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News & Info

Foundation’s goal: Teaching “how to live in harmony with the planet”

By Debra Utacia Krol
Arizona Capitol Times
January 25, 2008

The Arizona Foundation for Resource Education, funded by Arizona mining, homebuilding and energy firms, as well as other resource companies, offers teachers opportunities to educate themselves on resource issues and educate kids on what AFRE Executive Director J. L. “Larry” McBiles terms “environmental and economic literacy.” Altogether, AFRE’s programs reach more than 1,100 teachers and 85,000 students each year.

The foundation actually started more than 10 years ago as an organization that helped students learn about mining. “We used to be [just] about geology and mining,” says McBiles, who also teaches educational leadership at Arizona State University. However, as the organization’s reputation as a teacher resource grew, more industries wanted in on the educational action. “In 2001, we developed a new model,” says McBiles. “We were invited by our board to look at how to do this for all resources.”

Today, SRP, the Home Builders Association of Central Arizona and Bryan Cave LLP share sponsorship of AFRE with Asarco, Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold and BHP Billiton. In return for sponsorship, AFRE incorporates topics and themes related to the respective industry into its curriculum. For example, AFRE incorporated studies on electrical generation and renewable energy research into its workshops after SRP signed on.

‘Polarized’ viewpoints

Basically, AFRE teaches teachers how to teach students about Arizona’s natural resources. “We are really environmental educators,” says McBiles. “We strive to be balanced and scientifically accurate. If you’re biased, nobody will come” to the workshops, he notes. However, McBiles points out that AFRE does bring in people from many viewpoints to give educators a glimpse into the “polarization” of attitudes over how Arizona’s land, air and water has been managed.

Indeed, McBiles is particularly proud of how he’s built the curriculum to be fundamentally sound: “Over the years, I’ve earned the teachers’ trust.” He stresses that his goal is to help teachers increase their personal as well as their professional knowledge. “We’re teachers first and foremost,” says McBiles. “I had to learn mining myself in order to teach it.”

The organization holds workshops, called “AZventures” on a variety of issues; this year’s topics include the basics of green construction; copper mining and its effects on local communities; honeybees and “colony collapse disorder,” which threatens Arizona agribusiness and could affect food prices; exploring the geological legacy of Arizona; forest management; and not one, but two workshops on water cycles and watershed management.

“Our focus is on Arizona’s natural resources and related industries,” says McBiles. “We need to be more multi-dimensional than just the environment; we also need to take economics into account.” For instance, in AFRE’s air quality workshop, teachers learn how an air quality monitoring station works, after which they attend a panel discussion with diverse perspectives on air quality.

Precious resource

Also, “water is at the hub of everything we teach,” says McBiles. He also stresses an environmental ethic and interdependence incorporated into AFRE workshops; “after all, isn’t everything on Earth interdependent?” he asks.

The foundation is also committed to helping educators with their professional development. A long-time teacher himself, McBiles understands that teachers need career development. “We’re living in a time of unprecedented accountability in education,” says McBiles. “We’re really dealing with career development way too late” in the education industry, he says.

Another of AFRE’s career development strategies is to showcase careers in the fields under discussion. “Mining engineers are highly trained and highly paid,” says McBiles. Other industries, such as the electric industry are also great career fields for Arizona students to explore, he notes.

Mary Graf is one of AFRE’s faculty members and one of its most enthusiastic cheerleaders. She first attended one of McBiles’ sessions in 1992, when he was working with the Arizona Mineral Association.

“From day one, AMA, and now AFRE, has recognized that well-informed teachers make better teachers,” says Graf. “We've found that the educators who take our courses are truly lifelong learners who love to learn. We get an amazingly high rate of teachers returning year after year for our different workshops.” The teachers tell other teachers, and soon, whole teams are sent by their school or district. “Everything we do has always been designed by teachers, for teachers, with an Arizona-specific focus,” says Graf.
“We don't just present balanced information about natural resources and their industries, we format our learning experiences to present teachers with educational best practices and strategies they can take back and use in their classroom.”

Going on an “AZventure”

Because of the great demand for the organization's “AZventure” events, which often feature field trips to mines, farms, forests and geological sites, AFRE limits teachers to two workshops per year. Although workshops are free, a $25 “commitment fee” is assessed. Upon completion of the workshop, the fee is returned. Participants also can earn professional development credits or even earn academic credit through ASU.

Students love the resultant classes, says Graf. “There's a lot of competition with the outside world to capture and keep student's attention these days,” she notes. “To keep them engaged and hooked and interested in learning, a teacher really needs to develop a good professional bag of tricks, and know how to best design lessons to get at the heart of what kids need to learn, know and do.” And the kids love the materials the teachers bring with them from their field trips, Graf adds.

One theme that appears to run through AFRE’s curriculum is sustainability; indeed, AFRE is currently partnering with ASU’s Global Institute of Sustainability in order to present the latest research to teachers. “We look to both the scientific and academic arenas, and to other people who are doing the work” of resource management, says McBiles. Renewable resources are also part of AFRE’s curriculum; in one workshop, teachers learn about renewable electrical generation. McBiles says he’s hoping to partner next with ASU’s Stardust Center for Affordable Housing and the Family. “I’m impressed with what they’re doing with sustainable, low-energy housing,” he says.

“The forest fire workshops have been extremely popular and were designed after Arizona's summer fires throughout the state,” says Graf. “We have adapted our copper programs to focus directly on careers and economics in mining, or on the environment and mining. We're always fine tuning and changing what we do to keep it fresh and totally up-to-date.”

In recent years, the organization has also worked with teachers, academia and local communities to plan land use, riparian zones and recreation areas.

From learning to teaching

A new initiative the foundation has developed is its new “Make It Happen” teacher program. The program aims to provide Arizona K-12 educators with extra resources to incorporate what they’ve learned at AFRE’s summer academies into their classrooms. Teachers who were approved won a grant totaling $5,000 for both additional training and cash to pay teachers and purchase teaching materials.

And in answer to folks who believe that AFRE’s curriculum is dictated by the businesses that sponsor the organization, McBiles says, “If a funder did ask me to spin the curriculum, I would prefer not to take their funding.” He also states that he’s never been asked by a funder to align AFRE’s curriculum towards any viewpoint.

One of AFRE’s current challenges is convincing school boards under the gun to comply with testing standards that environmental and resource education is not just an unaffordable “extra” in Arizona classrooms. “Our curriculum meets the national standards for environmental education,” says McBiles. “I’m encountering that, because of the emphasis on NCLB and AZ LEARNS that some people feel that teaching about the environment is a frill.” However, McBiles notes that educating kids about the environment they live in is also teaching them critical life skills. “We’re teaching people how to live in a sustainable way,” he says.

McBiles has also delved into Native philosophy, with its emphasis on living in harmony with the Earth, to help develop his own sense of environmental education. “I’ve taken Navajo studies in my Ph.D. program,” he says. “One of the students there asked if he could do a piece of art for his doctoral dissertation which reflected his tribe’s philosophy.” A print of the 5-foot-high painting now hangs in McBiles’ office, a reminder that generations of Arizona’s first inhabitants have much to teach the state about sustainable economies and environmental stewardship.

Indeed, as McBiles sums up his program: “Shouldn’t the goal of education be to enable people to live in harmony with the planet?”