America’s first fully mobile environmental education facility
On this date 35 years ago I founded The Roving Nature Center, America’s first fully mobile environmental education facility. It conducted environmental education programs at all kinds of indoor and outdoor sites from Boston to Erie to Virginia Beach. It won national recognition in the Take Pride in America Awards program for its “commitment and exceptional contribution to the stewardship of America’s natural and cultural resources.” It provided jobs to nearly 400 people and sustained my family for 18 years before I sold the company in 2005. I remain very grateful to for the unique opportunities and blessings it provided me.
Of sky, sea, rock and tree, the natural beauty of Acadia National Park is astounding!
My family recently completed a trip to Acadia National Park in Maine; our first together since the kids were little and lived at home. Some highlights:
Our first ascent of Cadillac Mountain elevated us into the enveloping mist. No views today! But we did find a waterfall gushing off its side.
While blue skies make clear vistas, there’s something to be said about the moody beauty created by seafog.
We mistook directions of an easy trail for a difficult one, and accidentally climbed Acadia Mountain over angular chunks of granite as large as our car, inadvertently verifying that, yes, it was indeed difficult! In both directions! While we’ll never do that again, we’re glad to say that we did!
The scenic rocky coast of Maine absolutely commands your attention. As one co-admirer said to me, “It’s so beautiful, it’s ridiculous!”
Two hours before the diurnal high tide peak, Thunder Hole displays nature’s relentless force in a spectacular show as the in-rushing surf explosively expels air from a cave under the rock ledge.
We lunched at Jordan Pond (savoring its signature pop-overs!), ambled along its waterfront boardwalk trail, and soaked in the fabulous view of the looming Bubble Mountains.
A cruise through Frenchman’s Bay brought us delightful observations of harbor seals, harbor porpoises, and crowds of cormorants hanging out on Egg Island and its lighthouse. We cruised past a house on a rocky promontory that could be rented for just $25,000 a week (!), and around uninhabited Ironbound Island—so named because it can’t be accessed from a boat due to its sheer rock cliffs surrounding its entire perimeter—topped with a virgin fir forest.
We attended a star gazing party on Sand Beach: our first with a completely obscured sky, save for Antares at the southern horizon. But the rangers nonetheless kept us entertained with interpretive tales of nighttime glories. (And in a Truly Small World case file, the one young ranger was from Stroudsburg, where I once worked, and another visitor was from Carol’s hometown of Perkasie, and had worked with her brother!)
We stopped by the much-photographed site of the Bass Harbor Head Light. And although the sky wasn’t clear again, we gained some appreciation of its importance on that rocky crag.
At low tide, Bar Island is connected by a land bridge to the town of Bar Harbor. We trekked over and back before being marooned for nine hours until the next low tide.
The sun did put in an appearance near the end of our week, and we took to the top of Cadillac Mountain once again for a panoramic view of the four Porcupine Islands (so named for their sloping backs prickled with firs) and the rest of Frenchman’s Bay out to the Gulf of Maine.
A Hadley Point visit capped on our last evening on Mount Desert Island with delightful west and east views of a down east Maine twilight on a late August evening.
And there was so much more we didn’t see. But of sky, sea, rock and tree, the beauty is both astounding and refreshing!
When planners and developers fail to account for gender, public spaces become male spaces by default.
My daughter strongly recommended I read the bestselling book Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men, by Caroline Criado Perez. She helpfully loaned me her electronic copy, and I learned so much from it I bought my own copy. And in turn, I recommend it to you.
Invisible Women, by Caroline Criado Perez
In its pages, the author argues that the gender gap is both a cause and a consequence of the type of unthinking that conceives of humanity as almost exclusively male. It was surprising to me (being exclusively male since birth), how widely and how often this bias crops up, and how it distorts the supposedly objective data that increasingly governs our lives.
She covers a lot of territory. The book’s six parts cover Daily Life, The Workplace, Design, Going to the Doctor, Public Life, and When it Goes Wrong; and includes such intriguing chapters as Can Snow-Clearing be Sexist, Gender Neutral With Urinals, and One-Size-Fits Men.
Of particular interest to park and recreation professionals is a section addressing city and park planning and use. She cites a 2016 article in The Guardian that asked why we aren’t designing places “that work for women, not just men” and cautions that the limited datasets that track and trend data on gender make it hard to develop programs and infrastructure that factor in and meet women’s needs.
