Cathy Belben, Librarian, Burlington-Edison High School
“In today’s world of overpopulation and high consumption, it is
essential that we make an effort to keep people in touch with the Earth: its
natural rhythms, the changing seasons, its beauty and mystery,” writes Paul
Knopf, Jr., in Joseph Cornell’s Sharing Nature With Children. Library
media specialists are in a unique position to connect young people with all
sorts of ideas: they are generally
among the few educators who have contact with the entire student body; they have
the ability to establish and promote programs that supplement every curricular
area, and they operate in an environment that every student has access to on a
regular, if not daily basis.
Why should school library media specialists develop and promote a natural history library? Since they are in the business of sharing ideas and information, library media specialists can offer students numerous ways to enrich their lives; among those is the opportunity to develop a love for the outdoors and the lifelong pleasure that results from interaction with nature. Young people are already well acquainted with the myriad ways they can spend their time indoors watching TV, going to movies, and playing video games. Too few have access to the information and experiences that would expose them to the benefits of outdoor recreation, and may not, with school exposure, ever be aware of what they can learn and gain from outdoor activity. Nature activity introduces students to additional possibilities for living; beyond the apartment parking lot or inner-city playground, young people have a chance to learn how to pitch a tent, build a campfire, identify poisonous plants, admire waterfalls, analyze tide pool life, climb rocks, and sleep under the stars. The boundaries and limits of life in the city fall away. Naturalist Susan Zwinger notes that showing young people—especially young women—what they can do in the outdoors teaches them that the world is their to explore and enjoy. “A lot of young women come up to me at readings of Stalking the Ice Dragon [her story of traveling alone through Alaska] and are amazed that they could do that—just take off in a pick-up and travel,” she says.
Nature experience grants the opportunity to escape from the stresses of everyday life. Naturalist and writer Susan Zwinger says, “The teenage years are a most tumultuous time in life—being outdoors is self-confidence building—a release from everyday pressures. Being in nature saved my life as a teenager.” Removed from our ordinary environment, we escape from the worldly concerns that plague us and focus on the immediate: what to do, where to go, how to get there. Our perspective shifts beyond our own concerns—Does my hair look o.k.? Will Jeremy ask me to the prom?—to simpler questions—Which path is the safest? What kind of bird is that? Being in nature eliminates stress and increases happiness. “After spending many days in the wilderness, people notice that their problems and distractions have faded away. Everything they see, hear, and smell becomes extraordinarily beautiful in their free and focused attention. In this intensity of experience, they may feel a deeper calmness, joy, and aliveness than ever before,” notes outdoor educator and author Joseph Cornell.
Experiences in the outdoors are good for students’ health. Breathing fresh air, getting exercise, avoiding the noise and air pollution of the city are all beneficial to our physical health. Research shows that outdoor recreation has a significant effect on mental well-being, too. In a 2000 study by Roper Starch for The Recreation Roundtable, surveys found that “people who participate in recreation tend to express more satisfaction with their lives than those who do not participate.” Naturalist Susan Zwinger says outdoor education experiences are essential for mental health. “If we don’t, as human beings, become reconnected with the environment, we’re in deep trouble, because from nature comes all our food, our spiritual nature, our recreation, our knowledge of the universe, our beauty. As we become more cut off from that, we become massively ADD and more psychotic—out of touch with our true selves.”
Students learn from nature what
they can miss in the classroom—reading about waves is not as educational or as
interesting as walking on the beach. The same can be said for bugs, birds, fish,
rocks, and weather. Learning by doing is the best way to learn when it comes to
nature. Experience is our best
teacher. Kids can watch the Discovery Channel twenty-four hours a day, seven
days a week, but that will never truly show them what they can see on a two-hour
hike. “Take them out in it,”
Susan Zwinger encourages teacher. “Give
assignments that take students outside and use their noticing skills. Have them
read books and really wonderful stories about people going out in nature.”
