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Published on 09/08/1997 All articles from this issue

Environmental Volunteers celebrating 25 years

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By Carol Tiegs / Town Crier Staff Writer

It was June 1972. The first Earth Day had just taken place. Concern for the environment was limited to granola and bean sprout-consuming hippies in the minds of many mainstream Americans.

With funds from the Evergreen Auction of the Peninsula Conservation Center Foundation, Karen Nilsson had been asked to design a conservation program with high community visibility. The result was Environmental Volunteers.

The Environmental Volunteers, or EVs, as they call themselves, have reached nearly 200,000 children and 30,000 adults over the past 25 years with their unique hands-on environmental education.

EVs use docent-led classroom presentations and field trips, and teacher development workshops to meet their mission of promoting the understanding of, and responsibility fore the environment through hands-on science education.

"I thought the best project would be one that would get people involved - an organization centered around volunteers who would be able to learn and grow themselves, while helping children become aware of, understand and appreciate the natural environment," said Nilsson, who died in 1991, in her reminiscences.

"I'm always learning something. It's very dynamic," said Los Altos Hills resident and 20-year EV member Jan Fenwick of why she's stayed with the organization so long. "You're also giving something so valuable - an understanding of our environment."

Fenwick discovered Environmental Volunteers through a brochure.

"I had stopped teaching and my kids were in grade school," she said. "EV offered a nice combination of learning and being able to share that learning with children."

According to history recently compiled by Jan Whitmer and Susan Bass, the first EV program was on bay ecology, sparked by concerns at the time about pollution in San Francisco Bay.

"Stimulated by the lack of 'hands-on' learning materials that could be brought into the classroom to engage children, the volunteers spent months building dioramas and other learning tools," including Salty the Salt Marsh Harvest Mouse and the Colorful Bay Book coloring book, said Whitmer and Bass.

In response to public interest in buying land for open space, the EVs added a forest/foothills ecology program in 1973. Today, they also offer programs on marine ecology, earthquake geology and preparedness, water science and conservation, early California Indian life, birds and nests, and Nature in Your Neighborhood, focused on the urban environment. They also train and mentor high school students to teach the programs to elementary school children.

Environmental Volunteers is located at 3921 E. Bayshore Road in Palo Alto.

For information about training classes and other volunteer opportunities, or to RSVP for the hike, call 961-0545.