Legacy Magazine

by Lauren Buchholz

M.R.C.A. naturalist Lauren Tingco helps students cross a stream in Malibu Creek State Park.

A city made infamous by its air quality struggles, traffic jams, and teeming populace, Los Angeles isn’t one of the first places most people would expect to find a flourishing outdoor education program. Looming skyscrapers and ever-expanding freeways define what would seem to be a stark antithesis to the natural world, trademarks of a city that coined the term “urban sprawl.”

Yet on a sunny spring Wednesday, just over 30 miles from the heart of the downtown metropolis, a class of fifth graders is seeing a very different side of L.A. Under a clear blue sky on the grounds of Malibu Creek State Park (made famous as the filming location for M.A.S.H.), a small group is participating in a guided hike that winds its way through several miles of native grasslands dotted with coastal live oak and sycamore trees, their path overshadowed by steep mountain faces that provide homes for rattlesnakes, mule deer, and one or two mountain lions. Earlier in the week, the curious 10- and 11-year-olds learned about the importance of this wild habitat by identifying local plants firsthand and seeing how native animals have adapted to the environment by examining skulls and fur samples. Their excitement is palpable as they begin to apply what they have learned to the natural settings all around them, pointing out signs of deer and coyotes, taking photos of blue herons wading beneath a bridge crossing, and warning one another to avoid clusters of poison oak. For the week, they are no longer confined to catching glimpses of nature in the second-most-populated city in the country. Instead, they are experiencing its heart.

The fifth graders out hiking on this particular day are joining a growing number of city youth who have experienced the natural side of Los Angeles under the guidance of the outdoor education program for the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority, or M.R.C.A. Established by the state of California in 1985 as a joint powers entity between the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, the Conejo Recreation and Park District, and the Rancho Simi Recreation and Park District, the M.R.C.A. dedicates itself to the management and preservation of over 60,000 acres of public parkland throughout the county. The organization has been furthering this work for over 10 years by providing outdoor education school programs for the Los Angeles, Glendale, and most recently Las Virgenes Unified School Districts, giving kids the opportunity to camp at and learn about parks and conservation regions throughout the city. The programs are staffed by experienced M.R.C.A. naturalists, whose professional attire (similar to that worn by National Park Service rangers) is usually one of the only ways to distinguish them from excited campers as they share the wonders of the wild side of L.A. with each new school group.

M.R.C.A. naturalist Emily Hope holds a Coast Range Newt in her hands on an outdoor education camp hike through Temescal Gateway Park.

This excursion is no exception. As the naturalist leading the group calls a halt along the trail to introduce her group to the concept and importance of the local watershed, an excited squeal goes up from one of the girls. “There’s a lizard on your backpack!” she exclaims. Within half a second, the group is clamoring for a closer look, cameras in hand, awe written across many of their faces. The pack-bound interloper—a blue-bellied western fence lizard—is found commonly throughout the park, but rarely allows humans such a close encounter for as long as this one. Holding the pack out for the group, the naturalist explains how the native reptile has adapted to avoid predation by severing its tail from its body as a distraction when threatened—an effective but very energy-intensive process that cannot be repeated until a new one has grown several months later. “It’s very important to respect these lizards so that they have a chance to survive,” she explains. “That way, you can come back and show them off for your family and friends.” The lizard is gently teased off the backpack as the group continues on, but the firsthand encounter with this wild creature remains a highlight for the trip: a rare experience that only a trip into nature itself can provide.

Unfortunately, for many youth across the United States, these trips have become more the exception than the norm. The importance of getting America’s children more engaged with the natural world has become a pressing issue throughout the country over the past two generations. More kids are spending more time away from truly experiencing the great outdoors due to the advent of vehicle-friendly suburban developments, strictly relegated schedules, and heightened legal red tape surrounding outside activities. Such are the findings highlighted by Richard Louv in Last Child in the Woods: Saving our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder, the 2005 book that sparked mainstream discussion of the benefits of unplugging modern electronics and encouraging today’s youth to go for wilderness romps.

M.R.C.A. naturalist Michelle Renner discusses the characteristics of herbivores for an outdoor education group while holding a model of a mule deer skull.

