Alaska National Guard celebrates Earth Day with ASD students on JBER [Video]

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 …