This month we hear from Karen Hulene Bartell, who is the founder and Director of Texas H2Oasis^™. She also serves as the leader for project #602, the EmilyAnn Theatre Worm Wrangling and Butterfly Festival, and is a member of the Program Committee.

Speaking to Master Naturalists about environmental education is like preaching to the choir. (Do I hear an amen?) However, there's an aspect of environmental education that I'd like to discuss. Let's call it the passing of the torch.

Are you seeing gray lately? When I attend Chapter Meetings, I see a lot of gray hair (not mine, of course, which is "naturally" blond) Like many MNs, I didn't actively seek to learn more about the environment until my fifties. Decades had passed between my childhood on a farm in northern Wisconsin and my joining the HCMN Class of 2005, the Cougars. The years in between were spent in urban and suburban areas. Though I enjoyed the outdoors, supported environmental groups, gathered votes on petitions from Saving the Whales to Protecting Wolves, I wasn't compelled to learn more about the environment.

Yet I always carried a deep-rooted recollection of life in the country, of nature. Memories of four formative years spent among dairy cattle, tractors, fields of corn with tassels that I could braid to my heart's content, "useless" swamps (pre-wetland nomenclature) filled with pollywogs and turtles, and country roads lined with choke cherries, pin cherries, and wild blackberries (that my aunt turned into delicious jellies) held an allure for me. Finally, those reminiscences percolated to the surface. As a result, I made time, joined the MNs, and became reacquainted with nature, but I attribute that reintroduction to my early inoculation. (You can take the girl out of the country, but....)

And that's my point: because as a youngster I had been initiated to the wonders of nature, my love for the outdoors could smolder for decades before I was able to once again embrace it, yet the attraction never waned.

I have a hypothesis. How many of you MNs lived in the country or were exposed to nature in your childhood? Studies have proven that the most direct route to caring for the environment as an adult is participating in "wild nature activities" before the age of eleven (Wells and Lekies, 2006). My theory is that few people are drawn to become MNs if they had not been introduced to nature in their childhood. (Seriously, I am curious about this. Please feel free to write me at recordscom at haysmn.org with your thoughts.)

Now to discuss that aspect of environmental education that we'll call the passing of the torch: if we, the gray-haired generation, don't introduce today's children to nature, if we don't pass on our love for the environment, who will support it, vote on behalf of it (in fifteen years), or save it for the generations to come?

According to the National Wildlife Federation, spending time outside "begins a life-long appreciation of wildlife and nature...[but] by the time most children go to kindergarten, they have spent more than 5,000 hours in front of a TV – enough time to earn a college degree." Studies show that spending time in nature helps kids feel secure, happy, and more focused in their daily lives, but, in a typical week, only 6% of children play outside (Children & Nature Network, 2008). It's too easy these days to come home from school (or work), flop in a chair, and sit in front of a PC or TV, while texting or talking on the phone.

One of the three reasons I founded Texas H2Oasis^™, a 501c3 nonprofit organization, is to help students become stewards in harmony with nature by bridging the distance between passive and passionate, between the sedentary and exploratory, between the television screen and the natural scene with a learning experience that creates an affinity for nature.

At the Driftwood Horse Feathers facility, Texas H2Oasis^™ creates an outdoor learning experience for the desk-bound students. Breaking free from their confines, children can leave the classroom behind and encounter nature face-to-face. Volunteer guides are pleased to make the introductions.

As adults and MNs, we find environmental education enjoyable and satisfying, but, for children, environmental education is essential.

I invite you to share your love of nature and pass the torch.

- Karen Hulene Bartell