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Finding Nature and Perspective in The City

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By Kristina Ferrara, Summer 2015 Intern

The way we perceive our world, ourselves, and each other affects our thoughts, behaviors, and interactions with this world we all share. Living in the city provides its residents with a perspective on the world that is quite different from that provided by living on a farm or a cabin in the woods. One of the best things about the work Eagle Eye does is to provide new perspectives to those involved in the program. Many youth we work with have their first experience in nature with Eagle Eye, and it’s incredible to see how their new experience challenges and opens up their perspective on our world.  

One activity we do is to pay attention to the sounds we are able to hear in nature and compare them to what we normally hear in the city. We have the group spread out and find a spot to sit and listen to the sounds they can hear around them. We listen for soft sounds, loud sounds, those caused by insects, by animals, the wind, water. For a few minutes, we absorb the natural sounds all around us, allowing ourselves to feel completely immersed in our natural surroundings. After doing this activity, and going back home to the city, it’s amazing how many more natural sounds we’re able to hear. If we listen hard, blended into the car horns, sirens, and general chatter, we can hear birds, the wind blowing through leaves, bees buzzing in flowers. Appreciating these natural sounds in our city environment is important to realize how connected we still are even when in the city. It challenges our perspective that the city is separate from nature and allows us to feel more connected to our world.

Coming from the suburbs of New Jersey, surrounded by farmland, woods, parks, and creeks, feeling a connection to nature while in the city was something particularly important for me. Growing up, my friends and I spent the vast majority of our time outside exploring nature. Whether it was hiking in the nearby woods, splashing around in the creeks, or searching for fossils at the fossil beds, we were always on some type of outdoor adventure. Nature has always been the place where I feel most connected not only to the rest of the world but also to my own thoughts and emotions. For me, nature is where I go whenever I need to take some time to ground myself and get a better perspective on whatever is going on in my life. My first few months living in Boston, it was really hard for me to adjust to city life. Being surrounded by buildings when I was used to being surrounded by trees made me feel quite small and cut-off from the natural world. Working with Eagle Eye has helped change my perspective of being separate from nature by helping me see how connected we still are even in the city.

Feeling connected to the natural environment is important for our mind, body, and soul as individuals, but also for our world as a whole. I believe that it is through the feeling of connection and love for nature that stewardship blooms. If you’re asked to give back to or care about the environment when you’ve never been able to experience and appreciate its beauty, it’s much harder to be enthusiastic and passionate about getting involved. When we feel connected to the environment, when we’ve been immersed in its beauty and we have seen firsthand its importance, then, and only then, do we feel compelled to act.

The most rewarding part of working with Eagle Eye, for me, is seeing the desire to give back grow in our youth participants.  Their perspectives on nature change – they no longer view nature as something separate and distant to themselves, but as an integral part of us all. Youth recognize that by protecting nature they, in turn, are protecting all life on earth, including their own, and this transformation in perspective is an incredible thing to be a part of.

Ethnicity and the Environment

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By Vaidehi Pidaparti, 2014 Tisch Active Citizen Summer Fellow

Working at Eagle Eye Institute this summer, I was welcomed into a caring community of people that have an unshakable belief that nature is truly for everyone. Being part of an environmental organization dedicated to diversity led me to reflect deeply about what place the environment has in my cultural background. While I was lucky to have a nature-loving mother who took me to national parks, the seashore and the mountains, speaking with other Indian-Americans I realized that these nature experiences were not common for people who share my heritage. In fact, some family friends have wondered, “Why do you go hiking? That’s only for white people!” In speaking with a Korean-American friend who is an avid outdoorsman, I discovered that his family has made similar comments – they do not view nature as something to explore. It never occurred to me before this summer that different ethnic groups perceive nature differently. This notion led me to consider how Indians and Indian-Americans, at the very least, interpret their relationship with the natural world.

