I think of polls they show so many tens of percent, for this or that. There are perhaps 3 percent on the whole who are even aware of the implications of what is being asked!

Mr. BRADEMAS. I would just observe, with respect to what you just said, that one part of this bill provides for grants to the mass media for the purpose of educating about environmental problems. And as I say that, I am struck again by what Dr. Sittler says or by what one of my Democratic county chairmen in Indiana said when I asked about a political development. He said, "Well, John, a lot of things depend on a lot of things."

So he is kind of an instructive ecologist without knowing it.

In this subcommittee alone this year we dealt with the arts and humanities bill, and we also deal with preschool education. Now we are talking about environmental education. I think one does not have to ruminate very long to realize all kinds of interrelationships that derive from the fact that this particular subcommittee gets its nose into these various areas.

I don't find it frustrating, but, on the contrary, I find it kind of interesting, when I realize what this burgeoning experiment with "Sesame Street" can show us about how television can be used to help teach very young children.

Then I ask myself what might be done by American artists, and I don't mean only painters, of course, but musicians and poets and culptors and dancers, and all of the rest of the artists.

We had, I remember, several years ago a luncheon here with several of your colleagues-I think Mr. Rauschenberg was among them-and talked about the idea of taking slide collections of distinguished Amercan artists. And I am sure you would have been among them. These individual collections were enormously popular in Eastern Europe and n the Soviet Union, because there was a starvation, literally, in those parts of the world to know what the best American artists were doing. That is instructive, I think.

I wonder if we somehow, alluding to your phrase about artists being the guardians of sanity in a society like ours, can harness our technological capacity to teach-we also have educational technology in this committee, I should tell you to communicate to masses of Americans, the kind of sense of values you and your predecessors have been talking about here.

In other words, I am gently disputing with you. And I don't minimize the potential impact of what artists can do in a country like ours. Indeed, unless you help, I think we are really in deep trouble.

Mr. MOTHERWELL. Well, if the real problem is a change in human awareness, then we know from modern psychologists and from eduators that it is a very long and slow process, if it is to be done in depth and really engrained. I am glad that you are beginning. Possibly one could do it vividly in terms of, let's say, a TV campaign, ike the marvelous, I think, TV campaign against smoking. But what we are talking about is a kind of awareness that has to be with real truth, or it becomes corn, a distorted or oversimplified truth.

You see calendars everywhere of beautiful landscapes in Maine, for example. The Maine landscape is indeed beautiful. But the Calendar renditions of them are, to anybody having artistic sensibility, pretty awful. So it is a very-well, it is almost like my being

asked, "Can a theologian contribute to people having a great awareness of God?" Yes; but not easily or quickly.

I wish I had some concrete proposals for you, but I really don't. Mr. BRADEMAS. Well, I will just make two quick observations before stopping.

One, I noticed in the Sunday New York Times a story on the architecture of Columbus, Ind., where, you may know, J. Ervin Miller of the Cummins Engine Co. has helped the committees work with a whole series of leading American architects. And Mr. Miller made clear it is his own judgment that the impact of these developments may not be felt for a very long time to come in terms of actually changing attitudes on the part of the people of that community. But he is clearly committed to the view that I think you have just expressed, that it has to be very good.

So maybe at least one answer is that the contribution of artists is to be a good artist in solving the kind of environmental crisis we have been talking about

Mr. MOTHERWELL. If every man does his thing, we would have many fewer problems.

Mr. BRADEMAS. Well, that may be a good point on which to conclude these hearings.

Again, I want to express our appreciation to you for your splendid testimony, Mr. Motherwell, and, as well, to Dr. Sittler and Dr. Cole.

Unless my colleagues have more questions, the Chair would like to announce tomorrow morning at 9:30, in room 2257, we will begin hearings with the Environmental Teach-in Panel, followed by the editor of The Environmental Handbook, Garret de Bell, and other witnesses who have been organizing the teach-in.

We will adjourn for this morning.

(Whereupon, at 11:35 a.m. the subcommittee recessed, to reconvene at 9:30 on Wednesday, March 25, 1970.)

ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY EDUCATION ACT

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 25, 1970

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SELECT SUBCOMMITTEE ON EDUCATION

OF THE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND LABOR,

Washington, D.C.

The subcommittee met at 9:30 a.m., pursuant to recess, in room 2257, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. John Brademas (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Brademas, Scheuer, Meeds, Bell, and Hansen of Idaho.

Staff members present: Jack G. Duncan, counsel; Ronald C. Katz, assistant staff director; Arlene Horowitz, staff assistant; Toni Immerman, clerk; Maureen Orth, consultant; Marty LaVor, minority legislative coordinator.

Mr. BRADEMAS. The subcommittee will come to order for the further onsideration of H.R. 14753, the Environmental Quality Education

Act.

Yesterday, we on the subcommittee heard from an ecologist, a theologian, and an artist concerning the need for Federal support for programs to encourage education in elementary and secondary schools in universities and in local communities about the whole spectrum of environmental problems.

Today we are pleased to hear from some of the leaders of the environmental teach-in which is scheduled for the 22d of April, and we look forward as well to hearing from others who have been associated with the projected teach-in.

