This is a ONE TIME DEAL event: You may bring 3 people for the price of ONE if you are willing to share the resources. (In this tough economic time, OSA is looking to help interested folks get trained in the Leopold Education Project. Grab two buddies, split the $35 charge and share your books and you can join us for this training. Getting the message out is the most important part!) Hurry, spaces are filling fast.  This deal is restricted to 1 group per agency/organization, unless we have space left over.

Call Teri Rogoway at (408) 224-7476 to reserve your space now. (If you want your own books and can pay the $35,  let me know and I will order them for you.)

Start Date: 2010-11-6
Start Time: 10:00
End Date: 2010-11-7
End Time: 15:00

BY JULIE ANDERSON WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER

A new consortium formed to foster nature-based play for area children is launching activities that will provide hands-on opportunities for families and a community forum to plan future efforts.

The group is hosting five Family Nature Nights at local elementary and middle schools. Each will offer at least 15 hands-on, nature-based play activities for children and their families, said Christine Jacobsen, chairwoman of the coalition and education specialist with the Papio-Missouri River Natural Resources District.

The first Family Nature Night was Thursday; more are planned next week and in May.

The group, Metropolitan Omaha Resources for Exploring (MORE) Nature, was formed by more than a dozen area nature organizations, including the Papio-Missouri NRD, the Henry Doorly Zoo, the Omaha Children’s Museum, the Hitchcock Nature Center, the Lauritzen Gardens, the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission and the Green Hearts Institute for Nature in Childhood.

The group’s goal was spurred by author Richard Louv’s best-selling book “Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder.”

The consortium will sponsor an introductory Community Forum on Nature Play on April 28 at the Treetops Restaurant at the Henry Doorly Zoo.

The forum will feature an introductory session about the issue and small-group sessions to discuss in more detail how to restore active outdoor play.

The forum will start at 7 a.m. with a light breakfast. The introductory session will begin at 7:30 a.m. Those interested in attending should RSVP to Jacobsen at 315-1713 or cjacobsen@papionrd.org.

For more information, see www.MORENature.info.

Contact the writer: 444-1223, julie.anderson@owh.com

Copyright 2009 Omaha World-Herald. All rights reserved.

Visit www.earthdayomaha.com

Those words, penned more than forty years ago by renowned conservationist and Iowa native, Aldo Leopold, ring truer today than ever before. With increasing advances in technology and a society that is growing ever more detached from the land, we’re perpetually faced with the question of what we want our ‘higher standard of living’ to be…and more importantly, what we want our children’s ‘higher standard of living’ to be. Do we want them to be constantly ‘plugged in’ like the current trends suggest? Nationwide, kids today spend more than six hours a day on some form of electronic device. Or would we rather see the next generation of conservationists and chapter leaders spending time outside and developing a knowledge of, and an appreciation for, the land that sustains not only the wildlife we hold so dear, but our own population as well.

“…For us of the minority, the opportunity to see geese is more important than television and the chance to find a pasque-flower is a right as inalienable as free speech.”

It is apparent that it falls on “us of the minority” to ensure that those who will succeed us as outdoor enthusiasts, conservationists, environmental advocates, hunters, fishermen, resource professionals, and chapter leaders have the same knowledge and passion that is so abundant in PF and QF chapters in Iowa today. The Leopold Education Project (LEP), part of the PF/QF No Child Left Indoors Initiative® (NCLI), is one tool chapters have to see to it that this passion, understanding, and appreciation is passed on to the next generation.

Let me be clear, the future of conservation is as stake. For example, in no less than two years, the Sustainable Funding Bill in Iowa is going to hopefully come to a popular vote. That means that there are students today in high school that will help determine whether or not this landmark legistation passes. Young voter turnout has been increasing over the past three Presidential Elections. During this past election cycle, voters below age 29 made up 22% of the Iowa Caucus vote. Their votes undoubtedly decided the outcome of the Iowa Caucus. The 2008 Presidential Election saw the highest young voter turnout EVER – It doubled, tripled, and even quadrupled in some states. Iowa was no exception. Young voters are getting more involved in politics and voting more than ever before. Every kid in high school today will be eligible to vote in the next presidential election. Half of them will be eligible to vote in 2010 when Sustainable Funding hopefully is put on the ballot. With the issues facing conservation today, and the disturbing trend of youth being less connected to the outdoors than ever before, the conservation world has never been faced with such a dire need to reach out to youth.

My point here is that the growing trend of today’s youth being less connected to the natural world is not just about hunter recruitment, or health, or education, or conservation…it is all of those things and more. It is about the future of conservation and our ability to conserve that which many, if not most of us, value so highly – the Land and all that is “natural, wild, and free.” That, to me, is what I consider a ‘higher standard of living.’