“Braedon doesn’t like insects,” Rod told me quietly. “He’s afraid of them, actually.” And Rod—Braedon’s dad—knew just where that fear had come from. But on this morning, Braedon swished his bug net through the shrubs around us, cooling his feet in the nearby river when it all got to be too much. Soon Braedon was happily examining and drawing insects with nearly twenty other children and their families, all members of our group called The Kutztown Summer Explorers.
Harvard emeritus professor E.O. Wilson has suggested that if children are first encouraged to love the natural world around them, they will be better equipped to deal with the problems of the world they inherit. I remember exploring the outdoors as a child—the magic of a little shrub cave, tromping through streams on camping trips, enjoying the time and space to make “potions” with berries and spring onions. The secret universe those explorations created let my mind escape and expand in ways that continue to affect me as an adult. Now I also treasure the awe and wonder on my children’s faces when they feel the power of the world at their fingertips: discovering tiny ice crystal hideouts under exposed tree roots, watching a caterpillar form its chrysalis, clambering over boulderfields.
I love sharing these wonders with other children, too—I want to learn from them and their families, and our Summer Explorers group is one way to start. Once a week each summer, a family shares with our group a favorite aspect of our local natural world—we have visited honeybee hives, explored the tiny creatures that live in local streams, and written haikus, for example. By exploring together, I hope we can encourage each other’s adventuresome spirits and strengthen our community at the same time.
The morning of our mapping session, in late spring, was moist and cool. It had rained during the night and the clouds still looked threatening, but 40 people—mothers, fathers, elementary-school-aged kids, and babies—sat on the ground outside the local elementary school. Everyone was busy examining copies of an aerial Google Earth image, trying to find favorite landmarks. “I see the pool!” “Look, there’s our house!” “That’s the school—see the creek? That’s where we are right now!” We sketched a quick map of the playground, and then everyone was off to map out bird houses on another part of the trail. Some children worked with their families, some with friends, but all along the way they helped each other. “Hey, did you get that birdhouse over there? See, just past this curve, I think you missed one.”
Too soon the morning ended, and families trickled away, on to other summertime adventures. But the magic was happening: our children were observing, wondering, finding beauty in the world, and finding each other in the process. As Richard Louv points out, Martin Luther King, Jr. showed us that the success of any social movement depends on its ability to show a world where people will want to go. I have glimpsed that world, and I know we will find our way there.
Lisa Kahn Schnell is a freelance writer and mother of two living in Berks County Pennsylvania. She can be reached at lisakschnell@yahoo.com
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