Thom Sanders-Garrett is going to Hungary for the cultural experience and the opportunity to observe a different approach to teaching environmental education.
But the Sussex School director and science teacher also wouldn't mind catching a glimpse of the Hungarian "wooly pig."
"I'm really anxious to see the wooly pig," Sanders-Garrett said with a chuckle. "It's supposedly the only species of pig in the world with wool on it."
Sanders-Garrett is one of 11 Missoula-area educators who departed for Budapest, Hungary, Sunday as part of an environmental education exchange program. The teachers will spend three weeks in Hungary, attending conferences, exchanging information with Hungarian counterparts, visiting national parks and taking in other sights.
All of the Montana teachers were paired off a year ago with educators from Hungary. The Hungarian teachers spent a month in Missoula last summer.
"The main goal of the program was to have them rework curriculum to incorporate environmental education here and in Hungary," said Fletcher Brown, a University of Montana assistant professor of education and environmental studies who is the coordinator of the program. "But the big thing that is coming out of this is the cultural exchange. We're bringing two very different cultures of teachers together."
Brown said the exchange program came about two years ago when Bob Hausmann, a UM linguistics professor, was contacted by Hungarian educators interested in broadening the environmental education emphasis in their country's schools.
The Soros Foundation, a private philanthropic organization that funds educational ventures, agreed to pick up the tab for the Hungarian teachers to come to Montana. A variety of sources were tapped into, Brown said to fund the Montanans trip to Hungary, including contributions from UM's College of Arts and Sciences and School of Education.
Middle and high school educators who were interested in the program were asked to apply to Brown at UM.
"I was looking for a commitment to a two-year program and an honest interest in environmental education," Brown said. "And we tried to see if their school was interested and would support the program."
Along with Sanders-Garrett from Sussex, other Missoula-area teachers selected for the program were Merrie Rampey and Jeannie Siegler, from Loyola Sacred Heart High School; Cynthia Tillman and Jim Tolman, from Frenchtown; Pam Rodeghiero, from St. Ignatius; and Mike Plautz, from Hellgate Elementary School. Also taking part in the program from UM were Brown, Lisa Blank, an associate professor in the education school, and Katy Meyer and Deb Kmon, both graduate students.
All of the Montanans were required to take Hungarian language lessons as a prerequisite to be in the program, Brown said.
After arriving in Budapest, Brown said the Montanans would pair off with the Hungarian teachers who visited Missoula last year. The plan was for them to continue developing the environmental education curriculum they began working on during the Missoula visit last summer.
"They will go with their colleagues in Hungary for a couple days," Brown said. "They will do things like compare the Clark Fork River with the Danube River in Hungary."
The educators will then participate in a five-day international environmental education conference. They are also set to visit national parks, do some hiking and spend time seeing other sights before returning to Missoula on July 11.
Sanders-Garrett said that the program fits in perfectly with efforts at Sussex, a private Missoula K-8 school, to bolster its environmental education program.
"We had really decide at Sussex to start focusing on environmental education," Sanders-Garrett said. "I figured this was a way to work in the summer at increasing my knowledge."
He said the Hungarian approach to environmental education is much different than the typical American way of teaching the subject.
"They mostly are responding to industrial pollution," Sanders-Garrett said. "Most of their environmental education focus is on urba
n problems and urban solutions."
Sanders-Garrett also said that the program provides a unique opportunity to visit a country he knew little about.
"A big part of it is just going to Hungary," he said. "It's a chance to be in a different culture and see a different part of the world."