Under the theme “You can’t do better, until you know better,” The California Parks Company, a park concessioner, organizes trips for urban youth to farms to see from where food comes. FitKid is their program to provide incentives to children for making good choices about what they eat and experiencing the outdoors. Here’s a video of one of those trips.
CLICK HERE to read more about FitKid.
The National Park Service and the National Park Trust will launch the first National Kids to Parks Day on the National Mall, Fri., May 20. After a kick-off ceremony, 500 students will rotate through activity stations that promote physical fitness and environmental conservation.
More than 150 mayors across the country have signed proclamations declaring May 21 as National Kids to Parks Day in their city or town. They are encouraging families to explore a local, state, or national park and spend quality time in America’s great outdoors.
National Kids to Parks Day is endorsed by First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move Outside initiative, the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Youth in the Great Outdoors initiative, America’s State Parks, American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), National Education Association (NEA), Children’s National Medical Center, Boy Scouts of America, Girl Scouts of the USA, the President’s Council on Fitness, Sports & Nutrition and the National Environmental Education Foundation.
Friday’s event occurs at the NE/NW Quadrant of the Washington Monument Grounds at 15th and Constitution Avenue, NW, Washington, DC, beginning at 10 a.m. and continuing to noon.
Yellowstone National Park
Of the top 15 places CNN Travel recommends kids see by age 15, eight are national parks.
The list includes:
CLICK HERE to read the entire story.
CLICK HERE to see how obesity has changed in America over the decades.
To see all the National Park Adventure videos, CLICK HERE.
National Park Adventure, a video road trip undertaken this past summer by a team of young videographers for the National Parks Promotion Council, has now posted 32 videos and achieved over 100,000 views. The team’s exhuberant and unscripted personalities come across as they speak to other young people in encouraging their interest in visiting national parks. Response from the audience continues to be positive with “awesome” being the most common compliment. Now showing are videos from a visit to the Channel Islands NP. To see all the videos, CLICK HERE.
National Park Adventure – Northwest Trailer
A crew of young videographers (ages 19 – 22) completed a national road trip of National Parks today by floating down the Chattahoochee River. On their return to their studios, the videographers will begin posting videos of their National Park Adventure on YouTube, a project by the National Parks Promotion Council to interest other youth in visiting national parks.
The YouTube video road trip began in June with a test trip to Golden Gate National Recreation Area. The video crew was selected for their large following (over 70,000 viewers) and broad distribution (over 29 million views). These aren’t your typical national park videographers… only one of the crew could ever recall visiting a national park previously and they had built their success parodying video games, not showing images of the outdoors. So, we knew they could reach a core target of youth who also don’t visit parks.
Their first assignment was a test, to see what they could accomplish. They went to Golden Gate National Recreation Area for a day and made seven videos from it. Those videos have received over 55,000 views in four weeks, with 33,000 generated from the new website they created for the road trip, alone. Over 2,500 youth became subscribers to the npadventure site, meaning that each of their videos which will begin airing in the coming week will be seen not less than 2,500 times.
Among national park units visited on their adventure include: Golden Gate National Recreation Area (Alcatraz, Chrissy Field, the Presidio, Baker Beach, Golden Gate Bridge), Lassen VNP, Redwood N&SPs, Oregon Caves NM, Crater Lake NP, Channel Islands NP, Santa Monica Mountains NRA, Cabrillo NM, Governor’s Island NM, African Burial Ground NM, Teddy Roosevelt NHS, Castle Clinton NM, Statue of Liberty NM and Ellis Island, Valley Forge NHP, Independence NHP, Edgar Allen Poe NHS, Gettysburg NMP, National Mall NHS (National Mall, Washington Monument, Jefferson Memorial, Vietnam Memorial, Lincoln Memorial, and other memorial sites), C&O Canal NHP, martin Luther King NHS, Kennesaw Mountain NBP and Chattahoochee River NRA. In numerous locales, they interviewed and involved local youth who communicate their impressions of the fun and inspiration they’ve experienced visiting national parks.
