Transcription of Outdoor Education #141
Lisa: This is Dr. Lisa Belisle and you’re listening to the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast, show #141, “Outdoor Education,” airing for the first time on Sunday May 25, 2014. It’s spring and the perfect time to get back out into the Maine outdoors. There are numerous benefits to being outside: emotional, physical, social, and spiritual. Today we discuss these benefits and the work being done by two special Maine places with Nik Charov and Dr. David Johnson of Wells Reserve at Laudholm, and Eric Topper of Maine Audubon. Join our conversation and be inspired. Thank you for joining us.
I’ve always been a huge proponent of getting kids outdoors and also getting adults outdoors. Today I have with me two people who feel this is equally important. We have Nik Charov who is the president of Wells Reserve at Laudholm and has worked in science education and environmental preservation for nearly a decade. He’s no stranger to Maine and has spent more than 30 summers exploring the tide pools, pines, and breakwaters on Peaks Island. He lives with his wife and two sons in South Portland. Nice to have you with us.
aNik: Thanks for having me.
Lisa: We also have Dr. David Johnson who is a local orthopedic surgeon and Laudholm Trust board member. He’s a former Outward Bound instructor and teacher of environmental science. David lives with his wife and four children in Kennebunkport. Good to have you in today.
David: Thank you, Lisa.
Lisa: We’re all individuals who love to be outside and Wells Reserve at Laudholm is a perfect place for that. For people who are listening, tell us a little bit more about the Wells Reserve at Laudholm.
David: The Wells Reserve, for short, is a nature center, an outdoor recreation site, a coastal science research facility, and a National Historic Register place. I think of it as a metaphor, really. It’s an estuarine research reserve. That means that it encompasses the place where three rivers actually come into the sea, into the gulf of Maine. These estuaries are fresh water rivers coming down to the salt water sea and so they mix. This dynamic place on the coast where certainly the tides going not all day, but the waters are mixing, is home to migrating birds, to rare plants, to some very rare and unique individuals as well, some of our scientists who work there and our researchers.
It’s all there to preserve and save this place but also use it as a platform to teach people about coastal science, about climate change, and about history as well. It’s an old 18th century farm that’s been restored and that’s our headquarters at the Laudholm Farm campus. I think with this salt and fresh, this past and present, with art and science all mixing together – it’s like yin yang. It gives us the opportunity to talk about so many things and teach people so much. Plus, there are seven miles of trails, a beautiful pristine beach, and forests, fields, all kinds of places to walk and recreate.
Lisa: Nik, you’ve spent some time not in Maine doing some very interesting urban activities, in fact having to do with the New York Restoration Project. You were greening up the city before you came to Maine.
Nik: I worked for Bette Midler for almost 5 years. New York Restoration Project is her non-profit. Bette grew up in Hawaii. She wants everywhere to look like Hawaii, but as a singer, actress, entertainer, she’s spent most of her life in Los Angeles and New York – two places that aren’t really renowned for their nature. She’s a passionate, committed, committable – sometimes – woman. She wants everywhere to be as green as the plants here in the studio, even eventually Hawaii.
We were building gardens, we were planting trees, we launched a compaign called Million Trees NYC which was an effort begun under the Bloomberg administration to plant a million trees across all five burroughs, so this is not just Manhattan, but is really just fitting in greenery wherever we could. When I left back in 2012 and moved up here to Maine, we were just past the 600,000 mark and I think they’re now getting close to finishing it as well. I’ve been doing this, I’ve been thinking about this, I’ve been out there preaching it and also getting my hands dirty and putting in trees and gardens for a while.
Lisa: Dr. Johnson, you’re a fellowship-trained orthopedic sub-specialist. You’ve completed a fellowship in shoulder and upper extremity surgery in San Francisco and you do a lot of work with sports medicine. Why is the green outdoors and getting people into the green outdoors so important to you?
David: I think it began a long time before I became an orthopedic surgeon, so out of college I went and was a teacher for environmental science and I worked for NOLS, the National Outdoor Leadership School, and I worked for actually New York City Outward Bound, which is … I didn’t know this but similar to what Nik did. We took inner city youth and took them on Outward Bound experiences to expose them to the outdoors.
Getting people outdoors, educating about the outdoors, was important to me long before I became an orthopedic surgeon, and now that I’m an orthopedic surgeon taking care of athletes, I see the benefits of activity, exercise, and the vigor it brings people, the psychological wellbeing, and it’s all even better enhanced when it’s in a great environment.
