Money might make the world go `round, but love is what`s going to save it. Just ask Sue Hargreaves, Wendy Paulson, Jim Johnson or anyone else given the task of luring kids away from their televisions and high-tech computer games and introducing them to the wonders of nature.
Some say today`s Nintendo expert will be tomorrow`s savior when it comes to undoing the damage past generations have inflicted on our planet.
”They`re our future,” said Steve Van Matre, founder and chairman of the Institute for Earth Education, an international environmental education organization based in West Virginia. ”Most environmental scientists say we have about 50 years left, that if we don`t really sort out our relationship with the planet in the next 50 years, irreversible ecological catastrophe is going to result.”
It`s a weighty burden to be sure, but thanks to stepped up efforts to educate and, more importantly, fascinate kids with the dynamics of the natural world, they won`t be heading off to battle unprepared.
According to those providing nature programs, the forces of supply and demand, particularly since Earth Day in 1990, have been spiraling upward. And the emphasis has gone from micro to macro. Not only are we studying what the components of our ecological systems are, but why they`re important.
”I think more and more there`s not only a willingness, but a real eagerness to have a positive impact on the natural world,” said Paulson, chairman of the board of trustees for the Illinois chapter of the Nature Conservancy and director of education for Citizens for Conservation (CFC), a volunteer group active in and around the Barrington area. ”At one time, there was a feeling of `just leave it alone.` I think we`re realizing now we need to play an active role in the caretaking.”
And what better place to start than with our future?
Many schools are devoting special units to nature education, conservation groups are reaching out with educational programs for kids and families, and nature centers, park districts and forest preserves throughout the northwest suburbs are offering more programs more often.
”There`s definitely an upsurge all over,” said Bill Wickers, Kane County Forest Preserve education coordinator and site manager at Tekakwitha Woods Environmental Center in Valley View. ”I think it`s important to get kids involved emotionally-try to forge emotional ties with the natural world.”
Sue Hargreaves, a k a ”The Nature Lady,” is doing just that. She visits kindergarten, 1st-, 2nd- and 3rd-grade classrooms throughout Barrington School District 220 to teach youngsters about such things as native animals, prairie ecosystems and insects. A former biology teacher turned educational consultant, Hargreaves said that requests for her services are on the rise, and the interest kids show is encouraging.
”One of the joys of my teaching is that everywhere I go, kids are just crazy about the program,” she said. ”They love to look at the stuff . . . and it`s interesting to me because even on our walks, where we wind up sitting quietly looking at something like a spider spinning a web, it may not compete with Nintendo and videos and all the things that you think make it harder for kids to be interested in nature, but they still have a very natural curiosity about it.”
Paulson agrees. ”Children have a very natural relationship to the world around them, particularly through the animals and insects and so forth, and I think we have a real responsibility to cultivate and encourage that interest that`s really native to them. Once you get to know a leopard frog or even a cricket or garter snake and come to love it for what it is, which happens very naturally and readily with children, then you care about it and you want to help provide it with a place to live. If you don`t know it, then you don`t really care. If (nature education) is encouraged, I think we`ll have an ongoing population that`s informed and capable of caring for the world around them.”
Paulson said CFC`s educational efforts have gone from minimal to wide-ranging, with programs that start with preschoolers and go right up to adults. Activities range from insect safaris and nature crafts for young kids to bird walks, plant identification workshops and aquatic surveys for older participants. And she says the requests are increasing, particularly among school and scout groups.
Diane Lancour, director of the YWCA`s Camp Tu-Endie-Wei Mildred Jehle Outdoor Education Center in Elgin, said she`s seen similar increases in her neck of the woods. ”When I came here four years ago, we had about 400 to 500 kids a year-those numbers have doubled,” she said, ”and my scout numbers have basically tripled.”
And Jim Johnson, who has coordinated the environmental education effort at Schaumburg School District 54`s Nature Center since 1973, said his facility currently serves some 15,000 kids a year. Not only has interest in his nature education programming been on a steady increase since the late 1980s, but he sees the focus changing.
”Now we`re trying to show relationships-why is this particular plant dying, why is this insect here or why is there an increase in deer population in the forest preserves? We`re starting to look at the total picture.
”I don`t think any of us will really become involved with `saving the Earth` unless we become part of nature, understand how things work and the relationships,” he added. ”We`re just one little cog in the wheel, but we`re doing so much damage to the environment, so I really think we need to get out and touch the trees and pick up a turtle and look at it and let it go-really immerse ourselves in nature and understand how the systems work.”
While most kids might be reluctant to toss their Game Boy in the recycling bin and spend their spare time reading Aldo Leopold, a number of those same kids are enthusiastic participants when it comes to spending an afternoon monitoring stream life, learning about prairie restoration or tracking animal signs in the woods.
”I`ve always been fascinated by nature,” said 13-year-old Gene Goins from Woodstock. Goins was taking a lunch break with his buddy, Mike Seliga, 13, of Ringwood on the banks of Nippersink Creek during a 12-hour outdoor education program offered by the McHenry County Conservation District. ”I like just getting away from everything-phones and things that bug you,” he added.
”Just technology in general,” Seliga chimed in, ”we like to spend more of our time out here.”
Both boys think more kids and adults should take advantage of nature education programs, ”because people should learn about what they might be destroying,” Goins said, and they weren`t shy about voicing their opinion about the environmental burden their generation will face.
”I think we`ve been gypped, really gypped,” said Goins. ”If it wasn`t for all the adults before us, we wouldn`t have to deal with Styrofoam and the ozone disappearing and stuff. People need to learn why they recycle and why they should compost. The conservation district is preparing us though. They`re preparing everyone. It`s perfect.”
Van Matre sees the environmental education movement catching on not only in the U.S., but in other countries.
”I find that, in my travels, there`s a new spirit kind of blowing out there and I think it`s going to make a difference,” Van Matre said. ”They`re tuning in.”
