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More than 200 sixth-graders from Floyd Dryden Middle School traded math class for firearm safety instruction and protractors for .22-caliber hunting rifles this week.

It's the third year Floyd Dryden has participated in the state's hunter education program.

Holloway said the course emphasized safety dos and don'ts.

The safety instruction is the most important part of the three-day course, which includes time spent in the classroom as well as on the shooting range, said hunter education instructor Ken Coate, who coordinated the school's participation in the program.

Back at Floyd Dryden, 30 children listening to a lecture on gun safety demonstrated their familiarity with the rules, chanting a safety mantra when prompted by an instructor.

"Keep your finger off the trigger until your sights are on the target," they said.

The classroom courses focus on safety, wildlife habitats, hunting ethics, law enforcement and proper care of game meat.

Floyd Dryden Principal Tom Milliron said the program is important for children because of the strong hunting culture in Alaska.

"It's inevitable that kids who live in Southeast will be exposed to firearms and they'll need to know how to conduct themselves appropriately," Milliron said.

Students can opt out of the program or parts of it, but only a handful did so this year, he said. About 230 students participated.

"The kids are into it," he said.

Coate said the program is particularly important in providing children with positive, nonviolent exposure to firearms. For that reason, he said, instructors are careful to refer to the guns only as "firearms" and never as "weapons."

"Eighty-five to 90 percent of these kids will hunt or will have exposure to hunting. But 100 percent have exposure to firearms improperly used in the media," he said. "The idiot box promotes weapons. We promote firearms."

At the end of the course, participants receive a hunter education card. Cardholders age 12 and over can hunt unaccompanied for waterfowl on the Mendenhall wetlands.

The education program isn't just for children, and the Board of Game has made it mandatory for some areas of Alaska, although not for Juneau, said former Fish and Game Commissioner Frank Rue, who was on hand Wednesday as a gun range volunteer.

Coate said 350 to 400 people in Juneau take the course annually. Floyd Dryden students account for more than half that total.

Rue said the program turns on some youngsters who aren't interested in hunting to recreational shooting.

"These kids get positive exposure to the joy of target shooting," he said.

Kelley Murphy, 11, said she was nervous when she shot the .22 for the first time, but only because she was worried about missing the target. Now that she's learned to shoot a gun, she says she might try hunting.

"We can get a Thanksgiving turkey," she said.