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system. It should be pointed out that modeling work on environmental systems is a young science in which students can be involved. This means that new curricula at all levels should

aim at developing on the one hand an appreciation of the interrelation of all parts of the web of life, but on the other a feel for which interactions are most sensitive. The totality of nature is too much for the single human mind to comprehend, but the well-educated citizen must understand the essential framework and how much stress is tolerable.

Integrative environmental

3. The above two points also say that new curricula aimed at environmental understanding and ecological awareness should not be composed of "shopping lists" of traditional courses and subjects, for the lack of integration of discipline-oriented courses and research is probably the most important reason for the general lack of understanding of man as an integral element of a complex system. It is clear that a prime purpose of education is to help the citizen discover who he is and how he relates to the rest of the world. curricula, properly designed, can do much to alleviate the general failure of traditional curricula to achieve this goal. 4. There is a general lack of understanding of what is meant by "ecology". It is a term used in both narrow and broad senses. There is also great variation in the use of the term "environmental quality". Both should mean more than conservation of wildlife and abatement of pollution. It is hoped that in the context of S.3151 the broadest possible interpretation is put on those two terms.

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Many of our current environmental problems are a function of population growth and increasing per capita

consumption of resources. That is to say that not all our problems are poor housekeeping problems. This means that the educational program needs to establish the relationships

between population, pollution and ecology.

Further, the public

needs to be in a position where it can make intelligent value judgements about what kind of life it really wants; that it is no longer possible to "let technology take its course". Because if we do, nature will surely respond and take its

course.

Thank you for the opportunity to present these views.

Senator NELSON. Our final witness is Mr. Frederick Mold, director of Fairbanks Museum of Natural Science, St. Johnsbury, Vt.

STATEMENT OF FREDERICK MOLD, DIRECTOR OF FAIRBANKS MUSEUM OF NATURAL SCIENCE, ST. JOHNSBURY, VT.

Mr. MOLD. I have a prepared statement, Mr. Chairman, but in the interest of time I would prefer to sumarize it. I hope that will be acceptable.

Senator NELSON. Senator Prouty, who is a member of the committee, asks to extend his regrets to you that he could not be here. He is at another committee meeting.

Your statement will be printed in full in the record. You may present it however you desire.

Mr. MOLD. I am honored to be asked to testify this morning.

We at the Fairbanks Museum have been addressing the problem of environmental education since about 1890. Until 1948 we concentrated on the life sciences; since then we have added the physical sciences as well. We teach at a museum, a valuable community resource which all too often is not fully used.

St. Johnsbury as a community was put on the map by a rather despotic industrialist, and he decided to found the museum. He pretty much told the town that his museum would become the science center for the town, and it has been that way ever since.

We work with children from kindergarten through grade 12. We teach interdisciplinary sciences using all the gimmicks and motivational tricks which are known, plus some we invent on the spot.

I think that the bills before the committee, and I address myself chiefly to your S. 3151, are just what the doctor ordered. It is what we have been waiting for.

We have had a 3-year grant under title III. We have done all of this work, we have gotten our educational program to such a level that we are now handling 30,000 to 40,000 students a year, and title III is dead, it is gone, it is all finished.

Without some new source of assistance the environmental education we have been carrying on will have to be cut back to a program which handles perhaps 15,000 students. Our board, however, has determined that it will devote possibly as much as 10 percent of its endowed funds sacrificing that money and that subsequent income-to continuing the program for another year, while we keep trying to find some way to shake the plum tree and find some more money.

I am sure that my institution is not the only one in this box at this moment. But now the Nation is crying for help and wondering what to do next. For years conservationists have been looked upon as old ladies in tennis shoes hunting for orchids. We have been the objects of amusement.

