Picture: Stacie Gilmore, Executive Director of ELK, with Julie Chavez Rodriquez (White House), Maite Arce and Michelle Neuenschwander (Hispanic Access Foundation)

I arrived home from my whirlwind trip to Washington, DC late last night. I was very tired, but also content. I am energized by the wonderful partnership ELK has developed with the Hispanic Access Foundation (HAF) and founder, Maite Arce, and her staff. They are doing important work around organizing and empowering local Latino leaders in 17 cities across the US. They are also strong, smart, and strategic women, which I love! I have to say before this trip I was a little anxious. I was going to be in DC for just a little over 24 hours, it seemed like a lot to accomplish in a little amount of time – but I did it! Thursday morning, October 6^th, started out very early. I woke at 5 am, but was dismayed when I got on my laptop to see that it was 3 am in Denver! I knew it was going to be a loooonnnggg day! The meeting with the White House and Julie Chavez Rodriquez, Associate Director for the White House, Office of Public Engagement was fantastic! We presented her with over 38 letters from HAF and ELK to support the full funding of the Land and Water Conservation Fund. President Obama will acknowledge receipt of these letters, and that will be very rewarding for the ELK students!

After a working lunch (thanks, Andrea!), I headed over the National Park Service (NPS) to meet with George McDonald, Program Manager of the Youth Division, to talk about getting more ELK students employed with the NPS. George walked me around and introduced me to folks that could help ELK. Lo and behold, when I was handed a document, Pathways to Parks, there was a picture of ELK’s own Dwayne Smallwood and a group of ELK students! After that I was off to meet with Francisco Carrillo at the Department of Interior, along with Nate Hawley, Gayle, Jessica to talk about ELK and HAF. It was a very productive meeting, and then I headed straight to the airport to fly home! Our nation’s capital certainly knows about ELK! Building relationships and keeping them strong is what I do best, and I’m glad to be able to push the ELK mission forward. ELK students are depending on my staff and me, along with a great board and volunteers to help them achieve their dreams. We will DO IT!

Among the attendees were Alan Gilbert – Senior Adviser to Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, Vaughn Baker – Superintendent of Rocky Mountain National Park, Larry Frederick – Chief of Interpretation and Education at Rocky Mountain National Park, Jennifer Brandt – Community Outreach Manager Hispanic Access Foundation, and Rainey Kreis – Education Specialist Rocky Mountain National Park.

In addition, ELK youth and Hispanic Access Foundation families from the Denver area were present and eager to participate. In total nearly 60 individuals were in attendance for an engaging and productive conversation discussing ways in which youth families might be further engaged in enjoying and advocating for parks, wildlife habitat, and the outdoors. The discussion was moderated by the organizations and hosted by members of the U.S. Department of the Interior, which oversees the nation’s wildlife refuges and national parks.

An issue top of mind for the group are the critical budget cuts proposed by Congress this fall to the 45-year-old Land and Water Conservation Fund; an important program highlighted in the President’s America’s Great Outdoors initiative. The Fund relies on fees paid by companies drilling offshore instead of taxpayer monies to protect Rocky Mountain and other parks, wildlife refuges, clean water, and open spaces across the country. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has called the Land and Water Conservation Fund “a keystone of modern day conservation in America.”

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ELK youth, staff and volunteers, Rocky Mountain National Park.

Friday night we piled in the vans to meet the National Park Service Education Staff for a late night program about creatures of the night. We explored our 5 senses, taste, sight, sound, touch and smell and compared them the nocturnal animals of the forest. Angel Caraveo-Ramos, an up and coming ELK leader, told me that she really liked how the rangers made the program interactive. They had us smelling, tasting and touching just like we belonged in the park. So much fun!

Then we headed down to the visitor center where the National Park Service staff and volunteers had set up different kinds of telescopes so that visitors could check out the night sky. Samantha Gilmore informed me that most of the telescopes were reflecting telescopes that means that they use bit mirrors to bounce light around to create the close image that we see. Christen James, 9 years old, was able to look up at the moon and see craters for the first time in his life. This is his second trip to Rocky Mountain National Park with ELK and he says he can’t wait for next year.

ELK’s Education Director Matt Crouse stayed extra late with a few young future cosmologists who were engrossed in an intense conversation about black holes and gravitational force with a really great volunteer, amateur quantum physicist, and real-world engineer. On the way back to the car, Abraham Giles told me that he wants to study astronomy in college because he is interested in knowing what is beyond this planet. He’ll be a junior in high school this year, and I just can’t wait to see what he becomes.

