Alaska National Guard celebrates Earth Day with ASD students on JBER

JOINT BASE ELMENDORF-RICHARDSON, Alaska (KTUU) - What’s normally Camp Denali on Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson transformed into a walking trail of environmental education for Anchorage students.

Fourth- and fifth-graders from both Orion and Aurora Elementary School spent the day on Alaska’s largest military installation learning about the planet, how to keep it healthy, and other cultural resources specific to the state.

Hosted by the Alaska Army National Guard’s environmental team, a part of the Alaska Department of Military and Veteran’s Affairs (DMVA), the Guard’s environmental chief, Rick Barth, was the driver behind the idea.

“The Army kind of leads the way across the nation and is looked across by all the other federal agencies as the lead agency with doing good in the environment,” Barth said. “So we pride ourselves on that.”

Students were greeted at a welcome booth — where they were given trash bags, gloves, and grabbers — before embarking on a nearly two-mile, roundtrip tour of the camp. Booths were set up along the way as stopping points to learn about water quality and restoration after spills, as well as other federal agencies that focus on conservation efforts such as the National Park Service and the U.S. Coast Guard.

“Protecting Alaska’s cultural and natural resources is a fundamental component of military readiness,” Barth said. “Protecting our water, air, land and wildlife is directly tied to our resiliency as a state. Environmental outreach and education are directly tied to our mission.”

Over 100 students were more than happy to ditch their traditional classroom for the day to take the walkabout through the base camp. Orion Elementary School fourth grader Allison Morris, who has active-duty family members, said it was a fun way to spend the day.

“We learned about water pollution, oil ... we learned about the Coast Guard, wildlife,” Morris said. “All sorts of cool stuff.”

Morris was actually hoping there would be more trash to pick up on the installation, but there is still a lot of snow that has yet to melt.

Orion fifth-grader Gabriel Pioocurama said he enjoyed learning ways to help prevent climate change while also getting to explore base.

“We get to explore around JBER and go into a helicopter,” Pioocurama said. “That’s not something you do every day.”

While the educational booths were a fun and informative way to disseminate useful information surrounding environmental impacts, it wouldn’t have been a true Alaska National Guard experience without a little show and tell.

AKARNG Chief Warrant Officer 2 David Berg spent his afternoon watching over the groups of kids as they got to climb aboard a UH-60L Black Hawk helicopter stationed on Bryant Airfield. The hike out to the tarmac was off the beaten path of the walking trail, but one the kids were happy to take.

“It’s not a standard thing I do each day,” Berg said with a smile. “But it’s fun to be able to show the kids what we do and to see their excitement.”

Being the first year that the guard has put together this Earth Day project, it was an overall hit with the ASD students who attended. Barth said next year he’s thinking about moving the event to Arbor Day to allow the ground to thaw a little more and give the kids more of an opportunity to participate in spring cleanup.

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