Lisa: You are an avid skier and a kayaker. Have you been able to find the time to do these activities while you’re also raising your four children and being a team doctor for Kennebunk and Biddeford and having a medical practice?
David: Yeah, I think that’s one of the appeals that Maine has had for us. We came here about six years ago and we were frustrated that I couldn’t find those things for myself or for my family readily where we were living in sort of a suburban environment. One of the great things about Kennebunkport where we live is we’re a half a mile from the ocean. For instance, my son and I will go out and go sunset surfing and watch the stars come up. It’s been amazing to me the neat effect living in that town has for us been then also those miniature experiences like that where he literally has a star that he’ll watch come up on the horizon and he calls it his own star. I just think that you can’t do that very many places.
Lisa: Nik, you originally have your undergraduate degree from Stanford, so you’ve been across the country. In fact, both of you have New York ties, you have San Francisco ties, and both of you chose to come back to Maine. What is so special about this state?
Nik: I loved California but for the same reasons I love Maine. There was the variety that was built on the natural world, the experiences of ocean, mountain, forest, and field. I’d always come to Maine as a kid and spent time on Peaks, Island. My grandparents had a cabin up there from the late 60s onward. I didn’t know you could actually work up here and spend time all four seasons. After our second winter here I’m now beginning to wonder about that second part.
I’m overwhelmed constantly and especially with having kids and hearing Dave talk about taking his sons surfing – that’s why. I was working in Manhattan everyday. I was taking the subway in seeing a few hundred thousand people going through Penn Station everyday and that’s more people than I’ll see in my entire life up here in Maine for the rest of my days. I was tired of the impinging concrete all the time, the attention that’s just getting drawn by neon and horns and filth blowing down those canyons in the city.
Up here it’s just the exact opposite. This is where I want my kids to be, where my wife and I to be, and my grandparents are also up in Topsham as well – they retired up there. This is where the family has gravitated and where we’re going to stay just because it’s got everything we want and I couldn’t ask for a better place to live and I’m evangelizing it to all my friends.
David: I couldn’t agree more. I think I started to tell you we moved up here looking for a better lifestyle and I think we were overly pleasantly surprised. I trained up here at Maine Med for about three or four months when I was in medical school so I had some exposure to Portland. A job opportunity came up in the greater Kennebunk area and we came up here hoping that we would find something that fit our lifestyles well, and it’s been magnificent. My family’s blossomed. I think a lot of it is just the integration of how much people live here with the outdoors and integrate it into their life. It’s an important part of what they do for work, and play, and function. That’s just a great integration that should be part of life.
Lisa: What did each of your families do to encourage you to work with the outdoors when you were growing up. That seems like an important influence is what our parents do with us when we’re younger. Each of you had your experience in environmental education so there must have been something within your families that was a priority.
David: I think with my parents … I was raised in New York City ironically but neither of my parents came from New York City and for them you could always see their real personalities come out when we left New York – a country home in Cape Cod. Whenever we were there you could see them transform into the people they wanted to be and therefore the people I wanted to be with. Whenever they talked about what was fun to do in their free time it was always fishing and hiking, walking the beach, and sailing and things like that. It was never the vibrant culture of New York City. Even though they sort of enjoyed that, that wasn’t what lit them up.
Lisa: How about you Nik?
Nik: My whole family’s from New York. First generation Russians, my grandparents all came over in the 50s. Especially those grandparents that bought the place on Peaks Island, they first moved out of New York City to the Berkshires and it was really my grandmother who was a gardener, a composter. They were living on 11 acres up in the Berkshires and really homesteading it. It was going up there as a kid on the weekends. We lived in a rural town, my parents and I, in Connecticut, in Eastern Connecticut. We backed up onto a lot of state preserves so I was out in the woods a lot but not nearly as much as when I was out with my grandmother in her garden. Now that I’ve got a garden of my own I’m really getting excited about taking that down through the generations and getting my kids hands into the ground as well.
It was funny, I got up here … Actually I think when I was in New York I read Helen and Scott Nearing’s book and I got so excited about the possibility of having my own … living off the land, building stone walls, composting, all this stuff. I went and showed my grandparents; I was like “This sounds exactly like what you guys did,” both in the Berkshires and then in Maine. They pulled out this tattered copy – it was from the late 50s – that they had been reading in their similar position in their late 30s in the city. That’s what they wanted to do, too.
