Education in Natural History and Systematics

Even as recently as the 1920s, even later in places, botany was taught in elementary schools.  Natural history was still as relevant in the lives of most Californians/Americans then as cars and computers are today.

Now, in the midst of a mass extinction event such as the world has not seen in 65 million years, just when we need it most, natural history and systematics (basically, how to tell one plant or bug or bird from another) has become nearly extinct itself as a subject in school curricula, even at the university level!