Stewards for the Environment: The Benefits of Early Childhood Outdoor Education

Stewards for the Environment: The Benefits of Early Childhood Outdoor Education 

Meaghan Lightfoot

2020 Cohort

                As a child, no one was able to ever persuade me to come inside. Every day after school, you could always find me in the wooded area behind my house, running in between and climbing on the trees, building piles of leaves during the fall, exploring creeks, and looking for rocks. I’ve always felt a close connection to nature; I was raised with a high regard for the outdoors and most of the fond memories of my childhood involve those woods behind my house. So, when my Child Development teacher showed a video discussing outdoor education for children, I was intrigued. When the video presentation ended, however, I could hear the scoffs and judgmental remarks of my classmates. “That’s so dangerous.” “I would never send my child to a school like that! So irresponsible!” The news report video was entitled Kids Gone Wild: Denmark’s Forest Kindergartens, in which children were running around in the woods and climbing on trees in 5-degree weather. All this was taking place at a Forest Kindergarten in Demark, under the supervision of a teacher who encouraged the kids to roam freely in the natural environment. When asked for our opinions on outdoor education, I was the only student in the class of 30 who agreed with Denmark’s methods of outdoor learning. As a River Steward, I feel a close and personal connection to nature and the outdoors, and was able to view this video differently than my classmates. It is my belief that fostering outdoor experiences is so incredibly vital and important in the dexterity of child development, especially in a society where technology is distracting us from the natural world.

                  According to the video, 10% of Denmark’s preschools are forest schools, with the classroom being outdoors despite the weather or time of year. The number of Forest schools has doubled in Denmark in the last 20 years, and numbers continue to increase with their rising popularity. The video also addresses the issue of integrating those children who attended forest schools into the classroom environment when outdoor education is no longer offered for their age group. Research is showing that compared to 3 to 5 year-old children educated in classrooms, kids who attended forest preschools and kindergartens are less stressed, can concentrate more, and show better motor development skills. In his article Leave No Child Inside, Richard Louv points out the risks of raising children under the protection of our homes, with no outside experiences or contact, stating this causes “threats to their independent judgement and value of place, to their ability to feel awe and wonder, to their sense of stewardship for the Earth, and most immediately, threats their psychological and physical health.” He then goes on to mention that studies show that “schools that use outdoor classrooms and other forms of experiential education produce significant student gains in social studies, science, language arts, and math.”

As a future environmental educator, I see the importance of getting children engaged in the natural environment at a young age, fostering a love for the environment that will hopefully stay with them throughout the course of their lives. The outdoors is a place I am passionate about, and that’s why I’m choosing to complete my service requirement at Learning Tree Farm here in Dayton,  Ohio. The farm’s mission is to facilitate learning in a traditional farm setting, allowing people to take the time to explore the outdoor area and see the interwoven connection between humans and nature first hand. Their nature preschool encourages children to develop and implement their curious minds into discovering their surrounding environment. Volunteering at the nature preschool, I’ve witnessed the excitement these kids have coming back to the farm each day, feeding and caring for the animals, and exploring the local flowers and plants. They learn how to be stewards for the environment and gain the appropriate developmental skills all through outdoor, hands on learning experiences. 

The benefits of outdoor education are endless, and the lack of outdoor educational facilities in the U.S. compared to European countries could explain issues surrounding U.S. society and the way in which we treat our environment. Access to nature is continually disappearing through deforestation, construction, pollution, and human expansion. This, along with the value our society places in technology, hinders children from forming a connection with nature. As Lauv puts it, children of our generation lack “places of initiation” or places/experiences in their life that give them a sense of awe and wonderment of our surrounding world. My first place of initiation was my backyard, and thinking about how many children do not experience that feeling of excitement pertaining to the outdoors is upsetting. I believe the next generation would benefit immensely from the implementation of more forest preschools and kindergartens such as Learning Tree Farm. Such schools would foster a love for nature vital to child development and potentially put an end to the mentality that children playing outdoors is “dangerous” or “irresponsible”.