I feel it’s just being outside and getting outside is just a continuation of what I think all of us want to do. It’s funny that there’s been this movement to urbanization, especially during the Industrial Revolution. We’ve all collected in these cities and farms have emptied out. Now the pendulum’s swinging back, at least for some of us, but I think more and more of us. Maybe it’s this drive, the biophilia drive to get back into nature. Cities can’t offer us everything we want, although the Chinese food is definitely something I miss.
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Wells Reserve is one of the ways that you get people interested. I grew up in Maine, I grew up in Yarmouth, and I did a lot of outdoor activities when I was growing up but I think I almost … I don’t think I recognized what we had here. It was only when I went to organizations that were doing island education or were specifically focused on doing education about the outdoors that I really started to comprehend where I lived and what was going on. What are some of the activities that the Wells Reserve is doing for people like me who are growing up in Maine and really want a little bit more insight?
Nik: I have to say I think we’re still a relatively unknown jewel down there in Wells on the Kennebunk border. Just this summer alone there’s the big Tour de Cure bike ride that’s based there coming up in June. We’ve got weekly walks, guided and self-guided tours throughout the 2,200 acres. There are wellness walks that combine both walking and coming back and doing some fresh air painting. Continuous lectures both inside and outside. We’ve got a garden space that we’re working with the York County Cooperative Extension on and the master gardeners to do garden education.
David: There’s estuary tours there which I think is fascinating. I’m a new board member and it’s something I’m chomping at the bit to do because it’s one of the natural focuses of that place. They have a rack of kayaks and you can get a guide that will take you through the estuary and point out all of what it does – or you can do it yourself. Just one thing I’m eager to do.
Nik: Yeah, they’re booking those kayak trips up online at wellsreserve.org every week now. We’ve also got summer camps with the kids and getting them out there. We have large festivals. Usually at the end of September is our largest festival, the Pumpkin Fiddle Festival the last weekend, the last Saturday of September. There’s a big crafts festival that gets a lot of people to the Maine campus.
David: Periodic talks, so there’s been a couple really neat talks on climate change. In the next couple days I’m giving a talk on the effect of being outdoors and exercise on wellness in the human body. Those things continue throughout the year.
Nik: Lastly I think this summer we’re expanding our concert series. I’m a big proponent of the arts, especially arts with the purpose of educating and connecting people with nature. Our concert series and our historic barn seats only about a hundred people – all wood, very dark and kind of cozy place. We’ll have the DaPonte String Quartet, a couple pianists, a blues band Thursdays in July. Masanobu Ikemaya is coming down from Bar Harbor; he’s a pianist who also is a permaculture enthusiast so he does a slideshow and a piano performance. Even during leaf peeping season we’re doing a kind of autumnal concert as well on Columbus Day weekend.
It’s just any way we can get people there, connect them with the place and its past and its current activities, the research and the science, the education, the climate change communication. Any way we can get people connected to that is what we’re trying to do there. I’ve only been there less than two years so right now I’m just throwing things at the wall and seeing what sticks and bringing on enthusiastic, excited, and really expert people like Dave here.
Lisa: Speaking of being an expert, Dr. Johnson, you mentioned that you’re giving a talk on the impact of being outdoors on human beings. What is some of the research behind that?
David: I’m sure you’re familiar with a lot of that and I think part of it is really nicely encapsulated in Richard Love’s book which is Last Child in the Woods. He talks about this unfortunate observation over the last several decades where Americans, and particularly our kids, are spending less and less time outdoors. He coins this term called nature deficit disorder. That’s looking at the negative aspect of how America’s drifted away from the outdoors.
Then you flip the coin and you say what’s the positive benefit? I think there’s been lots and lots of studies showing objective effects on psychological wellbeing, concentration, happiness, reflected in part by kids’ test scores. If you look at kids who are not exposed to the outdoors and compare them to like-minded groups who are, you can really directly measure how much better people do in terms of their academic success, their perception of their wellbeing, their happiness.
That seems to translate into very direct physiological effects like lower blood pressure, lower heart rate, decreased dependence on medication for kids who are on medications already. There’s a whole host of, first of all, psychological and then physical things that interplay from even very limited exposures to the outdoors that happens on any kind of consistent basis.
