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Martin LeBlanc
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Sunday, June 01, 2008
Pathway to the Outdoors
Chicago, Ill
There are moments that you make you truly humbled and Tuesday night I experiences one of those. The Sierra Club's Building Bridges to the Outdoors Project has been working with the Chicago Boys and Girls Clubs http://www.bgcc.org/ and the Illinois Chapter of the Sierra Club http://illinois.sierraclub.org/ to engage keystone members of the Chicago Boys and Girls Clubs with a variety of outdoor activities. We have head a three day annual event at Indiana Dunes Park Preserve where participants take part in activities ranging from water-quality testing to hiking the Dunes and experiencing starts while munching on smores for the first time.
One of the participants the first year of this program was Jerone Thadison a young man who had grown up on the westside of Chicago and never been exposed to the wonders of nature. Jerone was the keynote speaker at a celebration dinner Pathway to the Outdoors we held this week in Chicago. What was so humbling about listening to Jerone was how this one-time experience had affected his life. From the hikes along the Dunes he had been inspired to start an environmental club at his local Boys and Girls Club Chapter, the McCormick Club. Partnering with the Illinois Chapter of the Sierra Club, the McCormick Club has adopted Forest Preserves around the Chicago area and helped maintain their ecological intergrity. But Jerone took it a step farther, he used these experiences to become interested in plant biology and now three years later after being a young man who had never been on a hike he is a sophmore at Chicago State University majoring in Biology with a 3.3 GPA. There is nothing that gives me greater satisfaction then to see a young man like Jerone and the success that have been an outgrowth of his outdoor experiences. This is an example that the enviornrmntal movement is beginning to look and feel more like America.
Here is a link to story I am quoted on about virtual classrooms http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/969989.html in California. I have concerns that virtual reality will take away the special places all of our young people deserve to experience. There is no substitute in my opinion that replaces touching, smelling and hearing nature in person. A great story in USA Today weekend about the wonderful efforts of the Crenshaw Eco Club
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