Montgomery County Environmental Learning Center

 

Montgomery County Environmental Learning Center

Cassidy Count, 2020 Cohort

 

One of the most memorable and impactful experiences I’ve had this semester with the River Stewards Program was our field trip to the Montgomery Country Environmental Learning Center. The sophomore cohort went on this field trip on our own, and it sticks out in my memory for many different reasons. One reason being what we saw and learned at the center. We were going on a tour of the facilities, when we walk through this door and all the sudden we were in a dark hallway with a huge glass window spanning one wall, allowing us to see a huge area just filled with trash. It is hard to describe this image, but imagine an area the size of a football stadium covered in trash piles as tall as a dump truck. There were trucks in there pushing the trash all together that would be pushed in trash trucks that would come to take it to a land fill. The even more shocking part was that this was at the end of the day and most of it had already been taken for the day. I was awestruck and just stared at all of this as our leader was telling us the specifics of how much there was and how much of it could have been reused or recycled. I could tell by the looks on the rest of my cohorts’ faces that they were just as impacted by seeing this as I was. We often talk about the importance of sustainability, but seeing it was a whole different thing.

But this trip wasn’t just solemn. After we saw this, we walked into this huge room full of little games and activities about trash, recycling, and sustainability, obviously intended for kids to engage them in the subject matter. However, our cohort of 19 to 20 year-old college students spent a good 30 minutes in that room playing with the games and exploring all the different things all the while learning all about this common factor that drew us together as a program. Getting to have this hard-hitting experience, but also getting to have fun with my cohort was a really cool experience and is one of my favorite memories so far.

 

 Learn more about the Environmental Learning Center here.

 

The Lorax

The Lorax

Noel Michel, 2020 Cohort

 

 

As River Stewards, our program’s mission is to “engage in interdisciplinary and experiential learning, civic engagement, and sustainable community development around rivers;” But how do we stay motivated to accomplish this goal? Today, if you were to google how much trash is in our oceans you would see statistics such as “8 million tons of trash is dumped in the world’s oceans and rivers everyday” or “There is a plastic island the size of Texas in the Pacific Ocean”. We live in a throwaway culture society where everything is just for now, and it doesn’t matter where it goes. On our last river cleanup, I could not step one foot without seeing a piece of plastic to be picked up. Because of these facts it is difficult to motivate myself to wake up early on a Saturday morning to attend a river cleanup. After all, it’s just going to be as dirty again in a week or in a month, right? Why don’t we just give up?
 

Sometimes these thoughts enter my brain, like a poison they try to coax me into giving up, into not caring. But then I remember when I was growing up learning how to read. I was a slow learner at first and was not able to read until the end of first grade, which is unusual for most children. My parents were even considering holding me back a year. When my grandmother heard of what was happening she made it her mission to help me read. One book we read together over and over and over again was The Lorax by Dr. Suess. There was a rhyme in that book that she would always have me read, it was

 “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better, its not.”
 

Because my grandma took the time out of her life to work with me to learn to read I was not held back and caught up with the other students in my grade. The following year I even got a special award issued from my school saying I was above and beyond the reading level for me age group. My grandma did this because she cared and loved for me more than anything else and did not mind taking this time even if it did take her away from other tasks, took a very long time, and only showed short progress. She cared a whole awful lot and things got better. A year later she passed away of a sudden heart attack. I never forgot her, what she did for me, and the lessons I learned from her about caring.
 

I think of this Dr. Suess quote and my grandmother a lot of the times when I am waking up early on a Saturday morning to go work the RiverMobile, or walking my compost from Stuart hill to Kennedy Union (where the only compost bins are located on campus) in the freezing rain. It is a slow process trying to save the world but I refuse to lose hope. I care about my relationship with the planet and I’m not going to stop. I would clean 1000 more rivers, plant 1000 more trees. I don’t mind being the Lorax. If I am the Lorax other people will want to be too. And someday I know we all will be.

"Rabbit Hash, We’re Gonna Get Some Trash"

"Rabbit Hash, We’re Gonna Get Some Trash"

Joe Chandler, 2019 Cohort

Sophomore River Steward, Joe Chandler, recounts his experience volunteering with Living Lands and Waters, a nonprofit dedicated to cleaning America's rivers. This October, 12 River Stewards spent the night on the LLW Barge and volunteered at a river clean-up in Rabbit Hash, KY.

 

“Where’d they all go?”