Lisa: What do you notice about each of your sets of children. You have four children and you have two children, so when you bring them outside – you you mentioned you go out with your son sometimes kayaking.
David: Surfing actually but yeah.
Lisa: Surfing, okay. What do you notice when you come back from these outdoor adventures?
David: I think it’s one of the best, most intense bonds that we share as a parent and a child because we both are focusing on the same thing. We’re not distracted by all the things that can bombard us. We’re both getting this peacefulness at the same time that we’re sharing. When we step away from that I always feel like it brings out the best in both of us. We’re interacting in the most positive way. There’s no harping on him for what I want him to be as a kid. There’s no arguing back to me about what I’m telling him dad. It’s all about talking about the star that rose over the waterline, or did you see me catch that wave, or geez, I really wiped out. It’s all the way that we interact with nature. It’s this really common, fun, beautiful bond.
Lisa: What do you notice with your children, Nik?
Nik: Even in New York, if we weren’t leaving the city every weekend for the last couple years that we were there to go to my mother’s house up in the country, we were meeting up with a group of friends and walking through some of the wilder parks in the five boroughs and just letting the kids go out in front of us. Keep them maybe in eyesight but even sometimes not and just to have that freedom for them, that opportunity for them to go and explore and climb, falling down trees and crawl under things and get really dirty. Just get them out there.
I’m dreading the programmed years. We already go to swim lessons on the Saturday morning and I hate going inside on a Saturday morning, but learning to swim is pretty important if we want to go surfing eventually. Just looking at my future and seeing how can I avoid some of the sitting on the bleachers every morning and afternoon and every weekend. How can I continue to instill and inculcate in my boys just the fact that they can get outside, get energetic, get moving, and that I can do it with them. As Dave was saying, to just be out there spending time together in the non-judgmental, the non-cheering. Just being out there I think is the real opportunity it gives us.
When they get back from these places, from a day at the beach, from a day at the Wells Reserve, the boys will come down and they’re starting to learn their way around the place and I just let them out the door and say “See you in an hour.” They come back and they’re tired first of all, which when you’ve got a 3 year old, anything that really wipes them out is a godsend. Also, their skin is glowing, they found some bugs that they’ve brought back. They’re out there, they’re curious, they’re attentive. To me that’s what wellness looks like in a little package is these little things running back and just saying “Look! There’s a birds nest that we tipped over and knocked all the eggs out of.” We’ll talk about that later but … That they’re out there.
David: If I think back about what my kids remember and what they bring up in excited conversation, there’s a very common theme that they’re outdoor experiences. It was a great moment skiing or it was a moment when they caught the best fish of their life, or it was something that intrigued them. That’s a repeated theme that you see that that’s really what sticks in their head.
Nik: In Maine we don’t this epidemic … I hope not anyway. I ask you doctors whether we do, but certainly in New York City, just coming up against kids all the time who are latchkey kids or glued to their screens or their bags of Fritos. It’s like listen, even in New York City there are places that you can find and do this, and the effects were obvious.
Lisa: Nik, where can people find out more about the Wells Reserve at Laudholm?
Nik: We’re on Facebook, we’re on the web. Facebook it’s Wells Reserve and our URL is wellsreserve.org. A lot of stuff coming up this summer, a lot of programs, lot of outdoor activities, a lot of what we do there everyday, which is trying to give more and more to the public.
Lisa: I appreciate the work that you’re doing. We interview a lot of guests and we don’t always see the passion that the two of you have shown for the impact of the outdoors upon the self and the being. I suspect that people who are listening will want to spend some time at the Wells Reserve learning more about what you do or maybe going surfing and looking for the star on the horizon. I encourage people to look into the Wells Reserve and to being outdoors in any way as we begin this summer here in Maine. We’ve been speaking with Nik Charov, the president of Wells Reserve at Laudholm, and Dr. David Johnson, a local orthopedic surgeon and Laudholm Trust board member. Thanks so much for taking time out of your day and being with us today.
Nik: Thanks so much. See you out there.
David: Thank you, Lisa.
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Lisa: If you have small children or if you don’t and you just like to walk, you may have spent time at Gilsland Farm in Falmouth, which is part of the Maine Audubon Society. Today we have with us Eric Topper, who is the director of education at the Maine Audubon Society. Eric Topper manages youth and adult education programs throughout the state, including pre-K programs, vacation and summer camps, school partnership programs, and adult learning and trips. Eric lives in Portland with his wife and two children. Thanks for coming in today.