On a hike to Solstice Canyon in Santa Monica Mountains NRA, they joined Crenshaw High School students, at Oregon Caves NM an inspirational youthful interpretive ranger brought the park experience to life. The same occurred at African Burial Ground at which a young black interpreter explained the fascinating stories the preserved site has to tell. Her narrative, along with the unscripted stories of other young people are having their effect. Comments posted by other youth so far have been very encouraging. Here are some examples:
What’s been insightful from reading the comments is how disconnected youth are from national parks and the outdoors. Any park is a national park to them, even if it’s local. However, the NPPC crew is focusing on national park units and communicating the variety of experiences to be enjoyed in them from kayaking to sea caves at Channel Islands, to putting on a suit of conquistador’s armor at Cabrillo, to exploring caves in Oregon, to searching for the world’s tallest tree, to being moved by the stories told by people whose ancestors (all young people then) did heroic things to make our country what it is today.
Videos from their National Park Adventure will begin appearing in early September at www.youtube/nationalparkadv. A survey and a contest attached to the videos explore youth connections to the national parks and encourage youth to make their own national park video adventures.
A series of public listening sessions are planned to gather public opinion about what’s needed to reconnect Americans with the Great Outdoors. The sessions are part of President Barack Obama’s America’s Great Outdoors Initiative.
On Friday, June 25 at Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts in Annapolis, MD (801 Chase St.), a session will occur from noon to 4:30 p.m. To register (by June 22), CLICK HERE to email your name.
On Monday, June 28 at the Charles Towne Landing State Historic Site in Charleston, SC (1500 Old Towne Rd), a session will occur from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m., EDT. To register (by June 24), CLICK HERE.
On Thursday, July 1 at Franklin High School in Seattle, WA (3013 S. Mt. Baker Blvd), a session will occur from 6:30 p.m. to 9 p.m., PDT. To register (by June 28), CLICK HERE to email your name.
On Thursday, July 8 at Occidental College in Los Angeles, CA (1600 Campus Rd), a session will convene from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m., PDT. To register (by July 1), CLICK HERE to email your name and name of your organization.
These events are free and open to the public and every effort will be made to accommodate everyone. For more about these programs, CLICK HERE.
First Lady Michelle Obama, Majority Leader Harry Reid and Interior Assistant Secretary Rhea Suh launched a new initiative, Let’s Move Outside, this week at Red Rock Canyon outside of Las Vegas. To read the First Lady’s speech, CLICK HERE. Let’s Move Outside encourages outdoor activities on public lands and close to home with the guidance that…
“Kids need at least 60 minutes of active and vigorous play each day, and one of the easiest and most enjoyable ways to meet this goal is by playing outside. Let’s Move Outside! gives parents the tools they need to get their families moving outdoors. By linking parents to nearby parks, trails and waters – and providing tips and ideas – Let’s Move Outside! will help families become healthier and develop a more active lifestyle.”
The name of this program, Let’s Move Outside, has double meaning… both let’s go outside and let’s be active outside. The First Lady’s concern about childhood obesity is rightly being directed toward the one place that children have traditionally enjoyed and benefitted most… outdoors.
The necessity of connecting children with nature is not just an American concern (as evidenced by the 72 regional and state campaigns here to connect children with the outdoors). Across the globe, nations are seeking to reconnect children with nature.
As reported recently by Richard Louv [author of Last Child in the Woods; Saving our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder] on his blog, Field Notes from the Future, a new movement in Australia seeks to motivate families to get outside and experience nature together. Mr. Louv listed reports of similar programs from such “far flung corners of the world” as China, the UK, South Africa, Chile, New Zealand, Canada, Japan, Kenya and across Europe.
However, he warns that progress is not guaranteed, as the “competition for children’s time is increasing.” Varied studies support this. The Kaiser Family Foundation reports that American kids between 8 and 18 spend 7.5 hours a day on average in front of some sort of electronic device. Pew Research Center says half of American teenagers text messages 50 or more times a day. Paul Nakamoto, marketing director at the Roaring Camp Railroads in Felton, Calif. wrote to us not long ago saying, “I know a tour operator who has a step daughter who is 14. The tour operator said she got a cell phone bill delivered in a box that was 450 pages long. Her step daughter had made 25,000 text messages in one month. Think about it, there are 30 days in a month, 24 hours in a day, 60 minutes in an hour. That’s 21,600 minutes in a month and this kid made 25,000 text messages in a month!? Some of that time she’s in school, some of that time she should be sleeping. I understand sometimes messages are quick like LOL, but still. I think technology in the hands of kids is getting way out of hand.”
Mr. Louv and his Children and Nature Network are doing the good work of combating the ill effects of this trend. The National Parks Promotion Council applauds that effort and suggests that to learn more about their work, CLICK HERE.
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