and study flowers, leaves, and trees.

The Green School outdoor classroom project has the enthusiastic cooperation of Principal Vandy Jamison and a group of dedicated teachers, with the firm support of the District School Board.

When the board's science supervisor decided on Green School as the site for a pilot project for a center-city school site development 2 years ago, the Soil Conservation Service in nearby Maryland furnished a conservation plan for the grounds, with technical help and the services of District Conserva

tionist Ernest Moody to work with the teachers and students in using the outdoor classroom.

Green School happened to have more land than most center-city schools, but it also had more problems with erosion and surface water runoff.

Students planted grass on eroding slopes behind the school. They planted pine seedlings, autumn olive for wildlife food and habitat, and forsythia for beauty. Thickgrowing crownvetch stabilized the most seriously eroding areas.

The School Board built a retaining wall to hold a steep bank in check. Next spring the students will plant Memorial Rose along the wall's top.

With the conservation plan for the site as a guide, the whole area is used as a teaching laboratory where city children are learning about a kind of environment they hadn't known before.

Even a decaying stump (above) holds an environmental lesson. A student (left) caresses the petals of a shrub he helped plant.