Eric: Thanks for having me. Eric, you weren’t born a Mainer, let’s say.
Lisa: Eric, you weren’t born a Mainer, let’s say.
Eric: That’s true. I was raised in the Midwest and ended up in Portland about 12 years ago now.
Lisa: You spent some time in Boston right before that.
Eric: I did. My wife was in grad school in Boston and we lived there for two years. I worked there for Thompson Island Outward Bound on an island in the middle of Boston Harbor and had a wonderful, exciting commute to work everyday and also ran programs in the mountains of New Hampshire. Sort of had the best of both worlds living in the city and working in places that took me out of the city frequently.
Then when we finished up grad school in Boston we decided that Maine was going to be the next place and that was going to be the place we were going to settle down, and we’re not leaving.
Lisa: What was it about Maine that drew you toward it?
Eric: For me the mix of big city culture, New England culture, combined with incredible access to the outdoors. Particularly the idea that I could enjoy a ocean environment and a mountain environment at the same time but then have a great meal that evening. To be able to do that all in one place was really exciting.
Lisa: You also, as you mentioned, worked for Outward Bound. That wasn’t necessarily a place you could have a great meal.
Eric: No, Outward Bound is not known for its food although there are certainly base camp chefs and cooks that are cringing when they hear me say that – and that was something to look forward to. Some of the best parts of Outward Bound were being done with a course and going out to a restaurant after a course.
Lisa: What go you interested in outdoor education?
Eric: My parents from a very early age cultivated an appreciation and a respect for the environment, wildlife, animals, that sort of thing. We always had pets growing up. Then I in my early teenage years in my quest for adventure and those sorts of things, I ended up on an Outward Bound course as a student when I was 14. Found there a combination of things that have stayed with me throughout my life, both the environment and the natural beauty of being in scenic places. Also the sense of adventure and the adrenalin possibilities of rock climbing and paddling and things like that.
Also the idea that those places were also places and ways that one could do soul searching and character development and things like that. Having experienced that as a student and as a recipient, that I decided that I was going to at least spend the early part of my career after college doing that. I like the idea of leadership and I like the idea of, again, teaching responsible risk taking and things like that. I’ve ended up staying there and really finding wonderful places to stretch myself professionally, but at the same time scratch personal itches around being in beautiful places and doing fun things.
Lisa: We had Eric Denny from Outward Bound on our show not too long ago.
Eric: Another Outward Bound Eric.
Lisa: Yes. He was talking about I guess the more extreme nature of what Outward Bound often does and the solo trips and how this was an important part of Outward Bound. I love this idea and it’s something that I’ve experienced myself as being very important. What I also like is the proximity of Gilsland Farm and Maine Audubon Society to people who may not have access. They may not have the ability to go out and spend time on an Outward Bound adventure.
Eric: Absolutely. I think Maine Audubon and lots of Audubon societies nationwide have it figured out in terms of bringing nature and the wilderness and wildlife and habitat into communities. I think outward bound and other … They’re wonderful resources, particularly Maine, to go somewhere and do amazing things in beautiful places. I think the community resources like Maine Audubon are just as important where people have really immediate access to these same sorts of opportunities to form values and experience things around them and that sort of thing really close.
The Gilsland Farm I think can be that resource for Portland. Portland has done I think a fairly good job protecting open spaces. We have Deering Oaks and Baxter Woods and all these wonderful resources here within city limits. What’s missing from those places is the interpretive support to go along with that that Gilsland Farm provides. We have staff; there’s a staff naturalist that you can talk to and say “I just saw this. What is that all about? Is that right for this time of year?” That person can go check with conservation biologists nextdoor and those sorts of things and really round out the experience.
At the same time, we’re pouring interpretive resources into that facility to make it speak better to those values. I think, as you said, it’s a really important resource to have in the community and we have these. We have a center near Bangor as well with the same kind of focus, a seasonal center at Scarborough Marsh and then sanctuaries all over the place. That’s the idea, is to give access to people to those same resources.
Lisa: I haven’t been to the center in Bangor but I have been to the one at Scarborough Marsh and I’ve also been to the one in Falmouth. The places I’ve been to that are Maine Audubon Society can be appropriate to really a broad range of ages, educational backgrounds, and understandings. I think that’s really interesting an important.