We’re here… I think… We sit in the car wondering if we have in fact made it. We’re on what is basically a one lane road in between houses and the Ohio River, with no streetlights, and cars parked on either side of the road in Rabbit Hash, Kentucky. Very confused on if we were where we were supposed to be; to meet the rest of our group and to meet our hosts for the night, we walk down the dark one lane road. At the end we see a group of people who look like they might be our group. It was indeed our group; we made it! We were introduced to one of the crew mates of Living Lands and Waters barge! After brief introductions and a run-down of our plan for the night we headed back to the car to get our gear and move the car to the parking lot near the General Store where we found our group. However, after parking the car, there was nobody around. Our group had vanished! Well, I got to thinking, and figured we are supposed to go to a barge, barges float on water, the Ohio River is right next to us, that seems like a good place to go looking for our group! As I walk towards where I think is a path to get to the river I look around and put my arms out to say “Where’d they go!?” I then see a man and a woman with headlamps and hear the familiar voice of Chad Pregracke. I can’t believe it, the founder of Living Lands and Waters is the first one I make acquaintances with; what an exciting moment! He led us down to the barge and in the mean time we had a short conversation. I did not know it as this point, but this introduction would turn into a good relationship the following day during our river cleanup.

 

That Night

After a tour of the barge and a run-down of what the next day had in store for us, we were free to hang out and relax. The Living Lands and Waters crew were so inviting and made us feel right at home. I grilled them with questions about how a few of them got started and about any opportunities there might be for me to possibly join the team, or at least volunteer during the spring. I felt like a kid again, asking tons of questions to learn about something I knew nothing about!

 

The Next Day

The next day, Saturday, consisted of a river cleanup. This was the main reason for our visit to Rabbit Hash, KY. I had no idea what was in store for us, but the crew told us we will pull trash out by the boat loads, we will get muddy, and our shoes will never look the same after today. That sounded pretty intimidating. How much trash can there be? Boat loads? Seriously!? … Seriously... There was fog on the river so we had to stay put until that cleared. The garbage barge needed to be sorted through. The shore near where the barge was docked also needed to be cleaned up, so we had things to do in the meantime. After volunteering for a team of three to dig out a truck bed liner that was buried on shore and pick up trash on the shore near the barge, I think Chad knew none of us were afraid of mud and we all wanted to get this area as clean as possible in the short amount of time we were there. After the fog cleared and we could safely travel down the river, we began to clean up the shore a couple of miles away from the barge. I could see from the river that there we garbage cans, 5-gallon buckets, bottles, trash bags, and plastic barrels among other various items that shouldn’t be on the shoreline of a river.

Growing up fishing on lakes and playing along streams myself, I always picked up trash that I saw wherever I was. I had no idea how dirty our rivers actually are. The rest of the day consisted of me going for the largest objects that were buried in the mud. I wanted to get the big things out because that’s what everybody can see from the water and that’s also what took the most work to get out. I teamed up with a few different people throughout the day to get these larger objects out, and frankly the whole team that was out there did an absolutely incredible job! It was amazing to see. Everybody just wanted to get as much trash as possible out of that area. But going back to me being drawn to the large objects, it seemed like Chad knew I could be called upon to help him pick up a plastic barrel full of mud if there was one. And there were many. We made a good team! I continued to grill him and the crew with questions about different work they do, their experiences, hobbies, etc. It was a great day doing some great things with some great people! I hope to volunteer with Living Lands and Waters more, not only throughout my time at UD but throughout my lifetime. It was a truly amazing experience that I will never forget!

How to Define a River by Casey Willson 2020 Cohort

According to Wikipedia.com, the Great Miami River is “a tributary of the Ohio River, approximately 160 miles (260 km) long, in southwestern Ohio and Indiana in the United States. The Great Miami flows through Dayton, Piqua, Troy, Hamilton, and Sidney”. This definition is rather neat and tidy, not words normally associated with a river. More importantly though, this definition lacks a certain amount of emotion that patrons of the river have come to associate with it. So I’ve decided to create my own definition. One that truly only suits me and my experiences with the Great Miami River and one that I won’t share. I won’t share it because it won’t be useful to you. It’s based in experience and a bit difficult to put into words.

