“Our iPod-listening, American Idol-watching, Xbox-playing generation increasingly shows a propensity toward sedentary life.”
—Gail Kimbell, Chief, USDA Forest Service
(Forest Service employees Jane Weber and Dave Cunningham spend a good part of their time hanging out with kids. That’s all kid’s drawings behind them, if you can’t tell.)
I have mentioned before the Four Threats to national forests identified by retired FS Chief Dale Bosworth: 1) Fire and fuels; 2) invasive species; 3) loss of open space; and, 4) unmanaged recreation. These are big, serious-sounding issues and with the exception of invasive species (coming soon), I’ve touched on all of this stuff.
I kind of scoffed when, several months ago, the new chief, Gail Kimbell, put her spin on Bosworth’s threats (see http://www.fs.fed.us/emphasis/). The new threats, according to Kimbell, are 1) climate change (a huge, important issue); 2) water (another huge issue); and, 3) reconnecting kids with nature (huh?).
The Forest Service’s budget is collapsing, but Kimbell has scraped together a half million dollars for the “Kids in the Woods” program, dedicated to “hands on outdoor experiences for youngsters.” I thought that’s what the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts were for.
I was in a big hurry when I set up a meeting with the Lewis and Clark National Forest in central Montana, and when they asked if there was anything in particular I wanted to learn about I think I said something along the lines of “whatever you want.” They picked the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center in Great Falls for a meeting.
The Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center is like something out of the Park Service, a 27,000 square foot tribute to the Lewis and Clark expedition. They’ve got a 158-seat theater and get approximately 60,000 visitors a year, including 4,500 school kids from Montana and the Dakotas.
The Interpretive Center is all about kids. You can touch everything and I have to say, the Lewis and Clark expedition really does come alive here. The Lewis and Clark National Forest has a grant application in to the Kids in the Woods program to fund a winter ecology field course for local fifth graders. The kids will get a class on weather prediction and then a snowshoe trip into the forest to check weather stations. Among other things they’ll learn how snowpack and weather patterns affect the next summer’s fire season.
(Kids streaming into the LC Interpretive Center.)
“So, just to sort of test this a little bit,” I said at my meeting with the LC. “I mean, the Forest Service isn’t a fitness club or a daycare center. Why kids?”
Interpretive Center Director Jane Weber had a very fast answer: “Because otherwise we’re not going to have resource managers down the road or people who care about the land.”
That stopped me. One of my favorite and most frequent rants is kids these days.
“It’s comforting to think that at least a small percentage of the generation that will be paying for my social security is not permanently brain damaged by constant exposure to horrific electronic mutilations.” That’s what I wrote on 7/05. Come to think of it, if you really care about national forests, you better care a lot if the generations behind you are getting out in the woods. I guess the Chief (and the Lewis and Clark National Forest) is a step ahead of me.
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