I think it' s a great idea, and I' m very happy to hear it is still available in some areas! Unfortunately, I haven' t heard of any classes in the schools in Oregon for a long time. When I was in the 8th grade, I took a class called " Outdoor Education" . It was great! There was me and 21 guys...not many girls were interested back then. We learned everything imaginable about hunting, fishing, and survival. Everyday we target-practiced with pellet guns right in the classroom (that' s when I learned I was shooting with the wrong eye and learned to shoot left-handed), and we made fishing lures and built our own rods. It was the best, and most fun, class I ever took!
Do we really need the government teaching our kids one more thing that we should be teaching them ourselves?
Any way that we can get more kids interested in hunting and fishing, is a good thing! Alot of parents don' t hunt and so the kids that would like to try it need somebody to show them how to be successful and safe. I don' t think there' s a down-side to classes that teach that!