Eric: We consider that our job that as we get closer to these communities and we work directly with these communities that we’re here to serve, the idea is to find lifelong learning opportunities for the citizens in those communities. Each age group and demographic has its own priority area and the reason why it’s critically important. I think Maine Audubon at each of our centers and particularly where we are staffed and have programs, which is the defining characteristics of a center for us, it’s important that it’s all ages, that we don’t have a center that is “Oh, that’s the adult place or that’s the kid place,” that we have to do all of the above to do it fully.
Lisa: The goal of the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour is to help make connections between the health of the individual and the health of the community. The goal of Ted Carter Inspired Landscapes is to deepen our appreciation for the natural world. Here to speak with us today is Ted Carter.
Ted: One of my friends, Ken James, he was a surgeon for his entire career and adult life until he retired. He really at heart is a naturalist and does beautiful photography of nature and all of these beautiful nature settings. They went to Africa and shot some amazing shots in Africa. He goes out into the wild and takes pictures of the birds. I think what happens is that I’m noticing people are really as they are retiring or getting to retiring age – and I’m working with many people in that bracket – that they really are starting to find themselves in an area that is completely removed and different from their life experience up until this point.
The landscape I think talks and speaks to them in a special way and helps to nurture that and steward that activity. What I really endeavor to do is to try to create that bridge between what their old life was and what their new life could be or is becoming. We’re always in the state of becoming. I think that the built landscape gives you a place to really meditate and seriously think about what you’re going to do for the rest of your life. I’m Ted Carter and if you’d like to contact me I can be reached at tedcarterdesign.com.
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Lisa: When I was at Scarborough I believe I was on a school field trip with one of my children and it was the Scarborough Marsh experience. It was very interesting because it’s very close to the road. There’s cars going by and not too far away there are birds and trees and swamp grasses and things that I’m sure I’m not scientifically labeling very well. I think that when we were associated with Falmouth we did something with owls at some point. That’s some very interesting thing about owl excrement actually; that’s something that I really remember. What are the things that seem to fascinate kids the most? What are some of the birds and animals and natural resources?
Eric: For me it seems to be a little bit age-specific in terms of what the hook is for the particular population, but I think one common theme that I think Maine Audubon has really tapped into, that you mentioned as well, is this notion of starting with the wildlife, starting with the critters, the animals – the owls, the birds that live in the marsh, those sorts of things. That’s I think what becomes the draw and the destination for people and a reason to go out into these places and then for us to provide access.
One of the ways we do this is we maintain a huge collection of taxidermy mounts, essentially stuffed animals, and our priority is animals that people would be fortunate enough to interact with in Maine and see her in Maine, and an idea for people to see those up close in full size and those sorts of things and get more familiar with them that way. That works really well for the kids programs, for the school programs, preschool and things like that.
Then you mentioned the live owl shows we do periodically three times a year. More so we do live animal shows at Gilsland Farm, the idea being that these experts in wildlife rehab and wildlife interaction, places like the Center for Wildlife down in York, come up and actually in a classroom get to let people see and interact with live animals that are in captivity but are native species. That becomes the draw I think. Different sort of populations go different places.
The kids want to go see more animals, so that’s going to get them outside and that’s going to get them to pursue curriculum and opportunities to see more animals. Adults can zero right into what are the systems that it takes to support these animals, and I get it, and the animals are endearing but I can think on a much bigger scale and I can think about the Scarborough Marsh, for example, as an ecosystem and I understand that. The animals are nice little hooks but I can go to a place that’s much loftier.
That’s what we’ve tried to do. I think that all of us in the environmental sciences field, all of us in the outdoor education field, we’re confronted with the crisis of our time – climate change – and so particularly figuring out specific hooks for specific age groups and population groups where we can get people quickly to buy into that. What they can do individually and as communities and in much larger groups, what they can do to deal with those problems and those challenges. Again, I think Maine Audubon has a great slant on that, starting with the animals. Keeping it exciting and real and giving it a face and a mouth and a nose and those sorts of things is really helpful.
Lisa: You have two children.
Eric: That’s right.
Lisa: How old are they?
Eric: I have a 4 year old son and a 2 year old daughter.
Lisa: What do they like to do when they go to the Audubon Society?
