Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Dunes ’08 with the Boys & Girls Clubs of Chicago
By Jackie Ostfeld, National Youth Representative

Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, Indiana

I can’t think of a better way to launch into October, than traipsing through the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore with a bunch of teenagers from the Boys & Girls Clubs of Chicago. Crisp cool nights and the arrival of the dark-eyed junco signaled that winter was already on its way up north in Indiana. I spent the weekend with nearly 70 Boys & Girls Clubs teenagers from the Keystone and Torch leadership clubs at the Indiana Dunes Environmental Learning Center.

Dunes Learning Center staff set the stage with outdoor team building activities when the youth arrived. Throughout the weekend, we learned how to determine the health of a river, by dip-netting for macro-invertebrates, testing the water for pollutants such as nitrates and phosphates and measuring the dissolved oxygen content of the water. We also learned about succession, while hiking through a moraine. We were able to visualize nature’s tendency to move from prairie to forest and learn about the varying factors that prevent prairie from succeeding to forest, i.e. fire and grazing animals. On the final hike to the Dunes at Lake Michigan, we learned about the natural and human history of the region. From the Dunes, we could see steel mills on either side of the National Lakeshore. As in past years, the highlight for most teenagers was the night hike, including a short fear-conquering solo hike along trails lit only by star light and a crescent moon. On the night hike, we learned how to more deeply engage all of our senses to experience the dark world of nocturnal species.

The best part of the weekend for me, however, was helping a young man from the Boys & Girls Club put a caterpillar that had fallen back into a tree. The care he used and the compassion in his eyes as he brought the caterpillar to safety made my October. As small a gesture as it may seem to most of us, these are the moments that shape our relationship with the natural world. Already looking forward to Dunes ’09.

Sierra Club and Boys & Girls Clubs of Chicago are partnering to connect youth with nature. Through Building Bridges to the Outdoors’ funding, teenagers from the Boys & Girls Clubs of Chicago have been able to visit the Indiana Dunes Environmental Learning Center for the past four years. This year, we are expanding our partnership to provide youth with even more opportunities to both get outside and give back to their communities. Many clubs within the Boys & Girls Clubs system are volunteering to Adopt a Forest Preserve in and around Chicago, where they will remove invasive species, monitor the health and diversity of species, and sow seeds of native species.