We did so much on our camping trip – more to come soon!

Liberty Shellman
Resource Development Assistant
Environmental Learning for Kids

Why then, do traditional* environmental movement organizations still comprise mainly of middle- and upper-class white people in their staff, board, and members? Why is there much more funding for majority white environmental organizations than environmental organizations led by majority people of color? Why, in a recent environmental forum, did Yale Environment 360 fail to ask any environmental leaders of color to offer their opinion? (Dr. Julian Agyeman offers a reaction to the forum here.)

Is it because… people of color don’t care about the environment?

Well, let’s nip that in the bud – people of color do care about the environment, often more than their white counterparts. In a 2009 national survey, voters of color prioritized environmental issues higher than white voters and were willing to raise taxes and donate to these causes.  A 2011 survey shows that African-Americans (85%) and whites (88%) support oil and gas drilling fees going to conservation, while Latinos showed even more support (95%).

So where is the disconnect? Why is “diversity” still so foreign and difficult to traditional environmental movement groups?

(And the underlying question should not be: “How can we get more people of color to be our donors?” Instead, it should be: “How can we ensure that environmental rights of all people are protected?”)

Here are some thoughts I have to offer regarding potential solutions.

• Local vs. national issues: In some ways, the issue is about access and immediacy in people’s lives.  While national conversations on the environment are being heard by people of color (whether or not their opinion is invited), they are often discussed in silos and separate from other policy issues. Local environmental groups that are more diverse have successfully woven environmental issues in with other issues of concern: health, jobs, and safety.  Asthma from local air pollution is causing my kid to miss school, and me to miss work: discuss.
• Change the culture, not just the faces: It’s not just about hiring different shades of people, it’s about changing the culture of an organization to ensure a welcoming place where all opinions, backgrounds, and beliefs are valued. People are not going to stay where they are not welcomed. Diversity, inclusivity, and cultural competency is lifelong work, but we have to start somewhere.
• Educational pipeline: A diverse pool of trained environmentalists, scientists, and policy leaders will only ensure that we will be more successful in our efforts.  That means youth of color must receive the same educational opportunities as their white counterparts. At Environmental Learning for Kids, we explicitly connect outdoor science and environmental activities with careers in those fields to indicate to our youth that they have a future in the environment.

These are not at all representative of what all people of color think about diversity and the environment, and do not in any way reach the scope of solutions that are out there.  However, I hope this is a start.

For more information:

• Center for Diversity and the Environment
• Environmental Justice Resource Center
• Environmental Leadership Program

*I use the term “traditional environmental movement” here to denote the U.S.-based conservation and preservation movement that emerged in the beginning of the 20^th century, with leaders generally acknowledged to include Gifford Pinchot, Theodore Roosevelt, and John Muir.

Reposted from the Alliance for Sustainable Colorado’s blog.

I should know this, but when life gives you a lesson, you should openly take it. This is our 7th annual trip to SW Colorado and we are traveling with 27 people in three vans. My recent life lesson? Children watch and copy what adults do. Yes, I know, like I said, I should know this and I do. We have become healthier as a staff, exercising more, doing the P90X workout series, and Kim even showed us all up by participating in a duathalon. Over this last weekend, ELK staff were talking about working out at the hotel in Towac, Colorado. Some ELK youth got wind of this, and were joking that yoga wasn’t really a workout…an hour and a half later I think they had changed their minds!

Living healthy, taking care of our bodies – physically, mentally, and spiritually – are the best gifts we as adults can give our children. They watch us and learn how to move through life, either going with the flow or fighting every current. Yesterday after an amazing hike into the Ute Mountain Ute Tribal Ruins with our great friend, Mr. George Wells, we were all exhausted and could have just vegged out in the hotel rooms. What did we do instead? We rested for an hour, then went to a local park, set up a volleyball net, threw a football, and went fishing! Hilariously Scott jumped into the pond after a bass that broke Angel’s line – we were ACTIVE and HEALTHY!

More to come from ELK’s Great SW Adventure….

A big part of  working at ELK (no matter what your ‘day’ position entails)  is getting outdoors with the kids.  It’s who we are, and why we do what we do.  Even when our day job is answering e-mails, writing letters and making phone calls, we do it because we love ELK and we love being with the kids.

So no surprise, when I first started here I was given an ‘interactive’ component to my orientation.

I had three months to get to know ELK by going on ELK programs, hanging out with the kids and doing little get-to-know-you sessions with key ELK stakeholders. What a great job, right?

