Nature at Stomping Ground
I believe pretty firmly that everyone deserves access to the outdoors, and children, especially, deserve a chance to play and learn in nature. That belief is fundamental to why summer camps began in the first place, to give kids a chance to make friends, build life skills, and connect to the natural world around them. And though those fundamental building blocks are still happening, Stomping Ground has taken a different approach to the natural world than many other summer camps.
Nicole leading one of her wilderness groups at camp!
At Stomping Ground, there is no memorization of the Leave No Trace principles, and no arbitrary rules on how to interact with the world around us everyday. Instead, at Stomping Ground, there are no stones left unturned, no salamanders left unadopted, no trails left unexplored. There are no fallen trees left unclimbed on, no daisies left unpicked and delicately placed into a flower crown to wear to an evening program talent show. This isn’t to say that there aren’t great lessons to learn from the Leave No Trace principles, as they do teach one to have a deeper understanding and respect for nature. This is only to say that like with many other programs, Stomping Ground has found its own unique way to let kids make their own choices, including how they interact with the world around them.
At a time in our world when the issues of our increasingly warming climate, access to clean water, and raging forest fires sweep the globe, there is no question that it is now or never for everyone to care more about the environment and their human footprint. At Stomping Ground, we teach kids to be radically empathetic decision makers, which really means that we teach kids to care about the impact of their decisions, beyond the direct circle of humans around them. Like ripples in a lake, reaching farther than you ever thought possible with just one stone thrown. When kids are given the freedom to choose how they interact with their environment, they are given the power to make decisions that they truly care about. This reminds me of a school I volunteered at in Mt. Pleasant Michigan a few years ago, where I got to see kids make “save the animals!” and “recycle for the trees!” clubs in their unstructured free recess time. There were no adults pushing them to make these clubs or calling for action, just teachers bringing these issues to their attention. The kids at that school decided that they cared about those issues and that they were going to do what they could to make a difference.
The landscape at camp is natural and beautiful.
It works the same way at camp, except at camp there is significantly more unstructured free time than at most schools. That basically just means that kids are in charge of almost every hour of their day, and they are given the freedom to interact with the environment however they choose. As a staff member at Stomping Ground I have taken groups of high-energy campers on long hikes and explored overgrown parts of the forest, but I’ve also sat with a smaller group of low energy campers and painted the lake with watercolors. I’ve made intricate nature jewelry by weaving flower stems with embroidery thread or attached daisies to earrings. I’ve been chased by campers through forest groves in wild night games, and taken calm, quiet walks with homesick campers by the lake and talked with them about whatever was on their mind. In all of these examples, the kids chose how they wanted to interact with the environment with a small amount of adult coordination. At camp, to these kids, nature wasn’t just the background of the great stories of friendship, it was a part of it, stitched into every memory made at camp. I believe this is to be the backbone of radically empathetic decision makers that grow up destined to care about and protect the environment.
When kids are given opportunities to play and learn in nature, they learn to make environmentally conscious decisions out of compassion and empathy, rather than obedience. It matters to them to keep trash out of the woods, because they have run barefoot through nature trails, stumbled over rocks, and made forts out of fallen branches. It matters to them that animals around the world are able to live in their natural environments, because they have caught and released wild salamanders with all the freedom a salamander can have in upstate New York. They learn about wildfires because a counselor let them build their very own fire in a controlled setting and talked to them about the importance of fire safety. It matters to them that people around the world have access to clean water, because they have played in the crystal clear creeks behind their cabin; and just like every activity at Stomping Ground, all of these interactions with nature were rooted in autonomy and community.
Kids come to camp and have all of these experiences surrounded by their friends, and adults that they look up too. It creates a whole community of people that makes these memories more fun, and the compassion even stronger. Kids learn that their actions in the environment ripple to effect the next person, and vice versa. Caring about the environment is inherently selfless, and when kids learn to make decisions out of a deep respect for the people, animals, and plants around them, these selfless acts become the norm.
So let’s pick some of the flowers and make rock sculptures even if it does leave a small human impact on the natural land. Let’s run barefoot through the mud, let’s build forts, let’s plant seeds. Let’s throw rocks into the lake, let’s make waves. Let’s inspire the next generation of radically empathetic decision makers, for the environment.
