Biology teachers love to preach the destruction of biodiversity on our blue planet due to global warming, pollution, over-population, and other evils of human consumption. The focus of many textbook chapters regarding ecology discuss the destruction of the rain forest, too. The fact that the majority of known species live in the rain forest is used to support the statement that we must strive to take better care of Mother Earth. Of course, we don't and as a non-agrarian based society, we tend to rip down acres of trees so that we can build our own environment.

Knowing this sermon is common place, I find it odd that science teachers dare to photocopy, copy, and re-copy documents. In fact, they require kids to purchase notebook paper by the bulk. It seems ironic that our conscience doesn’t guide us in the classroom. We don’t practice what we preach.

As a coach to the Academic Decathlon team, I'm greatly concerned with the amount of study material required. Each member is required to have approximately 3,000 pages – three companies provide material: Academic Decathlon, DemiDec, and ACE. This means my team will be using over 45,000 pieces of paper to prepare for the ten tests. Stunned by this figure, I unilaterally decided that the team would use CDs. We'd electronically download the material and burn them onto CDs.

No way would I consider copying 45,000 pages of material. Would you?

I spoke to the woman in charge of our photocopy machines and she explained that administrators hit her with a mailing last week which required her to copy 50,000 pages in one run. This happens several times each month. Apparently administrators are just as guilty as teachers.

Out of fairness, let’s consider the amount of paper used simply for textbooks. There are over 1,100 pages in the AP Biology textbook, 800 in the academic biology textbook, and 1000 pages in the Honors Biology textbook. This means 200,000 pages are required solely in my classroom. In addition, my students are required to read articles from science publications. These are also on paper. Each morning, the Los Angeles Times is delivered – piles of paper. At the end of each class period, I pickup a trashcan full of papers tossed by students, hidden under chairs, including crumpled up notes to each other that were “secretly” passed. Sometimes I grab them during transit. I’m always amazed at the language written on them – but that’s another story.

Back to the focus here, adding up the paper used on this campus is mind-boggling. Now, let’s just use Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) as a great example for determining the total paper usage. Multiply out the amount of paper used in my classroom by the total number of classrooms on this campus, then the number of schools operated by LAUSD. Holy Crap. I can’t count that high and neither can you.

It’s time to consider an alternative delivery method. It’s hypocritical for a science teacher to discuss the evils of tearing down the rain forest and then ask students to prepare an essay on the topic – on none other than a piece of paper.

It’s your turn.

__________________
Layne P. Heiny / Administrator for Tux Reports Network

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