…the interviews…

The process is pretty smart really.  In order for me to figure out who I should be talking to I had to do a little investigative reporting around the office.  By talking to other ELK staff, I was able to puzzle out who our key ‘stakeholders’ were and why they were so important.  This practice ensured that I knew a LOT more about ELK before I even started getting to know ELK

So off I went to learn about ELK and my first three months have been a blur.

I’ve been out fishing, snow shoeing, digging trees, learning about bugs, shooting bow and arrows, wildlife watching, holding snakes and learning all about science and science related careers – whew!!

I sat with, lunched with, walked with, taught, talked, and listened to a whole bunch of amazing people – maybe even YOU – and I learned a TON!

Here are just a few of the really interesting things that I found out…

• People LOVE ELK.  Seriously, they LOVE it. Everyone – students, parents, teachers, alum, staff, everybody loves ELK. The saying is now, to know ELK is to love ELK.

• All the kids and parents talked about noticing a change after they became involved in ELK.  Mostly an increased interested in things like the outdoors and (gasp!) going to college!

• Everyone is motivated by the kids, even the kids are motivated by the kids!Like my favorite interviewee, Nya Wallace put it

you have to help yourself before you help others

Nya plans to go to college and use education and the tools that ELK taught her to impact the world.  Now that’s cool!

You just had your 8^th birthday, and finally you’re old enough to join this after-school program called Environmental Learning for Kids, or ELK, with your older brothers and sisters.  They do all these cool things, like go on camping trips and sleep overnight at the Zoo. On your first Saturday trip, ELK takes you to a lake and teaches you how to fish, and you catch your very first fish, all by yourself! You learn all about the parts of a fish’s body, what it likes to eat, what predators are, and why fish need clean water to survive. The ELK teachers tell you that when you grow up, you can be an aquatic biologist and learn all of this everyday – and get paid for it!  Wow!  But you learn that you have to go to college to do this, and you resolve to study hard every day so that you can become an aquatic biologist just like the adults at ELK.

Who knows where this child would have ended up if she had not had that first formative experience?  What we do know is that statistics tell a certain story of this student’s future.  About 50% of low-income, African-American and Latino students in Denver do not graduate from high school, and most of our students’ parents have not attended college.  Over 80% of our ELK families cannot afford these same outdoor activities that many of us who live in Colorado take for granted.  The most recent statistics from the National Science Foundation (2011) show that 3% of our nation’s scientists and engineers are African-American; 4% are Latino. This means those opportunities and experiences are few and far between.

Jump forward 10 years, and you are ready to graduate high school.  ELK has been with you the entire way, making sure you stay on track in school and life.  At this point you’ve taught aquatic ecology and conservation to thousands of Denver school kids, you’ve hiked and camped in most of the parks and forests in Colorado, and science and math are your favorite subjects. You’ve also gotten the opportunity to speak in front of local politicians, become a mentor to a younger student, and research climate change impacts in your neighborhood. With ELK’s help, you earned a scholarship to Colorado State University, and you plan on majoring in biology and environmental studies.

There are so many ways to connect youth with the environment and show them all the opportunities for their future.  For Environmental Learning for Kids, we’ve found that fishing, in addition to camping, hiking, and wildlife tracking, are useful tools to engage kids of all ages in lessons of science, conservation, and careers. Each experience is as promising as the next to motivate our youth to stay in school, graduate, and go to college. We use these activities as not only educational opportunities in and of themselves, but also to connect to the importance of academic success in their lives. We want our youth to grow up with the dream that they can one day be our most important protectors of our environment and natural resources.

Did you have a formative outdoor experience as a child that led you to where you are now?  Let’s hear about it!

Reposted from the Alliance for Sustainable Colorado’s blog.

In the office, we are:

• Giving our paper a “second life” by printing on the back once we’re done with the front
• Donating gently used materials to RAFT Colorado, and buying reused office supplies from them
• Carpooling whenever we can on ELK trips!

ELK staff are not only eco-conscious in the office, but at home too!

Kim recycles and bikes whenever she can
Chiquita reuses plastic food containers from the grocery store for her lunches
Stacie and Scott have installed compact florescent lights in their house
Cindy just put in a low-flow shower head
Liberty is taking a composting class and is planting a garden this year
Matt is teaching his son how to conserve water at home

These are simple but effective ways to help conserve our natural resources and make sure they’re going to be around for generations to come.  What are YOU doing for Earth Day?

Thank you once again I really appreciate what you have done for me with taking a step closer to achieving my dreams and overcoming a fear with the real world and what it holds.

Now, if that isn’t a reason to give to ELK, what is?