By immersing students in the language and experience of nature, we open
doors to new experiences and new joys.
How can school library media specialists promote outdoor education and the benefits it provides? First, they can begin with their specialty: books. By creating a library that recognizes students’ interests and builds on those to connect with outdoor subject matter, librarians can create an interest in and enthusiasm for the outdoors. Students are already fascinated with outdoor adventure stories: Hatchet by Gary Paulsen and the related books about the character Brian Robeson—The River, Brian’s Winter, Brian’s Return—are favorites with middle and high school students. Library media specialists can build on this interest by connecting students with other books that promote knowledge of the wilderness: Paulsen’s autobiographical works, including Woodsong, My Life in Dog Years, and Guts, as well as other novels that emphasize the excitement and intrigue of the wilderness, such as those by Will Hobbs. Students who enjoy sports canbe connected with fiction and non-fiction about outdoor athletics, such as Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer, David James Duncan’s The River Why, and People Who Sweat by Robin Chotzinoff. Building a collection that recognizes young people’s love of animals can also help promote an interest in nature. Literally thousands of books exist aabout animal behavior and habitat that will appeal to teenagers, such as The Parrot’s Lament by Eugene Linden, Home Waters: Fishing With an Old Friend by Joseph Monniger and Modoc by Ralph Helfer. Adding outdoor humor to the library is another way to create an interest in nature. Travel literature by Bill Bryson, especially his books A Walk in the Woods and In a Sunburned Country, are sure to appeal to teen readers, as are Patrick McManus’s many humorous stories of hunting, fishing, and camping, and Tim Cahill’s assorted tales of adventure in the outdoors around the world.
Library media specialists can add other materials to the collection that promote nature and the outdoors. Subscribing to magazines related to these topics can generate interest: consider adding Outside, Nature, Natural History, Orion, National Geographic, or Smithsonian to your collection and then advertise its presence. Send out a photocopy of the table of contents of the magazines each month to teachers and offer to share copies of articles that might interest them. Add links to local, state, and national parks to your library’s website, add videos to your collection that focus on nature and the environment, and make bibliographies available to students and teachers. With books, magazines, journals, and website, your colleagues and students can be an excellent resource; ask them to suggest their favorites.
High school library media specialists can promote nature and outdoor recreation in a variety of other ways, as well. The most powerful tool is collaboration: finding a colleague who shares an interest in helping connect students with nature and planning activities together. A library media specialist and a teacher can work together to form an outdoor activities club, organize field trips, create a school presentation, and develop lessons or units that focus on nature and the outdoors. The library media specialist can create a bibliography of related books, poetry, and essays for an English class reading Henry David Thoreau, or collaborate with a science teacher on an Internet research project that prepared a class for an outdoor field trip. Build on the curriculum: students are already learning something about Lewis and Clark’s adventures, so add books to the collection that supplement what they learn in class, as well as books about other adventurers who may be lesser-known but just as interesting.
Consider bringing in specialists to speak in the library. Offer presentations at lunch, after school, or in the
evenings, or arrange for classes to visit during the school day.
Numerous organizations will offer speakers to make presentations to
students. Contact the local parks department or conservation areas and ask for
people who can present a slide show or other presentation on a special
environmental topic. Coordinate with your school’s career specialist or
guidance counselor to host a “Careers for People Who Love the Outdoors” fair
in the library, and bring in park rangers, wildlife biologists, archaeologists,
and others who work in the outdoors to talk about their jobs and explain how
young people can prepare for those jobs. Contact local bookstores to learn the
names of local nature writers and arrange for them to visit your school library
media center to talk about their experiences and books. Identify the people in
your own school or district who are involved in outdoors activities in their
leisure time and arrange for them to present.
