Sunday, July 04, 1999
City kids find nature next door
BY ERIN GIBSON
The Cincinnati Enquirer
The great outdoors moved next door to some West End children last week.
From brick buildings and concrete sidewalks, the children spilled onto the grass at Laurel Park, where they pettedturtles and a stuffed duck, peeped at a bullfrog tadpole sprouting legs, played games and painted water bottles.
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NATURE NEXT DOOR
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• When: 10:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. weekdays through Aug. 6.
• Where: Mondays at Inwood Park in Mount Auburn. Tuesdays at Dempsey Park in East Price Hill. Wednesdays at Laurel Park in West End. Thursdays at Martin Luther King Jr. Park in Avondale. Fridays at Kennedy Heights Park in Kennedy Heights.
• Information: Call 761-4313 or
352-4080 TTY.
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The day of learning was part of the free Nature Next Door program held by the Cincinnati Parks Board each summer weekday through Aug. 6. The program, which moves to a different park each weekday, teaches children ages 5 to 11 an appreciation for nature they otherwise may not have.
“Some children in the inner city, they're seeing animals many times for the first time,” said social skills teacher April Dobbs, who accompanied students to the park from a Hays Elementary summer enrich ment program. “It might be natural for the kids in the suburbs, but not for them.”
Kevin Metz, 8, said he had seen a turtle before, but he was interested to find a saucer-sized, red-eared slider turtle slushing through water in a box. He picked the turtle up and pointed it at his 5-year-old brother, Malcolm.
“You want to pick it up?” Kevin asked, setting it back into the clear plastic box.
Yes, Malcolm nodded, wide-eyed and cautiously curling the tips of his fingers around the animal's shell.
“It's slippery,” he said, and — plunk! — the turtle, with arms and legs flailing, slipped from his small hand back into the water.
Turtles were the main attraction Wednesday, when the program focused on water creatures. This week, the program will teach children about trees and other plants, and the following week, the park will slither with a reptile program.
Director Shawn Nobles said children who attend learn about a different aspect of nature each week through a variety of animals, crafts, hikes, games and talks.
The program, in its sixth year, reaches about 450 children weekly. Each Wednesday, the program is held at Laurel Park from 10:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.
Last week, one group of children from West Cincinnati Presbyterian Church ran screaming from tree to tree with turtle shells made from paper plates hanging down their backs.
The children were playing a game where they ran to grab paper food from the grass and then tried to run back to a tree without being snagged by the raccoon — a Nature Next Door staff member wearing a paper raccoon nose.
“Alfonzo, duck! Duck down!” yelled Ayoluwa Parham, a church chaperone, to one boy eluding the raccoon.
Staff member Keith Robinson explained that turtles have to brave their enemy the raccoon in order to find food. If raccoons catch turtles, they eat them, he said.
“And you ate me,” replied 5-year-old “turtle” Jade Matthews.
Sometimes the children's lessons aren't about nature. Sometimes they're as simple as sharing a marker or a bottle of water instead of pouting or fighting.
All the lessons learned at Nature Next Door are important to inner-city children who have few experiences with nature, Ms. Dobbs said.
“Some see a squirrel, they might want to destroy it, throw rocks at it or something,” she said. “If they learn about it, they will appreciate it and won't do that.
“Education is key.”
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