For example, planners in Vienna found that the presence of girls in parks and public playgrounds decreased after the age of 10. They subsequently found, through collecting pertinent data, that single large open spaces were the problem, because they forced girls to compete with boys for space—who largely chose not to. But when the developers subdivided the parks into smaller areas, the female dropoff was reversed.
They also addressed the park’s sport facilities. “Originally these spaces were encased in wire fencing on all sides, with only a single entrance area—around which groups of boys would congregate. And the girls, unwilling to run the gauntlet, simply weren’t going in.” The simple solution? More and wider entrances. They also subdivided the open areas and sport courts. Formal sports like basketball were kept intact, but they also provided space for more informal activities, in which girls were more likely to engage.
In another example, Malmos, Sweden, discovered a similar male bias in the way they’d traditionally been planning urban recreation for youth. “The usual procedure was to create spaces for skating, climbing and painting graffiti. The trouble was, it wasn’t ‘youth’ as a whole that was participating… It was almost exclusively boys, with girls making up only 10-20 percent of those who used the city’s youth-directed leisure spaces and facilities.” So they began asking what the girls wanted—and the resultant new areas are well-lit and split into a range of different-sized spaces on different levels.
Such a gender-equitable approach doesn’t just benefit females alone, but extends to the economy. When sports funding goes mainly to organized sports, which is dominated by boys, that which was meant to benefit everyone equally, simply doesn’t. Sometimes girls’ sports aren’t provided for at all, which means girls must pay for them privately, or not participate at all. Such detrimental consequences then ripple into the present and future health of half the population, and the overall economy. One study concluded that a certain increase in the city’s support for girls’ sports could “lead to a 14 percent reduction in future fractures due to osteoporosis, and the investment will have paid for itself.”
Perez concludes that when planners, developers and programmers “fail to account for gender, public spaces become male spaces by default.” This is not a niche concern: “if public spaces are truly to be for everyone, we have to start accounting for the lives of the other half of the world.” It’s not just a matter of justice: it’s also a matter of personal health, welcoming placemaking, social equity, and simple economics. And it starts with collecting meaningful gender-sensitive data.
I’m grateful for many healthful recreational and cultural opportunities this summer.
We’ve enjoyed a couple of healthfully engaging days lately, as we continue to recover from the strains and fatigue of long-covid.
a smattering of engaging summertime pursuits
On the professional front, each third Friday in July is National Park and Recreation Professionals Day, and my office was quite busy sharing the various promotions, tributes and recognitions across the state, as we honor the many behind-the-scenes workers who keep our parks and public facilities clean, safe, and ready to use. Now in its fourth year, and celebrated by thousands of colleagues nationwide, it is quite gratifying to see the worth of my original concept embraced by so many park lovers throughout the country.
The Central Pennsylvania Festival of Arts returned to town and campus with a big welcome after a two-year pandemic hiatus.
Carol and I attended a community sing-along in which Poppa & Picker, a guitar-banjo duo, accompanied the crowd in such old favorites as In the Good Ol’ Summertime, The Happy Wanderer, This Land is Your Land, Let There Be Peace on Earth and many other timeless tunes of generations gone by. And when we picked up on You Are My Sunshine, two little preschool girls in the audience, in all their youthful zeal and abandon, lustily belted out the song they apparently knew so well, enhancing the evening’s entertainment! The Orpheus Singers punctuated the singalong with a few of their own special selections.
(I noticed that the 20-something sound tech guy wearing his ball cap backwards, didn’t sing, but kept his face and lips pressed in a slightly amused arrangement, alternating with a thumb-tapping duet on his smartphone. He did, however, suggest we sing Will the Circle Be Unbroken.)
We just missed getting the last seats for an Improv Comedy show, but did attend the Essence 2 choir concert, strolled through hundreds of artists’ booths admiring their attractive wares, and enjoyed some Peachy Paterno ice cream from the Penn State Creamery. We took in a bit of a tour of the known universe with a planetarium program and stargazing on Davey Lab’s rooftop observatory.
We dined downtown amid the crowd of collegians and soon had our fill of them. One observation I wasn’t looking to make (but regretfully have): College women’s summer fashion can be described as revealing as much of the 4 Bs as possible—breast, belly, back and bottom.
