Encouraging Stewardship and Fighting Ecophobia through Service Learning
A large issue facing environmental educators today is how to directly engage kids with nature, encouraging stewardship of the land without scaring them of the environmental issues facing the world at large today. The concept of Ecophobia (Sobel 1998) is that when kids are introduced to environmental issues such as climate change, mass extinction and the like at too young of an age, and thus feel like we are losing a battle. A similar concept is Nature Deficit Disorder (Louv 2008), in which there is a disconnect of kids and free time spent in nature, for a variety of reasons. My work over the summer sought to combat these concepts with a service learning program, combining valuable trail work for Olympic National Forest, with environmental education and reflection, thus encouraging the kids to feel more connected and responsible for the natural world around them. Over my time spent with the Quilcene Ranger Corps, another intern and I taught lessons on wilderness survival, navigation, plant ID, and the use of various tools. It was a good experience for myself and the kids and I think it definitely encouraged a closer relationship with the public lands for the kids. Programs such as these are transferable and an excellent tool to educate and expose kids to nature, as well as getting valuable work done on often underfunded public lands.