“It’s a nature-based opportunity for them to interact in the outdoors,” says Emily Connor, education manager at Audubon Center at Riverlands. “Make lifelong memories, hopefully.”
For these North County students, summertime fun is also educational. Plus, it’s cultivating respect and a passion for protecting our environment. The program is called NEST — and it’s a collaborative effort facilitated by the Audubon Center at Riverlands.
“NEST – Nature Education Stewards of Tomorrow is an umbrella program, which includes our Cradle to Career offering that we largely do with the Ferguson-Florissant schools,” says Ken Buchholz, center director for Audubon Center at Riverlands. “The whole idea is to create pathways from an early age through high school.”
The program, which has multiple modules, started in 2010. But it has evolved over the past decade and a half. Today, we’re taking a peek inside the Little Creek Summer Camp, which is for students in grades three through five.
“I really like canoeing, archery, playing games with my group and just have a lot of fun,” says camper Theo Reid.
“Teamwork, how to fish and canoe, and how to experience nature and stuff,” says camper Fay Kembery-Callahan.
Ten-year-old James Knowles has about a half dozen years of fishing under his belt.
“I’ve done fishing since I was four or five years old,” says Knowles. “When we play the games here. I also like turtle tracking, that’s fun.”
“Fishing is fun, but I really like.”
While there are real turtles at the park outfitted with tracking devices, these students are tracking toy turtles — but the principle is the same.
“We have over 25 written curriculum lesson plans, aligned with NGSS standards,” says Emily Connor. “So, it’s really great for schools looking to do field trips and get experience out on the Mississippi River and at the sanctuary.”
Each group of campers is led by a counselor from one of the local high schools. They are known as the Flight Crew.
“It’s been so much fun, I think it’s been beyond my expectations,” says recent Alton H.S. graduate Ali Sakar. “I really didn’t expect myself to enjoying being a counselor, but here I am.”
“We play games with them,” says counselor — and Hazelwood East senior — Annabelle Epley. “Make sure we build strong bonds with each of our campers.”
“They honestly grew my love for nature,” says counselor — and Hazelwood Central senior — Herriyah Brookins. “Beforehand, I was often times I was a little off put because of the heat and the bugs and things like that, but they made me love it.”
“This is an opportunity for them to really get exposure to S.T.E.M. careers,” according to education manager Emily Connor. “So, they’re meeting professionals in different partner organizations all across the St. Louis region. They’re getting hands-on experience doing things like restoration projects, removing invasive species from the wetlands, doing mock bird surveys. So it’s really a crash course in learning all about the different careers that you could potentially do.”
These camp counselors are known as the Flight Crew in keeping with the mission of the Audubon Center. It’s a part of their seven-week summer internship program.
“When the interns reach this level, it has become more than a passing interest and they are truly considering college careers, preparation for these kinds of jobs,” says Ken Buchholz. “And they are also looking at potentially doing more volunteer and internship work while they’re going to college.”
These high schoolers are taking part in the Audubon Center’s job fair, to learn more about careers in conservation.
“They’re often surprised to learn there are careers here,” says Ken Buchholz. “And that people are working everyday to conserve and protect natural resources — which we all need — not just birds and wildlife, but people too.”
Antonio Brazelton is a Ph.D. candidate at Wash-U. He’s one of a handful of collard enthusiasts in the country whose mission is to study, preserve and popularize close to 20 different varieties of collard greens.
“I got introduced to this line of work in a very similar way,” says plant scientist Antonio Brazelton. “It was my first time seeing Black plant scientists. We were at Alabama A&M University for the summer, and it kind of sparked this like oh, I can feed the world doing this work.”
