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Tuesday, July 01, 2008
BBTO sends young New Yorkers to Puerto Rico to connect with their heritage, explore the environment, and protect the planet!
By Jackie Ostfeld, National Youth Representative, BBTO
Penuelas, Puerto Rico
A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of meeting four students from New York City – three of them BBTO-ers from the Bronx Lab High School – in a small Puerto Rican mountain town called Peñuelas. The young Latinas were on the island to connect with their heritage, explore the outdoors and participate in a summer training co-hosted by the Sierra Student Coalition and the Building Bridges to the Outdoors project.
Just in time for summer, the New Yorkers sojourned to Puerto Rico to join about thirty Puerto Rican high school and college students for a training led by their peers. Throughout the week students learned valuable campaign skills, including how to organize, work with the media and educate legislators about environmentally responsible policies. They were visited by guests speakers, like Sierra Club’s own National Political and Public Advocacy Director, Cathy Duvall, and a PhD student from Rutgers who was born and raised in Puerto Rico and now specializes in Environmental Anthropology.
Throughout the week, the students got to explore some of Puerto Rico’s most unique community projects and natural areas, like the People’s Forest and Guanica Dry Forest. In Guanica, we saw the world’s tallest flower and a few of Puerto Rico’s endemic birds. Back on site, the BBTO-ers enjoyed some unstructured free time splashing around in the nearby creek. The Latinas from NYC were the first to brave the fresh and COLD water. Others soon followed, and before it was time to go, the students had self-organized into a clean, green, trash-collecting team.
It is so rewarding to watching a group of inner city-New Yorkers connect with Puerto Ricans from the island to enjoy and protect the environment. By the time they were ready to head back to New York City, the BBTO-ers were fired up to lead their own schools in the fight to protect the environment!
Sunday, June 01, 2008
Pathway to the Outdoors
Chicago, Ill
There are moments that you make you truly humbled and Tuesday night I experiences one of those. The Sierra Club's Building Bridges to the Outdoors Project has been working with the Chicago Boys and Girls Clubs http://www.bgcc.org/ and the Illinois Chapter of the Sierra Club http://illinois.sierraclub.org/ to engage keystone members of the Chicago Boys and Girls Clubs with a variety of outdoor activities. We have head a three day annual event at Indiana Dunes Park Preserve where participants take part in activities ranging from water-quality testing to hiking the Dunes and experiencing starts while munching on smores for the first time.
One of the participants the first year of this program was Jerone Thadison a young man who had grown up on the westside of Chicago and never been exposed to the wonders of nature. Jerone was the keynote speaker at a celebration dinner Pathway to the Outdoors we held this week in Chicago. What was so humbling about listening to Jerone was how this one-time experience had affected his life. From the hikes along the Dunes he had been inspired to start an environmental club at his local Boys and Girls Club Chapter, the McCormick Club. Partnering with the Illinois Chapter of the Sierra Club, the McCormick Club has adopted Forest Preserves around the Chicago area and helped maintain their ecological intergrity. But Jerone took it a step farther, he used these experiences to become interested in plant biology and now three years later after being a young man who had never been on a hike he is a sophmore at Chicago State University majoring in Biology with a 3.3 GPA. There is nothing that gives me greater satisfaction then to see a young man like Jerone and the success that have been an outgrowth of his outdoor experiences. This is an example that the enviornrmntal movement is beginning to look and feel more like America.
Here is a link to story I am quoted on about virtual classrooms http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/969989.html in California. I have concerns that virtual reality will take away the special places all of our young people deserve to experience. There is no substitute in my opinion that replaces touching, smelling and hearing nature in person. A great story in USA Today weekend about the wonderful efforts of the Crenshaw Eco Club
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
A New Generation of Heroes to Experience the Outdoors
San Francisco, CA
I am so excited to announce a new program that the Sierra Club is going to be engaged in. The Military Family Outdoor (MFO) Initiative, a joint project of the Sierra Club and The Sierra Club Foundation, has announced a three-year grant of up to $23,324,000 provided by generous donors to support three organizations that provide returning veterans and their families with healing, life-affirming outdoor experiences in the natural world.
“We are proud to serve military families thanks to the support of donors to The Sierra Club Foundation who are profoundly motivated to ensure that those protecting our country get to enjoy its natural wonders,” stated Carl Pope, Executive Director of the Sierra Club. “This project will connect a new generation of American servicemen and women and their children to the mental and physical benefits of our natural heritage.” The Military Family Outdoor Initiative is building on the success of a partnership the Sierra Club began last year with support to the National Military Family Association to provide week-long summer camp experiences to military children. “Together with the Sierra Club we can make a difference in the lives of our Nation’s youngest heroes,” said Nancy Alsheimer, Chairman of the NMFA Board of Governors. “Drawing on the healing and connecting experiences of the outdoors, Operation Purple Camps empower military children and provide a much needed respite from worries about their deployed parent.”