Eric: This has been really an exciting opportunity for me since I’ve worked there. I’ve been in education my entire career and this is my first opportunity to bring it home. My kids participate in programs at Maine Audubon and then we also go there periodically when family members are in town and those sorts of things. For my kids it’s been really fascinating to watch their development through the slant of this one theme, this wildlife and habitat theme.
My son in particular, my 4 year old, is right on that cusp where unstructured opportunities for exploration are really important. Also, he’s getting to that point where his brain is starting to organize things and look at characteristics and things like that, but then also he’s at that place where he’s looking to apply skills that he’s developing to particular areas of content. For example, yesterday at his preschool his teacher reported that this was off the charts and nobody had done this yet. He drew a bird and then asked to measure it. She gave him a ruler and he measured and reported that it was 7 inches long. She asked him if he wanted to measure in centimeters or inches and he reported that it was 7 inches long.
I believe she was just shocked about that and said “What do you all do at home? Are you measuring things and things like that?” The only thing I could relate that to was his learning about animals according to a structure in the preschool program at Maine Audubon, which stimulated him to come home and ask me to look at field guides and read him characteristics of different birds I think it was, and started getting familiar with this one’s 7 inches and this one’s 12 inches and those sorts of things. Then has actually gone out and sought to apply that which is pretty incredible.
I think those of us in the field of environmental education realize how important our field is for science and technology and engineering and math, the stem subject areas. This was a real world opportunity for me to see this at home. I think that the preschool programs are neat because that age group really benefits from, as I said, unstructured exploration, that sense of discovery where we just honor it. Then also really getting them used to a structure of discovery. “Okay, each class is going to follow the same general sort of plan. First we’re going to have the story and then we’re going to have some clues, and then we’re going to guess the mystery animal for today.”
The kids get used to following that same structure and they start looking forward to those mystery animals. Then they want to go home and actually anticipate what that mystery animal is and learn about related mystery animals. It’s just really neat to see that snowball take root, where in an eight week program there may be eight mystery animals. They’ll learn little facts, fun facts about eight different animals. To see that again snowball into … But they’ll also get familiar with measuring things and identifying and characterizing and that sort of thing. That’s been really fun for me.
Lisa: What do you do with your 2 year old?
Eric: The 2 year old is still very much in that place of learning … I feel like she’s in that age where she’s starting to form values, she’s starting to gain empathy, she’s starting to do those things. I feel like her exposure mostly at home and a little bit at school to books that are trying to teach those themes and stories about sharing and those things, but then also that combined with the empathy that’s getting taught more subtly at Maine Audubon where she’s learning about different critters that are all sharing the area around this. She doesn’t realize, I don’t think, that these animals that you’re learning about are specific to here. When we go to Florida she’s able able to point at … She knows that’s a squirrel.
I think it’s a really varied, mixed bag, and it’s been really neat to see that at different developmental parts. One of the great things that I’ve benefited from as well is both kids participate in the program together. We have a pre-K family program where the idea is a caregiver. In my case it’s our babysitter takes our kids there on Tuesday mornings for an hour. Both kids participate with her. They do a crafts project, they do reading, they do an outdoor exploration. Today I think they’re making sap; they’re learning to tap a tree. Kim’s going to teach them how to boil sap and what that process is. I know we’re going to have a super fun conversation tomorrow when we’re eating our waffles and sharing maple syrup.
That’s been a really, really fun experience. Maine Audubon also offers dropoff programs for pre-K age kids, just sort of three hours, one day a week where the students are opportuning. Those kids go a little bit deeper and then we get into the k-5 curriculum which is much deeper than that.
Lisa: You have summer camps programs as well.
Eric: We do. The idea is that we have school-based programs during the school year and then each time school is out, so school vacation weeks during the school year and then summer vacation we flip over to a camp model which is all day, different themes for the day where kids are going out and playing games and doing exploration and that sort of thing.
Lisa: What I found was … First of all, it was much easier when my children didn’t have driver’s licenses. I would say “We’re going to go somewhere,” and they would go, and generally they would like the animals. Now that my kids are older it’s not as easy to get them as involved as they once were, although I have a senior in high school, she’s taking AP environmental sciences so that’s helpful. I have a child in college; he’s a biology-zoology major, so that’s helpful, too. I still think that those teenage early adult years can be a little bit more of a challenge. I know you have a school program that goes all the way up through. How do you specifically work with the teenagers?
