PRESERVATION of historic buildings and some of the island's most pristine natural beauty spots is the main business of the Bermuda National Trust - but its aims go beyond that.

These days the Trust is trying to instil and nurture an awareness of history and the environment in local children, in the hope they will continue preservation of the island's treasures in years to come.

The BNT's education programme involves taking the preservation message into schools and using fun as a catalyst in the learning process.

Summer history and archaeological camps and tours of some of the nature reserves and venerable buildings owned by the BNT are more of the methods by which the Trust aims to encourage a passion for the past and a love of nature.

Trust director Amanda Outerbridge explained the value of an awareness of the island's history.

"If we don't have sense of our own history we could have an empty existence," said Ms Outerbridge. "It is easy to think that because we have always had a mixture of cultures in Bermuda, then we don't have our own. But it's that mixture that is our own culture."

SPEARHEADING the education campaign, which is aimed at adults as well as youngsters, is BNT education officer Dr. Nicola O'Leary, who has been working with the BNT for two years.

"Bermuda has its own unique features, in its natural and building heritage," said Dr. O'Leary. "If we do not encourage the children to know and understand this, then it can be lost - and it is a part of us.

"One of those unique things is that the British settled here by accident, while other explorers didn't settle here. So we could easily have been a Spanish or a Portuguese island.

"Another unique aspect is how settlers survived on this tiny island with the resources that were available and how they lived off the land. How they used stone to build houses that were good for surviving hurricanes and the architectural techniques they used to support a heavy stone roof."

The Trust is effectively the guardian of 70 properties covering more than 250 acres and including 28 historic buildings. The precious heritage in the care of the BNT includes traditional houses, islands, gardens, cemeteries, nature reserves and coastline.

Some of those properties were previously under the wing of the Trust's forerunner, the Bermuda Historical Monuments Trust, which was founded in 1937. The BNT itself was founded in 1970 after an Act of Parliament to promote the preservation of the island's treasures and to encourage public access to them and enjoyment of them.

One way Dr. O'Leary has been able to maximise the number of children she reaches is through working with teachers.

Teachers' workshops and resource binders on the nature reserves of Warwick Pond and Paget Marsh had proved popular, she said.

Spittal Pond is another popular tour for children, as are old houses like Verdmont and Tucker House and the National Trust Museum at the Globe Hotel in St. George's.

But the fun factor in learning about history is most obvious in the summer camps the Trust has hosted. One involved archaeology and children being involved in digs at the Springfield site, now the Sandys Community Centre. That was aimed at youngsters aged 11 to 14. The dig's purpose was to find new information about Springfield's past residents and in particular the black Bermudians who lived there, before and after Emancipation.

"It was amazing to me that we could find 20 children with a passion for archaeology who wanted to do this," said Dr. O'Leary.

"This was a professional dig and it had to have professional integrity and the children were very enthusiastic."

The Trust has also run history camps, the latest entitled The Way We Lived. These are aimed at younger children, aged from eight to 11 years.

"This one was all about finding out about how we lived, what games we played and our different lifestyle," said Dr. O'Leary.

"We used the facilities of St. George's Preparatory School. We got the children to walk around a field and pretend they were early settlers and to find what they could and suggest what they could use it for, so they had to use their imagination.

"For example, if they found a piece of wood, they could use it as a paddle, or a palmetto leaf, perhaps they could use it to thatch a roof."

To increase the feeling of being caught in a time gone by and to boost the fun factor, the children are given old-fashioned hats and sometimes clothes as well.

Another technique used to bring history to life is to talk about artefacts in terms of how they fitted into lives of our ancestors, rather than merely their physical characteristics.

Ms Outerbridge said: "You can talk about a piece a piece of furniture, say when it was made, what it's made of and describe its legs and kids might say, 'So what, why do we need to know that?'

"The kids are much more interested when you talk about who made the furniture, how they made it and what they used it for."

Dr. O'Leary agreed. "Relevance and context and connecting people with it is good. One can really hold the kids' attention with people stories," she said.

"We're building a collection of artefacts that are useful. For example, something as simple as a candle-snuffer is great for getting us straight into lifestyles. It gets us thinking about how they would have gone to bed early and how they had to work with the sun."

MS Outerbridge added: "Now we live in such a throwaway society, but then people had to make their own containers, their own wagons and it took a lot of effort. And if they got damaged, they had to repair them."

Hence children can learn lessons from the past that will serve them well in their futures.

The Trust's annual budget is around $1.5 million, of which around nine per cent is funded by Government grants. Thirty per cent comes from rents, 27 per cent from donations, three per cent from the BNT shop Trustworthy and two per cent from the subscriptions paid by the 3,500 members.

For the organisation to function properly, it relies heavily on the efforts of an estimated 300 volunteers. And Dr. O'Leary said that any more who wanted to help with the Trust's education programme would be welcome. The BNT is also involved in cultural tourism. American groups, from places such as the Smithsonian Institute and the National Association for Historic Preservation, visit annually and the Trust takes them on a five-day itinerary taking in many of its historic buildings. And the drug company Pfizer has also rewarded winners of its incentive awards with trips to Bermuda organised by the Trust.

"What's great about that is that some of their members open up their homes to the groups and sometimes even have them to dinner," said Ms Outerbridge.

The BNT's cultural tourism programme is funded to a degree by the Ministry of Tourism. The Trust also worked with Tourism on the Diaspora Trail project, as its wealth of historical information, particularly on the Trust properties along the trail, was invaluable.

Wayne Jackson has recently taken over as the Trust's new president and Governor Sir John Vereker and Lady Vereker are its new joint Honorary Patrons.

Among the challenges they face in the future is the growing demand for their architectural expertise from householders.

"People ring us up and ask us what sort of windows they should put in their 19th-century house, what colour they should paint it, about railings and roofs," said Ms Outerbridge.

"We want to show people that we are not arcane, we are practical and are trying to make ourselves relevant to people. So we published a book called The Traditional Building Guide, that we did with the Planning Department. Another challenge for the future is making people understand how history is relevant to modern-day living.

"That is key to making people care about what we do.

"Development is continuing all over the island. In future, the open spaces we own, plus the golf courses and the Government parks, will be the only breathing spaces we have.

"The priority is to have housing for everyone, but we need to think about our quality of life as well. Bermuda needs to decide how much more development it wants."

Anyone needing more information on the BNT, or wishing to join or volunteer, should call the Waterville office at 236-6483.