Watch out, Barney - it's Mollie Mole! - environmental presentations to children

American Forests, Jan-Feb, 1995 by Michael Niven

If they can shinny up to a seat on the first branch or hide out in a neighbor's tree house, most kids take naturally to trees. But when it comes to teaching them specifics like root systems or tree identification, the subject is more likely to produce yawns than screams of joy and laughter. What can an adult do to perk up a child's interest in matters environmental? Well, act like a kid, of course!

Gillette, Wyoming, resident Darla Disney-West learned this trick three years ago, and her unique approach is still paying dividends in her effort to educate children about the benefits of trees and forests. "I wanted to do something fun for the kids," says Disney-West, "because I knew that another lecture on the environment wouldn't get their attention. Becoming Mollie Mole seemed a good alternative."

Instead of addressing the students from behind a podium, the 30-year-old director of the Intermountain Conservation District (ICD) dons a life-size mole costume (carefully stitched by her more) for her environmental presentations to fifth- and sixth-graders in the 13 Gillette grade schools. So far, the hands-on classes, which occur at Campbell County's 16 ICD-sponsored outdoor classrooms, have been a great success.

"At first, I thought 10- and 11-year-olds might be too old for this kind of approach," says Darla, "but it has worked much better than I expected. They really get excited about Mollie."

The outdoor classrooms allow the children to play an active role in Disney-West's presentations through touching, digging, and planting. She tackles the subject from the ground up to instill a sense of tree awareness in the students.

"I try to start out small by talking about moles, root systems, and other soil critters," says Disney-West, "and then I move it to a larger scale, teaching the kids about a tree's role in the big environmental picture."

During the classes, she introduces the kids to proper tree-planting procedure and encourages them to help her plant a tree at the classroom site. Afterward, she displays slides of the adult tree and answers questions about trees and the environment.

Disney-West's interest in the environment began on her parents' northeast Wyoming ranch, which she says "put me in the forefront of it all." Long days of chores and three-mile hikes to the nearest school bus made her more aware of her natural surroundings. She puts that awareness to good use in her work at ICD.

ICD, a subsidiary of the Wyoming Department of Agriculture funded through Campbell County, works to educate the community in all areas of natural resources. Its programs touch on a variety of local issues, including ground-water, mining reclamation, and tree health.

Despite a significantly longer commute than her childhood treks to the school bus--"My husband and I live on our ranch about 60 miles outside of town, and 22 of those are on a windy dirt road" -- Disney-West still finds plenty of time to create and participate in ICD's many programs.

In addition to her furry performances as Mollie, Disney-West is directly involved with much of the tree planting that occurs in the Gillette area. Over the past several years, she has coordinated the planting of more than 5,000 trees around Campbell County through local programs. Planting sites such as schools, parks, and golf courses have been graced with an abundance of different species including Colorado blue spruce, Rocky Mountain juniper, Amur maple, and honey locust.

To further increase her community's forest awareness, she has organized a series of tree symposiums to help educate residents about such tree topics as windbreaks, fertilizers, disease recognition, and planting procedures. Quality speakers from groups such as the Wyoming Forestry Division and the Soil Conservation Service have been recruited to lend their expertise.

Disney-West's efforts have been particularly meaningful to the community because of their profound visual effect. Gillette (pop. 30,000), 50 miles west of Devil's Tower National Monument in northeast Wyoming, sits on the high plains where there is little natural tree growth. The new trees have enhanced the town's character and provided important benefits such as cutting energy costs through shading and establishing windbreaks to slow gusts and rain. Mollie Mole's hometown stands out as a treed oasis.

"People who drive by Gillette or stand in one of the city's refurbished parks immediately notice all the trees because they're such a rare sight up in the plains," says Disney-West. "It's nice to know that I've played a part in that."