THE BOOK THAT CHANGED MY LIFE

 “How would you like to spend the summer in Colorado?”

When Bill Miller, my senior editor at Rand McNally, asked me that rhetorical question in early 1966, I was delighted. I really wanted to get out of Chicago—my marriage had just ended—and I could use some time in the mountains, far from steamy Chicago in the summer. Then I realized he wasn’t offering me a vacation. I would be expected to edit a high school biology textbook, an ecology-oriented book called the BSCS Green Version.

Who, me? My year of grad work in zoology had been in genetics and embryology, at the opposite end of the biological spectrum from ecology. Though I had enjoyed my one class in ecology (mostly because I had read Walden for the first time), I felt a bit disdainful about the subject. Molecular biology was where all the excitement was then.

Nevertheless, I was happy to accept the assignment, partly because of what I knew about the textbook’s history. After the humiliating sight of Sputnik circling the planet in the late fifties, the National Science Foundation (NSF) had decided it might be prudent to invest more in science and math education. Almost at once, the NSF began training teachers and designing curriculum projects. Unlike most curricula of previous years, these would be written by teams of professional scientists and talented high school teachers. Though physics and math education were the obvious post-Sputnik priorities, all the sciences benefited from the sudden infusion of money.

One of the many NSF-sponsored projects was the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study (BSCS). Biologists and teachers gathered for writing conferences in Boulder, Colorado, to design an innovative biology curriculum. Labs and field work, rather than a textbook, would be central. Because of some sharp differences in outlook, the group finally created three versions of the same curriculum. Though the broad themes, such as the importance of the cell, and the centrality of evolution, were alike, one of the curricula emphasized whole organisms (the Yellow Version); another, molecular genetics (the Blue Version); and the third, ecology (the Green Version). School districts and teachers could choose the version that seemed best for their students.

Publishers bid eagerly for the NSF programs, and Rand McNally won the contract for the Green Version. Bill Miller (an exceptional editor) edited the 1963 edition, which had been very successful and profitable. Now it was time for a second edition.

The summer in Colorado was delightful, partly because of the beautiful surroundings, but more so because of the writing team. Haven Kolb, a high school biology teacher from Maryland, was the supervisor. The most unflappable person I have ever known, he coordinated (and largely rewrote) contributions from Richard Beidleman, an ecologist at Colorado College; Victor Larsen, a botanist at Adelphi University; and from several other scientists and teachers. In nearly 50 years of writing and editing that followed, I never worked with a better group of writers. They differed widely in interests and abilities, yet somehow Haven wove their rough manuscripts—this was years before the computer age—into a beautifully written book that provided an excellent introduction to biology. My attitude toward ecology changed by 180° as I absorbed the importance of the subject not only to other areas of biology, but to the whole planet.

Haven was a strong supervisor and gifted writer; from a publisher’s point of view, his only failing was his stubborn refusal to be hurried. A perfectionist, he polished and rewrote everything many times before and after I edited it, oblivious of publishing deadlines. Long after the summer ended and he returned to Maryland, Haven continued working on the rough drafts. Finally, Bill sent me to Maryland with orders to sit on Haven’s doorstep until I could bring a publishable book back to Chicago.

That was a fine idea, in theory. As it turned out, Haven and his wife, Mary, simply welcomed me into their family, and I stayed in their home for long periods over the next year, doing a lot of editorial work but also enjoying life with the Kolbs and their teenage daughters. Back in Chicago I might have been going out for two-martini lunches (which were still popular then); instead, I was spending lunch and coffee breaks walking in the woods and learning about the Maryland environment first-hand.

Because I worked on the book in the sixties, of course my newfound interest in ecology merged with the country’s new consciousness of environmental problems. For me, even Vietnam and civil rights were eclipsed by pollution and diminishing resources. I began living a more environmental lifestyle, reading more Rachel Carson and less Helen Gurley Brown. If I had been a few years younger or more adventurous, I might have joined a commune or begun living much as I do today. Even so, my life has never been as acquisitive and wasteful as it would have been without the Green Version.

The Green Version was the first major textbook I edited, and to me it still stands out as the ideal high school biology book—very readable, illustrated with hundreds of fine photos and artwork, and based on the latest concepts of that time. Nearly 20 years later, when I did a study of environmental education for my dissertation at Stanford, I was happy to see that the Green Version still seemed to be the best book of its kind.

At Stanford I was mentored by Professor Emeritus Paul DeHart Hurd, who was often called the architect of the BSCS because of his enormous contributions to the original plans. We had long talks about biology education, the BSCS programs, and related issues. When I received my PhD, Paul was responsible for my joining the writing team that prepared the sixth edition of the Green Version. It was a great honor to work on the book in that capacity, and over the next few years I wrote other materials for the BSCS as well. Everything I have written or edited since then has had some connection to ecology, and can be traced back to my editing the Green Version.