Nature Education 

We Are Earth Keepers 

 

“You can talk until you’re blue in the face about the health benefits of eating good, locally grown, organic food but when you pluck a cherry tomato from that that vine that you planted and that’s still warm from the summer sun and pop it in your mouth and experience that flavor explosion forever, that’s a moment that transforms the way you look at food.  And it’s an experience every child should have.”  (Tony Geraci, Great Kids Farm, Baltimore, Maryland)

 

Our children today are suffering from what Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods, call nature deficit disorder.  This alienation from nature diminishes use of the senses and leads to attention difficulties, increased propensity toward expressing uncontrolled anger and violence and higher rates of auto immune physical and emotional illnesses.  Children need to be given the change to investigate freely, engage with and experience authentic nature in order to appreciate it and be able to pass that appreciation and love to others. 

 

“You can’t have real learning with a child unless they are playing. Real playing is how real learning takes place.  Real learning takes place by what Maria Montessori would call the absorbent mind of the child.  Simply absorbing their universe, absorbing it, becoming it, and they do this through play.  What we think of as learning is conditioning, training is conditioning but real learning is that stage of play.”  (Joseph Chilton Pearce)

 

The preservation of our natural environment and creatures is dependent on the children of today and their teachers (family, school, community) who believe in the balance of nature.

 

Children need the experience of knowing “food from farm to fork”:  Where food happens, how it happens, why it happens, and how they can make better, sustainable choices to change the way they live their lives.  

 

Children  need to know where their food comes from, a carrot, a raspberry, a mushroom or a weed.  Imagine your chlld walking thru the boreal forest, quietly, with respect, as she/he enters the homes of the creatures that make the forest their homes, the pilated woodpecker, the rabbits, the coyotes, the chipmunks, the moose, the butterflies, the bees and feeling how all creatures on Earth are meant to live together in harmony.  You forage for wild berries and herbs and find medicinal herbs that the Cree Indians used.

 

See the animals that make up the Lak’ech Animal Sanctuary who live on the Ranch – the sheep, goat, donkey, horses, llamas, dogs, cats and rabbits. Learn how we look after each other to contribute to the wellness of the Ranch.  For example, the llamas provide manure for the Lak’ech gardens and orchards (and Edmonton gardens), wool for insulation in our dwellings and give hugs to our visitors.  We encourage butterflies, bees, dragonflies and birds to make their homes at Lak’ech for not only are they beautiful, but they also pollinate our edible flowers, our corn, our squash and our peas.  Our bats fly out every night in typical Star Wars fashion from under the EcoLodge roof to consume thousands of mosquitoes every night. Even they abhor a man-made dwelling, a bat house, for the roof of the EcoLodge!

 

 

Resources for Young Children: