Kids get a jump start on celebrating Earth Day at Millbrook Marsh
When it comes to children of a certain age, it’s best to dabble in specifics.
On Sunday afternoon, a little girl standing on the edge of Millbrook Marsh was instructed to drop the small fishing net she was holding into the stream.
Rather than waste a beautiful Sunday afternoon parsing the grammatical nuance of that command, the kid promptly tossed her instrument — handle and all — into the water.
Welcome to Centre Region Parks and Recreation’s 11th Annual Earth Day Birthday.
If they build the connection early, then they grow up with appreciation and want to protect the environment.
Melissa Freed
The kids were taking turns skimming the marsh for different macroinvertebrates, which some of them seemed sorely tempted to try to smuggle home as pets.
Staff from CRPR was hoping that they would settle for leaving with a better knowledge of how the little buggers could signify the overall health of the water.
“Depending on what you find, it tells you how clean the stream is,” Courtney Kissell, a program leader at Millbrook Marsh Nature Center, said.
Still, one of the great thing about kids is they tend not to worry too much about cleanliness — which is why one presumes they keep parents around.
Rick Hall was pretty emphatic on the point as he and his 4-year-old daughter Ayla approached the edge of the marsh.
If they build the connection early, then they grow up with appreciation and want to protect the environment.
Melissa Freed
“I do not want you jumping in here, you hear?” Hall said.
Ayla tried to negotiate by asking to put on a bathing suit, but that too went nowhere. She resigned herself to dangling a few toes in the current.
The stream was one of the last stops on the loop the family had made around the event, which included a selection of children’s games like Camo Hunt (basically the animal kingdom’s version of “Where’s Waldo?”) and booths featuring local nature organizations.
Folks of all ages were welcome, but it was the little ones who had the most to gain from a burgeoning relationship with nature.
“If they build the connection early, then they grow up with appreciation and want to protect the environment,” Melissa Freed, Nature Center supervisor, said.
Frank Ready: 814-231-4620, @fjready
This story was originally published April 9, 2017 at 11:59 PM with the headline "Kids get a jump start on celebrating Earth Day at Millbrook Marsh."