People naturally seem to be drawn to the outdoors. Now, I do realize not everyone wants to hike the Appalachian Trail or summit Half Dome, but the majority of people enjoy seeing a pretty bird on their walk to class or sitting on a park bench for fresh air. This small foundation, that is in everyone, is something that is rarely built upon. No matter who you are, where you are from, who you vote for, how much money you have, blue collar or white collar, everyone finds some happiness in the outside in my opinion.
In today’s environment, not everyone has the ability to make it into the woods however. That’s why, in my opinion, it is important to bring the woods to them. It’s an odd thing to think about the there are thousands of thousands of people who never have the opportunity to get to explore or hike or fish or see a deer for the first time. This is where environmental education comes into play.
I have been pretty blessed with the opportunity to teach environmental education in a bunch of different places and each time, new students bring new life to the class. If you have never had the chance to teach younger kids about nature, take my word for it, the look of pure excitement can’t be rivaled. You can see things start to “click” in their heads and they all want to tell you all about it. I worked this past semester with Experience UGA, a great group of people who bring local schools to campus to teach them about all UGA has to offer, by teaching 1st graders about Warnell. They got to learn about Corny the corn snake and one of our box turtles, which we would use to teach about animal safety. Man, did they have a great time.
I encourage you, Warnellians, to take what you have learned and teach. The smallest “cool science fact” or just taking time to teach a younger person how to ID a tree could make the biggest difference. From then on, that tree will always stick out during a walk in the woods an maybe they will eventually teach their friends about it too. Throughout the end of this semester, I challenge you to teach someone about the world we live in and watch their face light up with the same look yours did, when you first became excited for nature…
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