Audubon Looks for Connecticut's Next Nature Lovers

FAIRFIELD, Conn. – How can you make your children happier, smarter and healthier? Michelle Eckman says the answer is simple: Send them outside.

Eckman, the new director of education for the Connecticut Audubon Society, announced a plan at the organization's Fairfield headquarters Friday to persuade parents and schools to do just that.

“Education in the outdoors is essential to children’s health, happiness and their academic success,” she said.

She points to research showing that kids who spend more time outdoors tend to have lower rates of ADHD, depression and obesity. Children with more time outside also tend to have better academic performance as they get older.

The Connecticut Audubon Society publishes a “State of the Birds” report every year using populations of various feathered species as guideposts for the health of the state’s ecosystems. For the 2012 report, however, the group decided to focus on a different animal.

Subtitled, “Where Is the Next Generation of Conservationists Coming From?” the report focuses on the current crop of kids and their relationship with nature.

“We find that children are spending less time outdoors, that their free time is really spent in highly structured activity, and that they have very little opportunity for spontaneous interaction with the natural world,” Connecticut Audubon Society President Robert Martinez said. “Those we think pose a real problem long-term for conservation issues.”

To take on the problem, the Audubon Society is boosting its education programs over the next year. The nature centers across the state already work with 69 school districts, including Fairfield’s, to organize field trips, after-school clubs and vacation camps. Eckman said the group will reach out to include the remaining school systems across the state.

The Audubon Society will also work with the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection through the No Child Left Inside initiative. The program, started in 2006, is designed to get kids into Connecticut’s parks and nature preserves. This May, it will hold a special program for National Migratory Birds Day with the Audubon Society, among other programs.

“Education is the lynchpin to conservation,” Eckman said. “The health of our ecosystem depends on educated and informed people who make decisions at the polls, how they spend their charitable contributions, and the actions they take in their daily lives.”

One such program is the Trailblazers. Sponsored by Fairfield’s John Patrick Flanagan Foundation, the course takes children from Bridgeport Public Schools on visits to the Audubon Center for nature hikes and other activities. Since it was founded in 2010, the program has brought more than 1,000 kids into the woods.

Amanda Flanagan, who runs the foundation in honor of her late husband, says she has received many letters from Bridgeport kids who have gone through the program. Many said they had never seen lizards, birds and other animals before their trip.

“Every kid should have the chance to turn over a rock and find a salamander, or hear a woodpecker pecking in a tree, or see turtles sunning themselves,” Flanagan said. 

Click here to follow Daily Voice Fairfield and receive free news updates.