We attended a State Theater screening of the highly entertaining 1920 silent adventure film The Mark of Zorro, starring Douglas Fairbanks, accompanied by live musicians. The Paragon Ragtime Orchestra is the world’s only year-round, professional ensemble re-creating the syncopated sounds of early musical theater, silent cinema, and vintage dance. The director encouraged the audience to interact with the show the way our young grandparents did—hissing the villains, oohing the flirting romance, and cheering the appearance and ultimate victory of Our Hero! Upon the conclusion, the audience was “kindly invited to perambulate to the Egress” during the exit music.
Speaking of the arts, I was recently able to pick up an old pastime of mine: leathercraft. On Saturday, I finished refurbishing my father’s old axe. I replaced the broken handle, buffed off the rust, sharpened the edge, and constructed a custom leather sheath. Now to fashion one for its smaller version, my old Boy Scout hatchet.
We planned to attend the Cardboard Regatta at Welch Pool, just a walk down the trail from our home. Unfortunately, the race proceeded more quickly than our arrival, as the fun flotilla of 50 colorful cardboard crafts didn’t float for very long. We did witness the soggy remains, however. (Photo courtesy of Centre Region Parks and Recreation.)
Other honorable mentions from the weekend include, but without photo coverage, are the high drama of a pair ruby-throated hummingbirds duking it out at our feeder, and witnessing a sharp-shinned hawk raiding what appeared to be an owl’s nest, and carting away a squeaking morsel in its clutches.
The lawn is crunchy in our current dry spell, but our tended-to flowers are displaying their best blooms to the mid-July sun. And we’re grateful for the physical and mental health benefits, and the life-enriching cultural opportunities that public recreation offers us this summer!
The day honors those who provide indispensable services for all people.
On this fourth annual Park and Recreation Professionals Day, we celebrate all who ensure our public parks and spaces are clean, safe, and ready to use!
A mother and child enjoy an outing in a local park. Photo: Visit Philadelphia.
The National Recreation and Park Association (NRPA), the nation’s leading advocate for parks and recreation, is proud to recognize July 15, 2022, as national Park and Recreation Professionals Day. Part of NRPA’s monthlong Park and Recreation Month celebration, themed “We Rise Up for Parks and Recreation,” this special day honors park and recreation professionals nationwide.
Park and Recreation Professionals Day originally began with the Pennsylvania Recreation and Park Society (PRPS) as a statewide celebration in 2019. Read the full concept of Pennsylvania’s Park and Recreation Professionals Day, as well as listen to this 2020 episode of Open Space Radio to hear Tim Herd, CEO of PRPS discuss the idea behind the day and how everyone can join the celebration: shorturl.at/bp048
“We are proud to honor and celebrate the dedication and strength of the people of parks and recreation,” said Kristine Stratton, NRPA president and CEO. “These individuals make up one of the nation’s most noble professions, and as their champion, we are happy to celebrate their hard work and dedication as part of Park and Recreation Professionals Day. To all of our esteemed members and colleagues, thank you for all that you do each day to make our communities healthy, equitable, and strong through the power of park and recreation.”
Park and recreation professionals and agencies across the country recognize the month with summer programs, virtual events, contests, commemorations and more. NRPA encourages people that support parks and recreation to share their park and recreation story, as well as why their local park and recreation professionals are important to them, with the hashtag #RiseUpJuly and #ParkandRecDay.
Are we purposefully collaborating with experts from other disciplines in meeting people’s needs? And are we measuring what truly matters?
credit: Visit Philadelphia
Part of why recreation and parks doesn’t receive more of the rave respect it deserves, in my opinion, is because most people notice programs far more than the objectives behind them.
That’s not surprising. It’s always easier to focus on outward expressions than on internal improvements of the mind, body and soul.
But that’s where the common disconnect begins, I believe.
When we providers declare that recreation and parks are essential community services, what does that mean to our constituents? What is our bottom-line purpose of enabling quality leisure experiences? And are we cognizant enough of it?
• Is it just a walk in the park—or is it physical exercise, stress relief and mental rejuvenation?
• Is it merely a Paint With Me class (with wine!)—is it or stretching skills and enriching relationships?
• Is soccer practice just about scoring a trophy—or is it developing fine motor skills, building teamwork, modeling good sportsmanship, and growing cooperative social interactions among diverse teens, teams and talents?
• Is it merely an object of public art—or is it celebrating a cultural heritage, invigorating a downtown district, connecting destinations, and attracting visitors, tourists and new businesses?
• Is it just an evening activity—or is it character development, anti-ganging intervention, and preventative treatment for abusive and addictive behaviors?
