Conservation education is not new to Baldwin County schools, but Rhonda Bryars, district administrative coordinator with the Baldwin County Soil and Water Conservation District has found a new way of making that education fun for local students.

“We have implemented conservation education within the school district for many years, but we will continue working with other local agencies to establish this program,” she said of a new conservation education program that began at Bay Minette Elementary this year.

The program is offered twice a month every month that school is in session, and it takes place during the students’ P.E. time. During September, students participated in the Sammy Soil project.

“We taught students the different layers of the soil and how it is formed, and then we let them create their very own ‘edible soil’,” Bryars said. She said Sammy Soil visited with the students as well.

This month, students received another special visit, this time from Smokey the Bear and his friends in the Alabama Forestry Department. The theme was fire prevention, and along with Smokey, forestry specialist Richard Johnson and registered forester Joseph Donnelly informed students about their jobs and how they relate to forest fires.

The two men brought a bulldozer to explain how they help firefighters when there is a forest fire too large for firefighters to fight alone.

“When they don’t have enough water, they call us in, and we dig a big trench,” Johnson said. “We cut a trench, removing the foliage, leaves and sticks. The fire won’t burn through that dirt, so the fire goes out when it gets to that dirt.”

Johnson told the students that fire is fueled by wood and leaves and removing that from the fire’s path takes the “food” away from the fire.

Johnson also talked to the students about one of the most important pieces of equipment he and other foresters battling a fire have, the “shake and bake” bag. “If we get caught in the fire, we dig a hole get in that hole and pull this blanket that looks like a big piece of tin foil over us and the fire burns over us.”

“We hope we never have to use it,” Donnelly added.

Most of the childrens’ questions centered around the bulldozer, such as “how do you get in,” “how do you steer,” and “how do  you drive it.” Johnson had a simple answer how to drive a bulldozer.

“You know how to play PlayStation? You know, using the joystick? It’s just like that,” he said.

Upcoming programs include the Ruby Raindrop program, which teaches the water cycle, a portable dairy, showing how milk is created and processed and butterfly gardening, where the school will establish a butterfly garden. During butterfly gardening, classes will keep caterpillars in the rooms until they turn into butterflies, and then they will be released into the butterfly garden.

“This way the students can see the life cycle of a butterfly,” Bryars said. She said this is just a sampling of the programs that will be offered through this conservation education program.

She said they plan to spread the program to other schools as well.

“We decided to start off small this year, so we started talking to Bay Minette Elementary School. We met with BMES Principal Scott Langham during the summer and came up with a program that could be offered to all the students during a month’s time,” Bryars said. “We will incorporate our Earth Team Volunteer Program to help increase this program.

Bryars said this program is important not only for teaching young children today, but preparing them for tomorrow.

“We think it is very important to start at a young age teaching conservation, because these students will be the leaders and guidance for our future,” she said.