Passport to Texas

Passport to Texas from Texas Parks and Wildlife

The Texas River School, located in Austin takes kids in fourth through sixth grade, from under-served populations, on daylong river outings. Joe Kendall is program coordinator.

We teach them how to canoe, and we go down river to the mouth of Barton Creek, and float up the creek, and then take the kids to the Splash Exhibit so they learn how an aquifer works and why it’s so important to take care of it.

The Splash Exhibit is part of Austin’s Barton Springs Pool, named for the spring that feeds it. The school also teaches kids to snorkel to enrich the experience.

So, they hopefully can dive to the bottom of the pool and feel the source of the aquifer and understand that creates the pool, the creek, the river… So, they can get an appreciation of where the water comes from.

The program, which received a $30,000 outreach grant from TP&W is open to kids of all abilities.

We do the best we can. We took fourteen deaf students out canoeing yesterday. And then we have two trips with the blind school scheduled this summer.

Kendall says it’s not just important to get kids outside, he says it’s vital to help kids develop a life-long love affair with rivers.

There’s only one word that’s in more song titles than the word River, and that’s the word love.

Start your love affair with Texas rivers at passporttotexas.org.

That’s our show… For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

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Passport to Texas from Texas Parks and Wildlife

About fifteen years ago, Joe Kendall and some of his friends decided to help protect Texas rivers by getting people involved in their care.

We started doing cleanups, and started the foundation with the idea of having an adoption program.

Kendall is the founder and executive director of the Austin Chautauqua Foundation.

We did festivals and Chautauquas—which is to combine entertainment and education and races. We ended up doing a program with some fifth graders, and we discovered that was probably the most rewarding thing for us; and we thought, also, for the rivers.

Rewarding for the rivers because the more people know and love rivers, the more people there will be to protect them in the future. The Texas River School, borne of Kendall and company’s original idea, gets a diverse group of kids on the water.

Fortunately, we have Texas Parks and Wildlife to thank for that. They have provided us with a grant every other year to take kids to the river that wouldn’t normally get a chance to go. They identify them as their non-traditional constituents…people that don’t use the parks. And they see that’s the minorities, economically disadvantaged, females and at-risk kids. So, we target all those areas and have taken over four thousand through our discover the source program.

The source, in this case, is the spring that feeds Barton Creek in Austin. We’ll tell you more about River School activities tomorrow.

That’s our show… For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.
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Texas River School, http://www.texasrowingcenter.com/trs.htm

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Passport to Texas from Texas Parks and Wildlife

Increasing environmental literacy is the goal of Project Wild, a nationally recognized and internationally distributed environmental and conservation education program.

When you think about literacy, you think well, people know how to read words and how to write words and then they know what to do with it. And the same thing with environmental literacy. They know the basic concepts, but they also understand what to do with that knowledge when they’ve got it.

Kiki Corry coordinates Project Wild for Texas Parks and Wildlife, and explains the value of growing the public’s environmental literacy.

It’s important to Texas Parks and Wildlife because we have these wildlife and land resources that are available to the public. And a public that understands them, knows how to use them, is going to make better decisions individually and as a society, and they’re also going to appreciate them more.

Corry trains the people who train the teachers. The teachers take what they’ve learned back to the classroom, where environmental literacy is interdisciplinary.

Lots of math and lots of language arts. Lots of social studies. There’s an argument that environmental education is almost more social studies than it is science because there’s so much of the geography, the history that’s all embedded in it.

Learn more about Project Wild at passporttotexas.org.

That’s our show…For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

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Passport to Texas from Texas Parks and Wildlife and the Sport Fish and Wildlife Restoration Program

Kiki Corry is the Project Wild Coordinator for Texas Parks and Wildlife.

Project Wild is an environmental and conservation education program. It is nationally recognized and distributed internationally. And, Texas Parks and Wildlife is the sponsor here in Texas.

Corry trains the facilitators who make available Project Wild training workshops to teachers.

Some of them are teachers. Some of them work for nature preserves or camps, and they want to be qualified to train their staff. They like to contribute to the environmental literacy of the public.

Not all educators taking the workshops are classroom teachers.

Not necessarily just classroom teachers, but also people at preserves and zoos and museums—people who run summer camps. Because this is a very active curriculum, quite often the activities look like a game, but when they’re done properly, the participants in what looked like a game, come away with a much deeper understanding of different environmental concepts.

Learn about Project Wild at passporttotexas.org…and on tomorrow’s show.

That’s our show… with support from the Sport Fish and Wildlife Restoration Program… funded by your purchase of fishing and hunting equipment and motor boat fuels. For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

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Passport to Texas from Texas Parks and Wildlife

If your family’s outdoor skills are rusty, you’re in luck. Texas Outdoor Family workshops are as close as a state park. Chris Holmes coordinates this new program.

It’s going to be basic outdoor camping skills. We’ll teach them about using a GPS unit (global positioning system) and exploring the trails. We’ll teach them how to fish. If there’s kayaking available, we’ll teach them how to paddle and kayak. And then the main program in the afternoon will be how to set up a camp properly.

The first workshop is August 4 at Galveston Island SP. Family size is limited to eight, and the cost for the weekend is $55. Leave No Trace developed the program’s camping component.

And so, it’s a national certification, environmentally friendly program. And the families together will have fun, and learn how to pitch a tent, place the tent properly on tent pads, use a stove correctly and cook food. And we’ll teach them how to build a fire.

Holmes says his favorite part of the workshop comes the following morning.

They’ll have an opportunity to have a coffee with a park ranger and learn about having a conservation career. And then they’ll do a service and stewardship program which is something that they can help the state park. It may be removing some invasive vegetation, it may be building bluebird boxes. It may just be simply picking up litter at the state park.

We have details about Texas Outdoor Family Workshops in State Parks at passporttotexas.org.

That our show for today…remember: life’s better outside. For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

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