Are we strategically planning with such measurable outcomes in mind, or are we satisfied that it was “fun”?
Here’s the crux: Are we building people—or just running programs? Are we purposefully collaborating with experts from other disciplines in meeting people’s needs? And are we measuring what truly matters?
Because here’s the other just-as-important part of our jobs: we must show it.
Moving beyond ROIs, attendees, and social media stats, are we documenting personal and social good in our value statements? Can we point to specific cases of cleaner resources, less waste, crises averted, problems solved, and healthier lifestyles? Are we enriching our neighbors’ lives, improving the livability of our cities, and ensuring a more equitable future?
If we are to convince a wider audience of the great worth of our indispensable services (and, in turn, influence higher funding and priorities by decision makers), we must deliver whole goods. We can’t merely insist that recreation and parks are essential, we must intentionally demonstrate it—and prove it!
the learning legacy of engaging peers in free-spirited, unsupervised outdoor play
Chapman Quarries is the smallest incorporated borough in Pennsylvania, with a population in the 2010 census of 199 people. It’s where my dad’s family was established, and where his dad, granddad, and nearly all his male relatives worked the slate quarries.
While I didn’t grow up in town, that’s where church was and where my cousins and grandparents lived and where I spent a good amount of time. And it was the only place apart from school recess where I was able to freely interact with a lot of other kids outdoors. Three childhood memories tell a connected story:
Ice skating on the dam. The nearby quarries both used and generated a lot of water, and before Hurricane Agnes’ flood broke it in 1972, the dam was an idyllic nook in the woods. All the kids would walk out the back of town down “the dam hill” to amuse ourselves on the frozen lake. (It was a good joke to tell the new preacher about “the dam hill!”) I wasn’t a very good skater and I remember my cousin Judy telling me that I spent more time lying on the ice than skating on it. The older kids would build a bonfire off to the side, and we’d spend the better part of the whole day freezing, thawing, and “just messing around,” as we called it, with never a grown-up in sight.
Skateboarding on Main Street. The town was founded on a great hill after slate deposits were discovered in the 1850s, which brought an influx of hard-working families from Cornwall, Wales and Devon to work the quarries. When the skateboard craze hit some hundred-plus years later, it drew all their young descendants to Main Street with short, metal-wheeled boards to mess around. (Metal wheels were the leftover technology from roller-skates, which took a special key to adjust on your feet. And—let me tell you—roller skating on uneven slate sidewalks just wasn’t even fun!) I remember my cousin Craig telling me I had to get a skateboard with clay wheels—they’d work a lot better and I wouldn’t be spending all that time lying on the concrete than riding atop it. Like sledding, we’d walk to the top of the hill and ride the boards straight down the center of town, pausing only when someone would yell “CAR!” The old folks in town wished we wouldn’t go so fast because they didn’t want to see us get hurt. But no one stopped us.
Swimming in Claude’s Pond. Deep, water-filled Fisher’s Quarry was the destination of choice for the older teen boys to go skinny-dipping and wash up when it was hot. (This had also been the common practice of all the previous generations.) But I had that opportunity only once, living out of town as I did. Instead, my pappy would occasionally drive me and my brother and sister and a couple of cousins to his friend’s farm pond where we’d go wading and swimming and messing around. The older teen boys would drive there themselves and bring a long wooden plank. They’d extend it over the deep end of the pond and secure it with one of their jalopy’s front wheels to create a perfect diving board. The bigger boys allowed me, as a non-swimmer, to take a few turns, and after some tentative jumps into the shallows, I ignored my own caution and jumped out as far as I could. I remember my cousin Robert hauling me out of the water, saying that I shouldn’t spend more time lying on the bottom than floating on the top.
I learned a lot from my cousins. And from going outside and getting involved.
Like mine, most Baby Boomers’ childhoods were characterized by the habitual frequency in which we engaged our peers in free-spirited, unsupervised, outdoor play. It was there that we learned leadership and cooperation in picking teams for a pick-up game, and creative problem-solving in building a treehouse over a creek. We exerted our bodies while managing risk, and stretched our imaginations while messing around. We discovered both ourselves and our places when we pushed our limitations and our possibilities. Our self-development sprung from self-reliance.
A copious body of research now proves what we then knew, but didn’t understand: that social interaction in connection to nature is essential for our physical and mental health and our intellectual and social development. May we extend that legacy to both encourage and enable it with our children—and theirs.
