VENTURA : Educators Prepare for Earth Day With a Lesson in Ecology

The game was “Confessions of a Throwaway Object.”

Playing were five grade-school teachers who were picking up tips on how to teach environmental values to children for Ventura County’s 1992 Earth Day festivities.

“I am a diaper,” said Paulie Geiselhart, a second-grade teacher at Ventura’s Sheridan Way Elementary School, as she held up a disposable diaper.

“I came off little Bobby’s bare bottom, and I was made from a tree that used to be in the park,” said Geiselhart, before passing the diaper to the next teacher who would explain how the diaper was manufactured.

Howls of appreciative laughter rolled across the auditorium at Channel Islands National Park, where 85 teachers from 20 schools attended a workshop Friday by the Ventura County Environmental and Energy Education Council.

Allison Maires and Leslie Carson, education specialists with Ventura Regional Sanitation District, showed the teachers games they could use to drive home different environmental lessons.

The morning’s session had featured water conservation, and now the teachers were learning playful techniques that emphasize the need for recycling.

In another game, the teachers were asked to introduce themselves and recite an item from a list of what a consumer uses over a 20-year period.

“Hi, I consumed two outboard motors,” Maires said.

“I consumed one piano,” a teacher replied.

Decorum went out the window as 80 teachers plunged into the game, nearly shouting as they recited the lengthy list that included such miscellaneous items as 10,000 gallons of heating oil, 1,000 pounds of fertilizer and 20,000 bottles and cans.

Behind the frivolity, Maires explained to the teachers, was the serious goal of reducing the solid waste that is discarded in landfills. Besides the need to meet state-mandated goals to reduce the amount of trash going to landfills, much of that which is discarded is more valuable when it is recycled, Maires said.

Earth Day will be observed in two Ventura County locations this year. On May 1 and 2, events will be held at the Thousand Oaks Community Park, with events and exhibits shifting to Channel Islands National Park on May 3.