To the Editor:

Progress for science education! The front page article on June 26, “Taking science out of the classroom,” contradicts a front page article 10 years ago.

On Oct. 3, 1998, an article had the headline, “Commission rules out river lessons for community.”

As the past chairman of the Science & Technology Commission, I had proposed at its August 1998 meeting that the commission sponsor public studies about the San Pedro River. I noted that Kathy Carlson’s fifth-grade class at Town and Country Elementary School reportedly had gathered data about the San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area.

I said, “If Buena — and perhaps Cochise College — students would do similar studies, perhaps counseled by local scientists, as well as their teachers, we could have reports that would educate all of us.”

That was in reference to the just-published report by the Montreal-based Commission for Environmental Cooperation, which was being challenged.

But Sierra Vista Councilman Casey Jones, who attended the meeting unexpectedly, stated firmly that the council wouldn’t permit such a project by the Science & Technology Commission because “it would be perceived as political and might even result in data that would compromise actions and policies of the council.”

Although that was a bizarre twist of my proposal’s goal, which was explicitly and exclusively science education, the commission tabled the project at its meeting in September. However, the next year, Holly Richter with The Nature Conservancy started her annual GPS surveys; later, the Upper San Pedro Partnership initiated studies of the river.

Not long afterward, the Science & Technology Commission was dissolved by the City Council.

Finally, you report that “Teachers get back to nature for lesson ideas,” and students are being given to learn science “in the field.” Recently, “Southern Arizona Illustrated” (KUAT) had a similar story. This is truly progress in science education — in a topic that affects all of us in Sierra Vista.

Charles A. “Bud” Eldon

Sierra Vista