Open Letter on Journey into Amazing Caves
From Carol Zokaites, National Coordinator,
Project Underground

Hi everyone,

I wanted to share what I have been doing with the M-F film company and the IMAX® film, Amazing Caves. Things have been moving rapidly and I know a lot of folks are unaware of what is happening.

I think M-F has done a great job on cave conservation with the family fun guide, the teachers guide and web page. A great deal of extra effort has been put forth by the film company to work with the NSS. Remember, the film company did not need to work with NSS or Project Underground. The film company has worked with us willingly and has answered most of our requests in a very positive way.

Basically, the money from the M-F film company is allowing the NSS to educate a tremendous number of people. The NSS simply does not have the funds to provide the karst and groundwater education on a large scale. The Amazing Caves film has allowed this education to happen through teamwork. Additionally, the M-F film company is sending materials on the film to NSS grottos that are located near the theaters (and maybe even all the grottos in the NSS). This will keep the grottos informed on the film and will provide free materials for the grottos to use. The M-F film company has also given grotto contact listing to all the theaters and encouraged the theaters to work with the NSS community.

When I first heard about the IMAX® film on caves my thoughts went toward education and conservation. What a wonderful opportunity for cave and karst education! Maybe we can work with the film and use the opportunity
to spread the word about the benefits of karst and groundwater protection.

The Eastern half of the U.S. is being faced with great need for karst and groundwater education. The threat to caves is no longer just visitation. More serious threats are coming from development, agricultural (chicken plants etc.) non-point source pollution (septic tanks etc). Towns are developing in karst areas, people are using the karst aquifers for drinking water, and not understanding the unique area they are living on. Roads, power lines, pipelines etc. are being built right through cave and karst country.

So you can see I am very comfortable with presenting karst conservation without sending people caving and I suggested karst education materials to the IMAX® company (M-F) when they asked Project Underground to help with education for the film.

Wow - have they been wonderful to work with! We started with the web page, you can view it at www.amazingcaves.com

We set up a helpful committee of NSS scientists and cavers who reviewed and commented on the materials I wrote before sending them to M-F. The web master has been very willing to make any changes we have suggested.

Next we worked on the teacher's guide, which is a small book of lessons and materials teachers can use with classes who attend the film. Six Project Underground lessons are included in this guide (activity names have changed to tie in with the movie). These are science and discovery lessons. There is nothing about taking a cave trip, what gear to take on a cave trip, etc., like the Everest teacher's book. A lot of effort was put toward keeping the educational materials on the karst and cave science level.

This is a great little book, theaters can order them for teachers-very, very inexpensively. The NSS can benefit not only from public educatation about caves and karst, but NSS members can help at theaters with teacher training workshops and not have to worry about material costs! It is also on the web page for you to download.

More recently, we worked on the "Family Fun Guide" This is something the film company produces to give out to
movie goers at the theaters. What an effective way to reach thousands and thousands of people on the importance of cave and karst education. AND NO COST TO THE NSS!

A short description of the guide follows, please note - the reference to caving is for visiting a commercial caves or state or national parks that are set up to lead the public caving.

We also added a promotional piece on donating to the NSS through Save the Caves. We will see what happens. Also listed are books from the NSS bookstore.

I just received copies of the Family Fun Guide. It looks great! Front side blue with Ice Caving picture really attracts attention.

Subjects

• Fun Cave Facts - things like Mammoth Cave being the longest in the world and Bats are the only flying mammal, also defining karst. Section ends with request for donations to the NSS.
• Cave conservation and exploration - standard conservation message ending with enjoying caving trips at commercial caves or state and national parks with organized caving trips.
• What is a cave, - short paragraph on types of caves include lava tubes!
• The back side is a lesson on how sinkholes form that families can do at home, a word search to do while waiting for the movie to start, and a list of recommended reading - mostly books from the NSS bookstore.