PASS IT ON (Newsletter of Children's Music Network)

Sometimes it's awfully hard to find Mother Nature after the make-over we humans have given her over the years. In any given urban center, the search for a single healthy tree, let alone any substantial evidence of our natural heritage, can be a long, frustrating experience. When you walk down a suburban street in NJ and can't tell when you are leaving one town and entering another, except for the sign that tells you so, it can prove difficult for young people to realize that they are part of a natural place of any uniqueness or importance.

I have worked as a park naturalist for a county parks system in the most urbanized county in southern New Jersey for over 20 years. During that time I have used all the tried-and-true interpretive methods. Most importantly, I go to schools and interpret the neighborhoods surrounding them because I feel that challenging kids, teachers and parents to find some exciting connection to the natural world right in their own backyards can be even more effective than taking a field trip to the county park, where everything is supposed to be more "natural".

In 1981 I began to notice some exciting new music at folk festivals that seemed to touch a responsive chord. I heard Pete Seeger, Bill Staines and David Mallett at the Philadelphia Folk Fest (all in the same year, I think), and realized that there was a great body of environmental music being sung. Songs like "The Garden Song", "A Place In The Choir", "Garbage", and "Sailin' Up,Sailin' Down" became the roots for my growing interest in merging songs with the traditional nature programs I'd been conducting for 10 years already.

Being a closet folk musician and songwriter, I began to observe, collect, create and perform music which touched upon or taught about environmental concepts and issues, hoping someday to compile a database of environmental songs and teaching ideas that would be of value to educators in bringing the arts, especially music and song, into the more complete exploration of environmental concerns.

It seems that since then, collecting songs and activity ideas has become my hobby and compulsion. Of the 1900 songs collected and categorized so far, I find that environmental songs have been written for every musical genre, age-level appropriateness, subject matter, and region of the world.

However, the songs that I gravitate toward tend to be simple without being simplistic, and direct without being preachy, about things that children can connect to easily in their own experiences. And, of course, the songs which are the most fun to play with and add to with an audience, also will continue to be fresh and enjoyable for them (and me).

I often encourage children to think about a friendly tree that they know, one that makes them feel good because it has beautiful flowers in the spring, colorful fall leaves, has its branches in just the right places for climbing, or any other reason. Then, if they know the name of their tree friends, we can make up new verses to Sarah Pirtle's "My Roots Go Down" and we get to sing a completely different version each time.

Many people forget that there is a lot of life unseen and "way under the ground". I have created some extra verses for Patty Zeitlin's "Lot's of Worms" to further explore the variety of critters kids might find if they dug a hole in the ground. A couple of examples:

"I dug my hole a little more down; that's when I came to a little ant town;

But I left them alone, 'cause they liked their home, WAY UNDER THE GROUND (Sung all together)"

"Then I spied a little gray mole; He stuck his head out of his little mole hole,

But I left him alone, 'cause he liked his home, WAY UNDER THE GROUND."

Of course, when we are finished exploring, we make sure that we fill up that hole so that no one falls in, maybe even plant a tree in it so all that digging won't go to waste.

We might try to sing "Bottle Of Pop" as a round, followed by Jay Mankita's great song, "Litterbug, Litterbug." I don't know if it has been recorded but I heard him sing it at an environmental song swap years ago. But my favorite little song about litter is Ruth Pelham's song to the tune of "Frere Jacques":

"I found a paper wrapper, lying on the sidewalk; Picked it up, picked it up,

Put it in my pocket, took it to a trash can; All cleaned up, all cleaned up."

I believe she and Sarah Pirtle put hand motions to it as well.

I love to sing outdoors, so that the natural sights and sounds of the environment can creep into the experience, and can be the springboard for other songs and conversation about how our world works. And while we're at it we might try to make some music with a piece of grass, or an acorn top, or listen to the wind through the leaves.

I am convinced that well-chosen songs, can be effectively used in an educational context to reinforce the notion that only when we can understand and appreciate the natural worth of our own backyards and neighborhoods will we be motivated to be concerned and committed to helping protect the health of the larger environment.