I spend a lot of time thinking about words, what they mean and why they mean it. I’m majoring in French and learning Spanish so words and their meanings take up a lot of space in my head. However, in truth I don’t think that words are the most important part of a language but rather the meaning behind the words are what’s important and rather telling of the culture which they are paired with. In fact, words themselves are only truly useful when attempting to communicate a thought or feeling to another person. They’re incredibly useful for that don’t get me wrong, but that’s not what we’re doing here. What we’re doing is creating a definition that’s just for you. You won’t need to be able to share it with anyone because it won’t apply to them and their experiences. It’s something for you to develop and enjoy for yourself, free of judgement from others.

So where do we find this definition? We go to the river. We sit there on the banks or we go out on a kayak and we close our eyes and we listen and we feel and from that experience we have found our definition. Its personal and its wonderful and it’s not something that can be expressed. Nor can it be replicated. Our definitions are abundant and malleable and in that is their truth. Because rivers are living things that grow and shrink and are constantly changing so why should our definitions of them remain the same?

Now you have all the tools you need so go on and find your definition and enjoy it because it will bring you greater understanding of the river and the world around it. Hold on to it while it lasts but don’t be afraid of the change, it’s inevitable and it’s good and we’re lucky to have it.

The Importance of Place in Public Space Design

The Importance of Place in Public Space Design

Rachel Carr, 2020 Cohort

 

Don’t get me wrong, the new main branch of the Dayton Metro Library is wonderful. It’s bright, innovative, and inviting. Mostly, it’s well suited for Dayton. This last aspect is something that I hadn’t felt until I visited another city’s new central library in Austin, Texas. It’s easy to see the beauty of the Austin Public Library, and want all of its features for the Dayton Public Library without much thought about the important differences between the cities.

The Austin Public Library Central Branch is more than bright. It’s a 6 story vibrant sanctuary, with a “technology petting zoo,” listening stations, and three outdoor decks. After my visit, I walked out wondering why Dayton Metro Library main branch didn’t also have a rooftop deck. The envy faded in a few days, and it became clear why these libraries are different and why they should be.

Often the solutions for creating long lasting, sustainable solutions to design are viewed as interchangeable, regardless of location and time. For example when cities look to implement more sustainable transportation solutions, they may find protected bike lanes are an effective, low cost solution. However, does that solution work in Cleveland? Similarly, I naively wished for outdoor decks and a solar paneled green roof. I am writing this back in Dayton, on a not so atypical morning that greeted me with brisk 27 degree winds; the fireplace on the second floor of Dayton’s library now feels like a much better way to bring people together than an outdoor deck.

Another aspect that I envied now standout in a similar way, like the diversity of media available. In the Austin Public Library there are “listening stations;” like a museum interactive panel, you can selected a radio station, podcast, or other selected form of audio from the menu, put on the attached headphones, and settle into the armchair. If you walk into the Dayton Public Library today, you’re not going to find this feature. But is that such a bad thing? This is not a piece of the infrastructure, it can be added, removed, and is a part the experimental design of Austin’s Library that could easily, in future years, be added to Dayton’s Library. Dayton in the future may have a “technology petting zoo,” too.
 

 

There is one feature that Dayton’s library is objectively missing: a connection to the river. Just as it’s vital that design acknowledges the constraints of place in terms of climate and geography, design should connect people to the environment and history of a place. Rivers tend to do both. An exhibit on the ground floor highlights the life and history of Shoal Creek, which runs through Austin’s downtown, and there are vistas on the upper floors that look out over the Colorado River, where the Shoal Creek meets it. Although the Dayton Public Library is nearly as close to its river, the Great Miami River, it does little to acknowledge its existence or highlight its history. As a place of learning, I believe Dayton Metro Library missed an opportunity to included the River in the design, in terms of physical orientation away from the river and lack of educational material on view about it.

 

The myriad features present in the Austin Public Library are stunning and appropriate for a central branch of a metro library system that serves the 2 million person metro area of Austin, the capital of Texas. However, we should hope that the central library of an 800,000 person metro area is very different. The role of each library is as different as it’s relationship to the space it is in, in terms of community and environment. As a Daytonian, it would be hard for me to be more proud of the beautiful main branch of the Dayton Metro Library. As an admirer of great public design, I am captivated by the Central Austin Public Library. But as a River Steward, I am left wondering why the connection to the river is lacking in the Dayton’s library and what can be done to change that. Austin’s overt efforts to connect to the river through the library creates a sense of shared identity and responsibility between those on the water, in the library, and across all public spaces.

