According to Prout, the Earthkeepers review is part of a larger effort to examine the school district's curriculum as a whole, and he said when he was a principal, he made sure each field trip had relevance to what is being taught in the classroom. Prout said the same is true about Earthkeepers. For example, learning about dinosaurs is fun, but if they don't have relevance to what we are trying to accomplish, maybe we don't do a unit on dinosaurs. Emily Wallace, president of Earth Learning Adventures, Inc. and head of the Earthkeepers program, said her staff's efforts are directed toward educating children about the world around them, not pagan religion. Deep Ecology Explored Wallace contends that the group's ties to Van Matre and his endorsement of deep ecology does not indicate that Earthkeepers teaches the philosophy, even though the creator of the curriculum holds those beliefs personally.
Deep ecology means different things to different people.
To us, it means being accountable for your own actions and looking at your relationship to the Earth. The Earthkeepers curriculum shares some of these concepts in lessons on certain systems such as the water cycle, which involves concepts about evaporation, condensation, rain and runoff. Moreover, deep ecology critics claim that because the philosophy teaches about population control, fourth graders in Port Huron are being taught to think about issues such as abortion and euthanasia. But Wallace downplayed those concerns, saying the Earthkeepers curriculum teaches no such issues and goes to great lengths to make sure nothing of the sort is mentioned in the program. None of it is true.