College Of Natural Resources Receives $50,000 Gift From Honda
Wednesday, July 30, 1997
FORT COLLINS--A gift from American Honda Corp. has made it
easier for a popular forestry teacher with multiple sclerosis to
negotiate mountainous terrain at Colorado State University's
Pingree Park campus.
Honda contributed four all-terrain vehicles and a 1994
Passport sport utility vehicle to the College of Natural
Resources, a gift worth about $50,000.
Forestry Professor Rick Laven uses one of the vehicles to
travel the rugged terrain at the 3,000-acre Pingree Park campus.
Laven is director of the college's summer field program in
natural resources ecology, in which students study forestry,
fishery and wildlife biology, range science, as well as earth and
recreation resources.
The three remaining ATVs will be used at the university's
Environmental Learning Center, a 200-acre complex that offers
environmental education programs to Front Range youth. At both
locations, the vehicles will be used in maintenance, law
enforcement, trail construction and teaching natural resource
students how to use ATVs safely.
Honda's contribution also dovetails with a new curriculum
developed by the department of natural resource recreation and
tourism. Professors Glenn Haas and Jerry Vaske and graduate
student Diane Gaede created a distance learning course for land
managers and college students nationwide on how to integrate all-
terrain vehicles and other types of vehicles into recreation
programs on public lands. The course will be offered for the
first time this fall.
"Motorized recreation in the West is exploding in popularity
and is a legitimate use of our public lands," said Haas. "But our
professional ability to plan, design and manage this activity
needs to be improved."
The Colorado Division of State Parks, Montana Trail Riders
Association, U.S. Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest
Service are supporting Colorado State's efforts in ATV education
and related projects.
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