Cultivating a Sense of Place

Between video games, soccer practice, demanding parental workloads, and school budget cuts, kids are spending fewer and fewer hours exploring the great outdoors. In a number of districts, field trips have become a relic of the past. Without parents or teachers to take the lead in introducing children to the local wonders of the natural world, many children are growing up sadly unaware of the place they call home.

Richard Louv coined a new psychological term in his 2005 book Last Child in the Woods: Saving our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder. In this work, he states that "an environment-based education movement--at all levels of education--will help students realize that school isn't supposed to be a polite form of incarceration, but a portal to the wider world." Prominent figures in place-based education thinking like Louv, David Sobel, and David Orr lay out a strong case for the need to rekindle young people's sense of "biophilia," the term world-renowned naturalist E.O. Wilson used to describe humanity's natural affinity for the vast array of earth's diversity, upon which our own existence depends. This requires hands-on, minds-on experiences that evoke a child's sense of wonder.

Farms to Fishes affords students opportunities to connect with the natural world and learn more about their unique local ecosystems. On the Central Coast of California, finding beautiful interesting places to visit is an easy task. By opening the door to their native inquisitiveness, we hope to plant seeds of understanding that will eventually germinate into an environmental stewardship ethic.

Elkhorn Slough is one of those places. Harboring California’s largest tract of tidal salt marsh outside San Francisco Bay, its habitats encompass extraordinary biological diversity, providing critical habitat for more than 135 aquatic bird, 550 marine invertebrate, and 102 fish species. The Elkhorn Slough is also home for sea lions, harbor seals, and California sea otters. More than 200 different bird species use the slough as a resting spot during their annual migration. (see Elkhorn's website for more information) Students visited the Slough to practice their skills as naturalists, observing wildlife and enjoying a local biodiversity hotspot. While there, we saw red-tailed hawks, egrets, cormorants, Canadian geese, leopard sharks, and garter snakes.