Parks in Focus

Luis (left), 13, and Reanna, 13, touch a bear hide whileparticipating in a naturalist-led bear den hike at Tahquamenon Falls State Park. Photo: Bret Muter

Connecting youth to nature with a snap and a flash

By Bret Muter
Fall 2008

Engaging youth with nature is an increasingly challenging task for environmental organizations.

But the technology often blamed for separating children and the environment can sometimes do the opposite.

Digital photography can be an excellent tool for getting youth excited about the outdoors. Ask any one of the 11 teens from the Muskegon River Valley Chapter of Big Brothers Big Sisters and the NCCS Boys and Girls Club of Newaygo County who participated in a five-day photographic safari of some of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan’s most scenic destinations this past August.

The trip was part of Parks in Focus, an educational program of the Morris K. Udall Foundation, an independent federal agency based in Tucson, Ariz. Since 1999 the Foundation and the Boys and Girls Clubs of Tucson have introduced middle school-aged youth to public lands and provided them with equipment and instruction to explore the natural world through the camera’s lens. New Canon digital cameras are given to each participant at the completion of the program.

With help from its undergraduate scholarship program alumni, the Udall Foundation has expanded Parks in Focus to New Jersey, Maine and Michigan. This year marked the second annual program in the Great Lakes state.

Throughout the program, Ben Wasserman, a University of Maine Udall scholar, and others taught Michigan’s natural history and digital photography. Kids had new adventures each day, bouncing on bogs, crawling into bear dens at Tahquamenon Falls State Park, fishing and bird-watching at Seney National Wildlife Refuge, meeting with owl researchers at Whitefish Point Bird Observatory and touring Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore by boat.

The kids gave their shutter fingers a good workout, experimenting with macro and landscape photography. They took more than 3,000 photos of the people, places, plants and animals they met along the way.

View more photos here.

Learn more about the Udall Foundation here.

Bret A. Muter is a second-year graduate student in MSU’s department of fisheries and wildlife. This is his second appearance in EJ. Contact Bret at muterbre@msu.edu.