Learning Naturally

Even in stunning Washington State, land of sockeye, snow peaks and geoducks, few men are such wise lovers of the out doors as a remarkable woman teacher, Dorothy J. Bennett, avid mountaineer and ardent promoter of "conservation as a way of life." In the past 13 summers, she has spread the word to some 7,500 youngsters, who in turn have spread it to grownups all over Washington. Her curriculum is a $10 vacation-education for fifth and sixth grade children that must be the cheapest insurance against nature wrecking in the U.S.

Teacher Bennett is the Colorado-born superintendent of schools in western Washington's Snohomish County. Trim and tireless at 53, she is also a celebrated backpacker who has logged more than 2,000 miles on Cascade Mountain trails. She once strolled the 24 miles around 14,408-ft. Mount Rainier in a single day, is the only woman member of the advisory council of Mount Baker National Forest. U.S. forest rangers say she knows "more about the woods than we do," and what she knows is how humans should treat the treasures of nature in their own best interests.

Save the Snowballs. To teach her lore, Mrs. Bennett in 1948 launched a unique summer classroom in Mount Baker National Forest. Camp Silverton-Waldheim consists of a few tents, a rough lodge, and 45 acres of rain forest along the Stillaquamish River. It is part of the Snohomish school system, but costs the taxpayers nothing. Student teachers pay for the privilege of being counselors, and dozens of volunteers, from timbermen to Navy Seabees, chip in everything from cash to carpentry.

This summer 800 youngsters are getting a week's crack at Silverton, and last week a fresh batch of 100 plunged delightedly into 14-hour days of wilderness living and learning. Along with the outdoors lessons, there was lots of fun. In small groups, they slept under the stars, explored the area's gold rush (1893) ghost towns, panned for garnets on the Stillaquamish. They haunted trout hatcheries, fire lookouts and tree farms, learning how fallen trees nurse new seedlings, climbed to the cirque glaciers of 6,120-ft. Big Four Mountain. Not long ago, one little girl was so impressed by the importance of such frozen reservoirs to Washington's great rivers and forests that she worriedly ordered her trail mates to quit throwing "wasteful" snowballs.

Stop to Spit. Everywhere Dorothy Bennett's kids soaked up knowledge of woods and wildlife unheard of in cities and suburbs. They became amateur weather prophets and masters of tin-can disposal (burn, flatten, bury). Most of all, they learned the interdependence of birds, fish, insects, plants--and people. As examples of how to wreck that natural order, they studied erosion left by mindless loggers in the 19205, compared it with the conserving ways of modern forest industries. The kids planted their own trees, developed a chronic horror of forest fires. Teacher Bennett is proud to say: "I don't believe any Silverton graduate will ever start a forest fire."

Each year fascinated old grads keep coming back for more, often hauling parents along to make sure they get the point. Among the results: a spate of science-fair winners, many college-forestry majors--and platoons of reformed parents. "I've been camping out for 30 years," says one father, "but my boy has taught me things I never knew. If I dropped a spent match out of a car window these days, I think he'd make me stop, walk back, pick it up and spit on it."

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