Now suddenly the environment has been discovered. Well, we know that environmental education can be done. We know it can be done in the ways you propose if the money is made available so we can start. We have worked with some 700 schoolteachers in summer programs in the last 9 years. I am employed as well by Michigan State University in their outdoor education conservation programs in summers, and that program has reached the teachers. You can take a woman 53 years

old and stand her in a brook of 52° and enthuse and train her about invertebrate biology. You can teach her the meaning of this brook in terms of the life she finds at the moment, and what the fisherman might find in it because of what she finds underneath the rock she is turning over. You can teach her the relationship of the sun to the ecology. Then you can send her back to the classroom on fire, able to take her children out and inspire them with the same enthusiasm. Yet I had this experience not very long ago in a town in northeastern Vermont: we got the work going, we got the teacher fired up, the superintendent got the outside area, 150 acres in which to work. Students went out, got into it, and the citizens said what are they doing outdoors? So you have a big selling job to do. I could sell it easier if the Congress of the United States and HEW and everybody else recommending this legislation was really building public support and acceptance for environmental education.

This bill would authorize assistance for the development of curriculums, and that is fine. But I want to make it very clear that that is not the most important thing. A 5-foot high stack of new curriculums is no good to anybody. What we really need are the trained people to teach environmental education. If we could multiply the number of trained teachers, we could do a terrific job using only the present curriculum materials. I don't want to seem opposed to developing new curriculum ideas, but I do want to emphasize very strongly that training teachers and getting them out teaching is the No. 1 priority, in my experience.

I think S. 3151 is a whale of a start if you can pass it. It does provide the money. We have the talents and the institutions. If the money is made available--and by that I mean readily available to institutions like museums as well as to school systems-we can really do the job. Sciences are very important in this matter of ecology and conservation, but I ask you also to remember, and I think it has been hinted at here this morning, that man lives not be bread alone. Food for the soul is often not solid enough, but the preservation of beauty, the preservation of neighborhoods, the enabling of a child to interpret all the things he sees in all the various ways is very important, too. So I submit also that some attention perhaps be given to the arts and sciences and esthetics conservation.

I think that the programs that we have had are excellent. There are many like mine in this country that will be running out of funds shortly and this bill may come along just in time to save our necks.

The only way we can do it is by beginning right at the kindergarten level. If it is your own child you can start even before that. We are now taking prekindergarten at the museum. I know other museums are doing it and I know from the experience of my own children that you can commence this at age 2.

It can begin anywhere you have the time and talents to start. If we are going to begin with a great mass of the American public we have to start at the very earliest grades we can get to just as early as we can get there. Again I come back to the preparation of teachers. We are going to have to retread a lot of teachers to make these young children really understand the wonder and beauty of ecology. We know that good teachers can get this across, and we know that we can produce good teachers. What we need is the support for the training.

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Senator NELSON. Do you have many primary and secondary students who take training courses in your museum?

Mr. MOLD. Children come to the museum about 15 times a year from 55 school districts in northeastern Vermont.

Senator NELSON. What funding were you talking about?

Mr. MOLD. We have had a grant as a supplementary educational center under title III of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965.

Senator NELSON. And that funding has expired?

Mr. MOLD. Yes, as of June 30 of this year. That is the way the title III program was intended to be. To keep the funds moving into new programs there is a 3-year funding limit for any one program or project. It is intended that at the end of 3 years successful program will be supported by local or State funds.

Our problem in northeast Vermont, a problem that I am sure is shared in many other parts of the country, is that our local school $10,000 next year to the support of the program but that is less than 20 percent of the total cost. The costs average out to about $0.25 per child per visit.

Senator NELSON. Is your museum getting title I funds?

Mr. MOLD. No, no museum can. Only State and local education agencies are eligible for title I funds. All of the Federal funds we have received have had to pass through the hands of the local school district. As you know middlemen cost money, they cost the Federal Government money and they have cost my program money. It is my hope that this new legislation will encourage direct funding to

museums.

What could be more appropriate to a program for environmental education than eligibility criteria that encourage the support and development of all the educational resources in a community-not just its schools?

We know our program works. We are delighted that the committee is interested in our program and hopeful that there will be an environmental education act that will make it possible for our program to continue and expand.

Senator NELSON. Thank you very much for taking the time to come here today.

Mr. MOLD. Thank you, Senator Nelson.

(The prepared statement of Mr. Mold follows:)