Eric: Most of our success working with teenagers has been through the teachers in particular and guiding teachers to come up with curriculum that’s both rigorous and engaging and really hands on I think is critical to those age groups. I also think those age groups benefit a lot from the destination and if you can add in some opportunities for adrenalin and those sorts of things and challenge. Those are, I feel like, really healthy ways to do that with those age groups.
Maine Audubon, again, is focused largely on the teachers. I think we’re working more on developing service learning programs and citizen science programs, which are really, really important opportunities as well. I think one of the things that’s exciting for me as an educator and dealing with changes in the way things are and the way the world works is the combination – and I’m particularly excited for middle school and high school age kids to be able to do this is – be able to merge field experience with data collection and sharing online, the wealth of resources now that I’m sure your kids are using all the time and those of us who are older are still learning to catch up and it’s not a part of our school experience yet – or wasn’t earlier. Now kids are getting that in part.
There are all these amazing resources to track where kids can go out and do work in the field and then bring that back to the classroom and enter those data and look at them and participate in projects and Skype with classrooms around the world, and all kinds of wonderful opportunities that are very exciting.
Lisa: How do you keep adults interested?
Eric: I think there’s a part of it that starts with the wildlife. I think we have tremendous success in our live animal shows with the adult market. I think that’s additional appeal having a room full of live animals is a draw for all ages. I think the other big pieces are part of the destinations, giving people packaged opportunities where they can have a really deep experience in a particular area. Then I think just the community, various community resources in terms of workshops and things like that.
The hardest part with adults I think has to do with scheduling and logistics. What’s the ideal Northern Maine immersion? Is it four days? Is that too long? Does it lower the appeal? Those sorts of things. That’s the tricky part there but I think we’ve done a really good job offering the array and saying if you can come for four hours and you can only make it as Gilsland Farm, let’s maximize your time there on a particular area. If you can spare four days to come up to Borestone Mountain near Greenville and add some time just sitting on the porch reflecting on your experience as well. I think the whole gamut there.
The other really exciting part for adults, and I mentioned this with the teens as well, is citizen science. The idea, which I think Maine Audubon is unique in that sense, of our blend of conversation and education. Citizen science, the idea that people can get out and contribute scientific data to major initiatives. This is a great way, again utilizing the internet and other resources, where a scientist can maximize the scope of their study area by mobilizing volunteers. Maine Audubon’s done this for many years with the annual loon count, property owners who live on lakes to count how many loons you hear and report that. We can get a pretty good handle on what we have for resources in the state and then you look at that over time and you figure out how we’re doing.
We’ve mobilized all kinds of other spinoff citizen science projects and then there are national and international citizen science projects as well. That’s a great opportunity for adults and particularly adult heads of family as well, that you can engage the family and you all participate in this project. Those are really exciting. I think that that’s the neat part is adults want to do something and they want to move to action. We’ve tried to celebrate that and capitalize on that a little bit.
Lisa: Eric, how do people find out about the various activities of the Maine Audubon Society?
Eric: Our website has made leaps and bounds in the last couple years. We’ve put a lot of energy into making sure that that becomes a really rich resource and that we prioritize right there on the landing page what programs are upcoming and what are opportunities to get people directly involved and working alongside of us. The website is www.mainaudubon.org. Then certainly any of our centers: Gilsland Farm here in Falmouth; the Fields Pond Audubon Center up in Holden, Maine just outside of Bangor; Borestone Mountain in Elliotsville Plantation; and then Scarborough Marsh Audubon Center in Scarborough Marsh open during the summer. Those are great places to just stop in and see what’s going on. We have what’s going on listed on the wall and people to chat about it.
Lisa: We’ve been speaking with Eric Topper who is the director of education at the Maine Audubon Society. Eric, thank you so much for continuing to bring really important information about the outdoors to the children and adults of the state of Maine.
Eric: Thanks for having me.
Lisa: You’re listening to the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast, show number 141: “Outdoor Education.” Our guests have included Nik Charov, Dr. David Johnson, and Eric Topper. For more information on our guests and extended interviews, visit doctorlisa.org. The Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast is downloadable for free on iTunes. For a preview of each week’s show, sign up for our e-newsletter, and like our Dr. Lisa Facebook page. Follow me on Twitter and on Instragram as “Bountiful One.”
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