Tomorrow, in room 2261 at 9:30, the subcommittee plans to hear testimony from distinguished educators who have specialized in the environmental field, including Chancellor Edward W. Weidner of the University of Wisconsin at Green Bay, accompanied by the vice chanellor of that university, Ray Vlasin. We will also hear from Dr. Clarence Schoenfeld, chairman of the center for environmental communications of the University of Wisconsin at Madison and editor of Environmental Education, and from Dr. Matthew Brennan, director of the Pinchot Institute for Conservation Studies.

The Chair would like to observe how very pleased he is, as are the ther members of this subcommittee, particularly the cosponsors of the Environmental Quality Education Act, including the gentleman from New York, Mr. Scheuer, and the gentleman from Idaho, Mr. Hansen, to note the growing involvement of both high school and college students in our country to improve the quality of our environ

ment.

Mr. BRADEMAS. We will begin by calling to testify as a panel Bill Knowland, student at Antioch College; Karen Buxbaum, student at Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School; and William H. Schlesinger, chairman of the environmental studies division at Dartmouth. Please come forward and identify yourselves. Perhaps you would like to proceed in the order in which I have called your names.

STATEMENTS OF BILL KNOWLAND, COORDINATOR, ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES INFORMATION CENTER, ANTIOCH COLLEGE, PRESIDENT, OHIO STUDENT ENVIRONMENTAL COUNCIL; KAREN BUXBAUM, STUDENT, BETHESDA-CHEVY CHASE HIGH SCHOOL; AND WILLIAM H. SCHLESINGER, CHAIRMAN, ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES DIVISION, DARTMOUTH COLLEGE; DARTMOUTH OUTING CLUB

Mr. KNOWLAND. If you wish to go in order, I guess you named me first.

Mr. BRADEMAS. Whichever order you would like to proceed is perfectly all right.

Mr. KNOWLAND. I am Bill Knowland, and I am a student at Antioch College. For the past 3 months I have served as coordinator for the Environmental Studies Information Center at Antioch.

To clarify that a bit, I think we could simply say it-the Information Center-serves as the public relations arm of the Environmental Studies Center at Antioch. As such, I have been concerned with the field of environmental education both at Antioch and throughout the country.

Before going into my oral testimony, I would like to note that the testimony copies which you should have, consist of my oral testimony plus some more or less related summaries of reports and proposals of things going on at Antioch which I think you might be interested in as specific suggestions.

Each school, of course, is different, and I can only offer as suggestions what we are doing at Antioch for possible comments and inspiration to others.

First of all, gentlemen, I sincerely hope you realize that you are presently considering what may potentially be one of the most significant and farthest-reaching pieces of legislation you may ever be asked to act upon.

There is little doubt but that we are faced today, in this country and in this world, with an unprecedented ecological crisis. It is a crisis which threatens the life of our Nation as we know it, and perhaps even the very survival of the human species.

The irony is that we have caused this crisis ourselves. We have caused it in two simple ways: first, out of sheer ignorance-out of an amazing lack of factual information about the natural ramifications of what we were and are doing; and, second, even for those things for which we did and do have the facts, an amazing apathy and lack of the will to act properly in the light of those facts.

The problems, then, are a result of lacks in our knowledge and our attitudes. Both are the solid domain of education.

I would therefore submit to you that proper education, particularly proper environmentally related education, is the key to the solution of our environmental crisis. And therefore this bill, or at least the principle behind it, may well make a crucial difference in whether this country and this species will survive.

It is high time that environmental education become a major consideration and emphasis in the curriculums of all levels of education in this country. The Environmental Quality Education Act, H.R. 14753, has been proposed to provide the encouragement and financial support for the development and implementation of some of the necessary programs. Good.

I strongly endorse the bill-but with some cautious reservations. First, I would personally prefer that it was entitled and meant to be a bill to authorize the U.S. Commissioner of Education to establish educational programs to encourage understanding of nature's policies-or: natural law-and support of activities designed to enhance environmental quality and maintain ecological balance." By only changing one word in that title, I think we might change the whole significance of the bill and perhaps point up the problem that we are facing in this country.

I am concerned that there is no provision for a permanent staff to supplement the advisory committee. If this bill becomes law and is used to any magnitude, I can well conceive of the advisory committee either working full time or at least needing a permanent staff to maintain continuity and to handle administrative details.

I would also strongly urge that section 5, paragraph (b), of the bill be amended to insure that there is actual student representation on the advisory committee. Leading environmental educators have acknowledged that many students are already well ahead of their professors. I don't think it would be too difficult to find some capable college students already well grounded in the fields of environmental problems and education. I am sure that they would serve as valuable additions to the advisory committee.

Most importantly, I am concerned that this bill's effectiveness will be reduced to nil unless it receives adequate funding. I am not in any position to give you an estimate of what adequate, or even minimal, funding should come to, but I am afraid that whatever the figure, it will be considerably greater than many will feel can be afforded.

To that I can only ask that you gentlemen, if you are or become convinced that this act is vital and necessary, do everything within your power to see that it receives an adequate allocation. I can think of to finer emphasis that could be added to the goals and implications of this bill than if the $275 million already allocated to the SST and the million dollars, or should I say "billions," aready allocated to the ABM were to be reallocated to the programs of the Environmental Quality Education Act.

I have found striking agreement that a major emphasis of the act's programs should be directed toward teacher and leader training.

Anthropologist Margaret Mead has said that "the waters are rising, and we have no tools to build boats." To that I would hasten to add we have few skilled boatbuilders or sailors, either. Teachers at all levels need desperately not just new environmental knowledge but new teaching attitudes and methods as well.