The Sierra Club believes that every child has a right to have a special place in nature. In a 2005 study mandated by the California Legislature, the American Institute of Research found that children gain self-esteem and personal responsibility from outdoor experiences. In fact, students demonstrated a 27 percent increase in science test scores after a week-long outdoor experience. The Sierra Club’s Military Family Outdoor program will provide these experiences for military children during a crucial time in their lives. This year, the Sierra Club has greatly expanded its work with NMFA and has added outdoor programs for returning veterans, as well as camping programs for the entire military family to experience together. Sierra Club’s Military Family Outdoor Initiative has partnered with the Armed Services YMCA to provide additional family camps near military installations across the country and joined with Outward Bound to sponsor returning veterans in outdoor wilderness adventure courses. “Outward Bound is grateful to the Military Family Outdoor Initiative Project for its support serving America’s veterans through our proven outdoor wilderness adventure courses,” said John Read, Outward Bound’s President and Chief Executive Officer. “The Sierra Club Foundation grant provides a rewarding outdoor camping experience for hundreds of military kids as well as military families. They’ll have an opportunity to learn more about nature and most importantly, take time away from the stress of deployment,” said Armed Services YMCA National Executive Director Frank Gallo, Rear Admiral, U.S. Navy (Ret). “The ASYMCA is proud to have the Sierra Club as a partner in our mission to support America’s military families.” The MFO program is going to help veterans returning from time spent protecting our country to enjoy the natural wonders and the therapeutic benefits of nature. I am excited to help lead this program. www.nmfa.org www.asymca.org www.outwardbound.org/
Wednesday, April 09, 2008
A New Generation
Los Angeles, CA
Crenshaw High School here in Los Angeles is in many ways the definition of what is wrong with public education in America. With over a 40% drop out rate and gang violence a constant the school has become in many ways a daycare center for troubled adolescents. While the statistics back up this claim there is so much more to Crenshaw if you look a little deeper. Since 2002 through the efforts of Bill Vanderberg, the Dean of Students and my lead volunteer, the Crenshaw High School Eco Club has grown from a small after-school club into the largest after-school program at Crenshaw with over a hundred members. The Eco Club has helped so many children move their life in a positive direction. The Club takes kids to local parks such as Ken Hahn State Recreation Area http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=612 for weekly hikes and trail clean up but also holds an annual Survivor Challenge where young people who have never experienced the outdoors get an opportunity to see the stars and enjoy smores for the first time and see that there is nature in their community! The Eco Club has helped some of its members go on to schools such as Tuskegee and Cal Berkeley to major in environmental studies. The Eco Club is helping shape a new generation of environmental leaders who represent the best and brightest of their community.
I am mentioning Crenshaw because last week Bill Vanderberg organized a week long outing with students from Crenshaw and students from Albany, New York led by Children and Nature Network Board Member Yusef Burgess to go to Yosemite National Park and participate in a Wildlink Program through the Yosemite Institute http://wildlink.wilderness.net/wildlinkofficialprogramsummary.htm The experience these young people had was tremendous as they saw Half Dome for the first time and got a chance to meet new friends from the other side of the country. They also got to listen to Yosemite National Park Ranger Shelton Johnson, a Buffalo Soldier Living Historian http://www.nps.gov/history/history/hisnps/NPShistorians/invisiblemen2.pdf
who helped many of these young people see that their forefathers played an integral role in the settling in the West.
I wanted to focus on Crenshaw because so many times on this blog I talk about big picture things in the Leave No Child Inside Movement but what gets me up every day is the inspiring students at Crenshaw and leaders like Bill Vanderberg who are helping create a new generation of environmental leaders whose diversity and passion represents the best America has to offer.
I have a feeling John Muir was looking down with a smile as he saw the Crenshaw Eco Club members hiking around his scared ground.
Monday, March 10, 2008
A Night of Celebration
Olympia, WA
Many times on this blog I have commented on all of the steps we need to make to ensure that we get more children connected to nature. Last week in Olympia, Washington over sixty people who were critical in passing the No Child Left Inside Act came together to celebrate the first round of grants which are to be awarded on April 1st. The bill initiated a program through Washington State Parks which will give out $1.5 million to outdoor education programs serving at-risk youth. The application deadline closed on February 27th and amazingly over 235 programs applied with funding requests of 8.9 million! If this does not show the demonstrated need that communities have in connecting children with the outdoors I don't know what will. Richard Louv spoke passionately at the event about the leadership the Sierra Club and others are showing in creating real change in our communities in getting funding to help established and new outdoor education programs which are trying to build sustainability into their programs. Sally Jewell the CEO of REI www.rei.com spoke as well and talked about all of the great work that REI is doing on working with diverse audiences around the country and trying to engage a new generation of underserved communities with outdoor recreation. The true stars of the night though were students from John Muir Elementary School in Seattle who spoke about all of the great experiences they have had through their Building Bridges to the Outdoors Grant. Michelle Garcia a 4th grader summed it up best when she said "I love the outdoors because it is the best playground ever!"