Being out in nature can provide more than just a chance to get some fresh air, Louv argues. Weaving anecdotal evidence with research studies, the author discusses how outdoor excursions can heal children and their families from what he coins “nature-deficit disorder,” the effect of withdrawing nature from personal experiences that leads to increased feelings of stress, wandering and limited attention spans, and general feelings of not being rooted to any one place or thing—symptoms of many people across the U.S. today. Throughout his book and in subsequent interviews, Louv highlights university studies showing how reintroducing nature has significantly reduced attention-deficit disorder (ADD) in young children, and discusses how individual families struggling with disconnected sons and daughters have successfully relied on nature instead of therapy or medication to address the issue. Exposing children to nature also benefits more than just people. As Louv explains in his 2007 article “Leave No Child Inside” (for Orion magazine), “[T]he outdoor experiences of children are essential for the survival of conservation…the truth is that the human child in nature may be the most important indicator species of future sustainability.”

The recognition of benefits such as these have helped to turn the tide towards getting kids back into the outdoors, a tide that the M.R.C.A. is striving to define for the Los Angeles region. As a big city, connectedness with nature is an inherent problem. Yet even in comparison to other large cities in the U.S., Los Angeles residents lack many opportunities to directly access natural areas. Only 33 percent of residents in the county live within a quarter-mile of a park, according to L.A. Assemblyman Kevin de Leon. This is in comparison to 97 percent of Bostonians and 91 percent of New Yorkers—cities that were designed to accommodate green spaces instead of highways (Source: The Los Angeles Times 2008).

The M.R.C.A. has been addressing this problem by opening outdoor education opportunities to students of all ethnic and economic backgrounds throughout the county, meaning its naturalists often see the extremes of youth interaction with nature. For many of the children hiking in Malibu Creek State Park, the thought of being without a cell phone or access to video games and iPods was the most foreign aspect of their weeklong camp experience. For kids living much closer to the heart of downtown Los Angeles, the strangest part of the camp for many was being able to walk freely outside at night and see the stars. Yet despite the differences in their backgrounds, the youth proved indistinguishable in their excitement at exploring the great outdoors—an excitement that M.R.C.A. naturalists often highlight as one of the greatest benefits of their job.

“I remember teaching a group of fifth graders,” says Lauren Tingco, an energetic naturalist who has been with the organization since 2008. “We were discussing some of the ways animals hide from predators, [when] behind in the scrub oak there was a loud swoosh! Several California quails ran and flew from behind me and towards the students, just as a red-tailed hawk flew close to the ground trying to catch the quails.” Tingco shared in the excitement of her students, who later turned the incident into their camp skit for the school group, incorporating the adaptations they had learned about the birds.

Opportunities like this one illustrate the power of firsthand encounters with the natural world to educate and shape a child’s mind. Tingco emphasizes the importance of these experiences for the students she has taught, who often spend classroom time learning about the natural world in their region preceding their outdoor education trips.

“[They] really have a chance to connect the ideas they learned indoors with the outdoors,” she says. Furthermore, the camp environment also encourages students to “come out of their shells,” growing not only in knowledge but as people through their experiences at camp.

“Many times I hear from classroom teachers that the students act like completely different people in the outdoor setting,” says Tingco. “Some students really…embrace the outdoor activities that we provide.”

Perhaps the greatest asset of the M.R.C.A.’s outdoor education program, however, is that it not only offers Los Angeles youth and their families opportunities to see the natural world—it does so from within their own city. In coming to understand the vitality of nature close at hand, the students who attend outdoor education camps with the program can connect the importance of preserving the world’s environment with that of caring for nature on a local level.

Tingco echoes this sentiment: “Outdoor education is great for the children of Los Angeles because it shows them that they don’t have to travel far to hike at a park or see wildlife. The great outdoors is in their backyards…the M.R.C.A. helps them get to [and appreciate] these locations.” This appreciation, nurtured by the organization’s education of the planet’s future caretakers, will undoubtedly benefit the environment in L.A. and around the world in years to come.

Lauren Buchholz is an environmental writing student at the University of Colorado in Boulder, and has worked as an interpretive naturalist for Sequoia National Park and the Santa Monica Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority, California.