Still other ways to promote nature and outdoors experiences are simpler, but still attract student attention and may motivate some to pursue activities in the out-of-doors. In the library media center, create an attractive, colorful display of various books about the outdoors; use restaurant-style “tabletopper” signs to highlight new books, including those about nature and the environment; put announcements in the bulletin about outdoors activities and newly acquired materials that promote nature experiences; send out a newsletter to staff featuring activities or materials they can use to encourage outdoor education; and enlist the help of students who are already actively involved in outdoor events to encourage and invite others to participate.
“Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,/the world offers itself to your
imagination,/calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--/over and
over announcing your place/in the family of things” writes Mary Oliver in her
poem “Wild Geese.” What an opportunity we have to expose students to their
place in the family of things—to their spot in the incredible realm outside
the brick walls and the concrete streets. By offering them examples of others
who have made happy lives in the wilderness and come to know and understand the
joys of outdoor adventure, library media specialists and their colleagues offer
their students another opportunity to expand their possibilities for learning,
understanding, and happiness.
Cornell, Joseph. Listening to Nature:
How to Deepen Your Awareness of Nature.
Nevada City: DAWN Publications, 1987.
Cornell, Joseph. Sharing
Nature With Children. Nevada
City: DAWN Publications, 1998.
Oliver, Mary. “Wild
Geese.” New and Selected Poems.
Boston: Beacon Press, 1992.
Roper Starch. Outdoor
Recreation in America 2000: Addressing Key Societal Concerns.
Prepared for The Recreation Roundtable. Washington, D.C.,
2000.
Zwinger, S. Personal interview. 28 October 2001.
Recommended Natural History/Outdoor Experience Reading for High School Students
Ackerman, Diane. A Natural History of the Senses. New York: Vintage Books, 1990.
Bryson, Bill. In a Sunburned Country. New York: Broadway Books, 2000.
-----. A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail. New
York: Broadway Books, 1998.
Cahill, Tim. Pass the Butterworms: Remote Journeys Oddly Rendered. New York:
Villard, 1997.
Chotzinoff, Robin. People Who Sweat: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Pursuits. New
York: Harcourt Brace, 1999.
Duncan, David James. The River Why. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1993.
Ehrlich, Gretel. John Muir: Nature’s Visionary. Washington, D.C.: National
Geographic Society, 2000.
Hobbs, Will. Beardance. New York: Avon Books, 1993.
-----. The Big Wander. New York: Atheneum, 1992.
-----. Downriver. New York: Atheneum, 1991.
-----. Far North. New York: Morrow Junior Books, 1996.
-----. River Thunder. New York: Bantam Doubleday Books, 1997.
Krakauer, Jon. Into Thin Air. New York: Anchor Books, 1998.
-----. Into the Wild. New York: Anchor Books, 1997.
Leopold, Aldo. A Sand County Almanac, and Sketches Here and There. New York:
Oxford University Press, 1987.
Linden, Eugene. The
Parrot’s Lament and Other True Tales of Animal Intrigue,
Intelligence, and Ingenuity. New York: Dutton, 1999.
Monninger, Joseph. Home Waters: Fishing With an Old Friend. San Francisco:
Chronicle Books, 1999.
Paulsen, Gary. Brian’s Return. New York, Delacorte Press, 1999.
Paulsen, Gary. My Life in Dog Years. New York, Delacorte Press, 1998.
Paulsen, Gary. The River. New York: Delacorte Press, 1991.
Paulsen, Gary. Brian’s Winter. New York: Delacorte Press, 1996.
Paulsen, Gary. Guts. New York: Delacorte Press, 2001.
Paulsen, Gary. Hatchet. New York: Viking Penguin, 1987.
Paulsen, Gary. Woodsong. New York: Bradbury Press, 1990.
Rezendes, Paul. The Wild Within: Adventures in Nature and Animal Teachings. New
York: J.P. Tarcher/Putnam, 1998.
Smith, Diane. Letters from Yellowstone. New York: Penguin, 2000.
Zwinger, Susan. Stalking the Ice Dragon: An Alaskan Journey. Tucson: The University
of Arizona Press, 1991.