 

 

 

Living Lands and Waters Barge Overnight and River Cleanup

Kevin O'Donnell, 2019 Cohort

I first met Chad Pregracke when he came to the University of Dayton to give a speech about founding Living Lands and Waters. Some fellow stews and I were lucky enough to show him around the RiverMobile and talk with him for a bit before we attended his speech. I remember how great the speech was, and it was so enjoyable to be around Chad. When I heard that Living Lands and Waters had offered for ten River Stewards to come stay overnight on their barge. I knew that I could not pass this opportunity up. I knew that we were going to be volunteering with them at a river cleanup in the morning, but other than that I had very little idea of what we were going to be doing. Nonetheless, I was still very excited.

Morning on the Ohio River in Rabbit Hash, KY

We ate dinner as a group before heading out to drive to Rabbit Hash, Kentucky, where we would be boarding the barge. Out of curiosity, I googled Rabbit Hash and noticed that the town had a population of just over 300 people! While we were eating dinner, we heard from Katelyn that we had been invited to a barn dance in Rabbit Hash. I knew this was going to be a night to remember. We drove down windy roads in the pitch-black darkness to the tiny town of Rabbit Hash, KY. We got a glimpse of the barn dance that we would be attending later before we all gathered together to get a quick tour of the barge and where we would be sleeping.

Before we knew it, we were boarding a metal johnny boat with all our sleeping bags, pillows and backpacks. After driving around to the other side of the barge, we hopped off to see where we would be sleeping. I had no idea what to expect regarding our sleeping situation. I would have been completely fine with just sleeping on the ground in a sleeping bag. Instead we walked into large room that was filled with air mattresses that had sleeping bags on top of them! Living Lands and Waters were incredibly welcoming in accommodating for us to sleep in what was normally used as a classroom, and I hope that they know how thankful we all were for that.

Group with Chad after our barge safety talk. 

After getting our sleeping areas set up, we boarded back onto the boat to head to the barn dance. The barn dance was a really unique experience and Rabbit Hash, in general, was one of the most unique locations I have ever been to. The live music was great and it seemed like the whole town was there having a great time. After the live music was over we gathered together again to head back onto the barge. When we were back on the barge we went up to the rooftop and had some nice late night conversation as we gazed up at the stars until we eventually decided that we should get some sleep for the river clean up early the next morning.

When we got up the next morning the crew of Living Lands and Waters had already made us breakfast and coffee. Again, they were incredibly welcoming! After we ate breakfast we finally got to work. The plan was to drive some of the boats upriver a bit and to pick up trash there and put it into piles on the shore. The trash would then be picked up by the boats and brought back to the barge. Since the river was very foggy early in the morning and driving the boat would have been a little dangerous, we instead began moving and organizing some of the trash that was already on the barge. It was great to see everyone working together to be more efficient. There were lots of assembly lines and people helping each other to carry some of the heavier pieces of trash. There was a crazy amount of trash on the barge and it was both concerning and uplifting knowing that all this trash had come out of our rivers.

Clean up crew on the trash barge. 

Once the fog cleared up we got on the boats to clean up trash from the river. The river bank was super muddy, but that didn’t stop any of us from getting dirty to clean the river. We were only picking up trash for about an hour, but we picked up a literal boat load of trash. The power of numbers is astounding! It would probably have taken a few days for just one person to clean up all that trash alone.

While we were cleaning the barge, I was alone helping Chad drive some trash to a different part of the barge and I got the chance to tell him how inspirational I found his story. He saw a problem and he didn’t sit around waiting for an opportunity to fall in his lap, where he would be able to make a difference. Chad created his own opportunity by just getting down to work and cleaning the river himself. He responded in his nonchalant aura with, “things are only as complicated as you make them.” I know that this will be a quote that is going to stick with me for a long time, and that I will never forget how genuine of an experience this was. I am so glad that the Rivers Institute and Living Lands and Waters have been able to develop this relationship that we have and I hope to see it further develop in the future!

Learn more about Living Lands and Waters and why Chad Pregracke won CNN Hero of the Year in 2013 in this amazing video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7n_7Pal_iQs