Here is the website for the Washington No Child Left Inside Program
http://www.parks.wa.gov/NoChildLeftInside/
There was a good article last week examining how outdoor education can help academic achievement in the journal Scholastic America
I end on a bit of a sad note as Amit Rana our California Representative is moving on to travel the world for the next six months. Amit was an invaluable member of Team BBTO and his help with our events in California and New Hampshire last year made them a success. Amit was a great person who always stepped up. Along with Amit leaving, our New Mexico Representative Michael Casaus has been promoted to New Mexico State Director, Michael will still be engaged with BBTO and we will be hiring people in both California and New Mexico. Congratulations to Michael on his great promotion, well deserved.
It felt really good last week to know that funding is finally going out the door to connect children with a special place in nature!
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
The Urgency of Now
Washington D.C.
The tide of change on the issue of connecting children with nature is rising especially here in our nation's capital. I attended a Green Group briefing yesterday where over thirty groups participated in a round-table discussion on the Federal No Child Left Inside Act
http://www.naaee.org/ee-advocacy
Over a hundred groups have signed on to this legislation as well as 52 legislative co-sponsors. The bill is not the end all answer to connecting more children with the outdoors but it will promote environmental literacy and help let teachers take their students on field trips which is becoming a missing ingredient in so many schools.
A study came out last week that showed national part attendance is dropping at never before seen levels. www1.pressdemocrat.com/article/20080208/NEWS/802080345/1033/NEWS01
This study highlights that as Martin Luther King said so well there is an urgency of now with our issue. There is no doubt that the movement to connect children with nature is growing from the local and regional level led by the Children and Nature Network www.cnaturenet.org to National initiatives like the Federal leave No Child Inside Act but competing with this our drops in park attendance, communities that are developed that don't allow a treehouse and fear among parents to not let their kids outdoors because of the fifty cable networks covering one child abduction case. People are engaged more then ever as I saw last month in Columbus, Ohio when I spoke to the Ohio Camp Association and over 200 people attended not to listen to me but to have a dialogue together on how they can work proactively in communities across the state to connect children to the outdoors because as camp directors they see more and more children losing a sense of their heritage through a loss of that special place in nature.
Time is not our ally with this challenge as if we lose a generation it is impossible to get them back. Here is a great link to an interview with Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods in US News and World Report where he mentions the Sierra Club's work
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
The Movement Keeps Growing
Seattle WA
I wish my first entry of 2008 could have a brighter note but the Sierra Club lost a close friend and a wonderful colleague in Shannon Harps over the holiday. Shannon was tragically murdered on New Years eve. http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/345863_capitolhill03.html
Shannon was a wonderful person and a close friend whose spirit will always live on. Team BBTO's thoughts are with her family. Below is a wonderful page on Shannon and her numerous accomplishments. Shannon truly walked the walk. http://cascade.sierraclub.org/
As we begin 2008, Building Bridges to the Outdoors has some exciting new avenues moving forward. Here in the State of Washington we are moving forward on granting out over $1.5 million to programs working with underserved children. As Chairman of the Advisory Board helping implement the program, it has been an honor to work with such diverse partners on the Board ranging form the Woodland Park Zoo to Washington 4-H programs. This is such an exciting step as it will get thousands of children into the outdoors. More information can be found on this program at www.parks.wa.gov/NoChildLeftInside/
In California with the tight budget situation we are working across the State to establish a state network of Leave No Child Inside Coordinators who are going to bring local community solutions to attack the problem. We know that in California we must make sure we get a wide diverse coalition behind this issue. We have built a strong coalition including the Girl Scouts of America, the American Diabetes Association and the NAACP. We plan on bringing together all of these diverse partners together in Sacramento for a September Summit on the issue.
In New Mexico led by Building Bridges to the Outdoors Rep. Michael Casuas the Sierra Club is leading a coalition of groups in pursuing a 'Couch-Potato Tax' to be put on video games and television. The point of us working on this is to make folks think about how much time their children are playing indoors. Our Executive Director, Carl Pope has written a great blog entry on our efforts http://www.sierraclub.org/carlpope/ There are also some great stories on the New Mexico initiative, here are some great links to check out
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