Putting children in touch with nature

There is a mag­i­cal place here in Delaware County that inspires chil­dren of all ages (young and old) and we are so for­tu­nate to have this incred­i­ble resource: Strat­ford Eco­log­i­cal Cen­ter. It’s not just the cen­ter with its excel­lent edu­ca­tional pro­grams and out­reach to school chil­dren or their amaz­ing and ded­i­cated staff — it’s the call of the wild deep in our souls that beck­ons us to explore this gor­geous farm and woodlands.

This organic farm and nature pre­serve nes­tled on 236 acres of open fields and wooded land is sand­wiched between Lib­erty Road and U.S. 23 just south of Delaware. I recently had the oppor­tu­nity to view their lat­est infor­ma­tional video and was nearly brought to tears with how touch­ing and truth­ful I found the mes­sage con­veyed to be: get­ting chil­dren back in touch with nature.

Do you have a minute to watch it online? You’ll be glad you did. Not only are the images so strik­ing, but the song which was recorded with a group of chil­dren by local singer-songwriter Jenny Mor­gan just might lift you right off the ground it’s so sweet. Search for Nature Needs Kids on YouTube or go to the Strat­ford Eco­log­i­cal Cen­ter web­site and click on “Gal­leries” to find the video there.

I did some research on Mor­gan and found NatureNeedsKids.com, which is a fun site full of great infor­ma­tion about resources to get kids back out­side. She was inspired by the best­selling book Last Child in the Woods: Sav­ing our Kids from Nature Deficit Dis­or­der by Richard Louv and wrote and recorded songs which are com­piled in her new CD Nature Needs Kids and Kids Need Nature. She is also founder and co-chair of the Leave No Child Inside Cen­tral Ohio Col­lab­o­ra­tive (infor­ma­tion on the website).

Take some time and get out to Strat­ford and spend some time, whether you bring the kids or grand­kids or just the spirit of nature in you. Vis­i­tors can wan­der the four miles of trails, watch for tur­tles at the lake or skip rocks in the creek. You can try to iden­tify the plump pro­duce and greens in the gar­den and even pick-your-own in the green­house. Then take a peek in the big red barn and make friends with the goats, sheep, pigs, chick­ens, barn cats and lla­mas (well I don’t know about being friends with a llama, but they sure are fun to watch).

For more infor­ma­tion, call 740–363-2548. They are open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mon­days through Fri­days and from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Sat­ur­days. Stop in the Cen­ter to say hello and make a dona­tion of $2 per per­son or $5 per fam­ily. As the lyrics of the song in the video says: “Turn off the tube; turn off the games. Walk out­side and make a dif­fer­ence today.”

Tues­day Trip­pier lives in Delaware, is a writer and mother of four with a spe­cial inter­est in green living.

Posted by Tuesday Trippier on Jul 24 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.