“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.