On the one hand, the very concept of camping and hiking are foreign to Indians. My mother claims that unlike people in the West, Indians simply do not put nature into a recreational category. She attributes this to the fact that India has never had a tradition of protecting parcels of land for use as national parks or conservation. There is a definite dichotomy between how cities and villages maintain natural beauty in India, and pollution of land, water and air is increasingly common. In fact, many religious ceremonies are responsible, in part, for this pollution. On the other hand, Indian culture is founded upon principles of environmental stewardship and a feeling of kinship toward all living things. Many of the main schools of Hinduism, India’s most predominant religion, maintain an adherence to the practice of vegetarianism as a form of non-violence toward other living creatures. I was raised vegetarian for this reason, and I will continue to adhere to this tradition for the rest of my life. In addition to this belief system, an extensive knowledge of how different plants and spices can help maintain or rectify health is a mainstay in many Indian families including my own. A tailored diet is as much a part of my family’s medicine cabinet as a bottle of Advil.

I am not yet sure how to wrap my head around these contradictions – I am just at the beginning of this personal and cultural exploration. At the same time, I can see pathways towards creating a unified culture of environmentalism. I have realized that my respect and love for nature came, in large part, from the fact that I was raised a vegetarian. When I was a young child, the religious principle of not harming other animals made sense to me. My vegetarianism was a foundation in which I developed a more concrete set of environmental beliefs. Similarly, the fact that my grandmother and mother viewed food as a vital part of maintaining health led me to become a med student who believes society needs to return to basic nutrition as a means of controlling disease. I realize because of the way I was raised, with Indian traditions, I am a more environmentally-conscious person. I have a sense of responsibility to protect nature for the health and enjoyment of current and future generations. I have come to realize that the connections that people of color have to nature are not nonexistent, as people sometimes assume, but are simply different. Given my own experience, I feel as though making links between people’s cultural traditions and nature is vital in providing environmental programming to youth of color. I think characterizing people’s cultural relationships will help develop, perhaps, a more universal culture of environmental stewardship. And I for one am inspired now to try.

Thoughts on Nature and Childhood

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By Samantha Bloom, 2013 Summer Intern

Many of the conversations I have had with my grandmother have involved her telling me stories being told to go play outside. These stories come from her childhood as well as my dad’s. My mom has explained to me the importance of the bell that now hangs outside our back door, as it was used to call her and her siblings out of the forest for dinnertime. When I hear these stories, I am often envious of how the times have changed and how I have lacked such experiences. Now that I have reached the age of college, I have started to understand enough about nature to realize what I have missed out on. I now know the importance of going out into nature, and I feel it is my duty to help others do the same.

As I look back on my childhood, some of my favorite memories did include playing outside with my neighborhood friends. However, I believe that my generation is the transitional generation in the definition of a “playground” and “playtime.” My parents and grandparents used the forest and the meadow as their playgrounds, searching for undiscovered paths and playing with new types of bugs each day. They would fearlessly jump into the local pond or lake to cool off. The next generation, including my brother and myself, began the transition to today’s youth. We preferred to play in manmade locations, such as playgrounds and water parks. Although we were still technically playing outside, we had already begun the removal of youth from nature. The current youth have continued to widen this gap between playtime and nature. They prefer playing with technology inside the comfort of their houses. Many even fear the unknown of the natural world that had once appealed to so many youth.

This removal from nature is leading to what Richard Louv calls “nature-deficit disorder.” He explains that so many of the disorders that many children are diagnosed with today are because they are too sheltered from nature. The stories from older generations combined with my own personal experiences have led me to agree with this. Disorders such as ADHD as well as certain types of illnesses have become much more prevalent simply because youth are not going outside and exposing themselves to new experiences in nature. Their immune systems are not developing as much and their mental capacities are not being exercised to the fullest capacity. However, nature-deficit disorder is not only linked to medical effects. Youth have lost the ability to develop and expand their imagination. Nowadays, they need a screen in front of their faces in order to keep themselves amused. This nature-deficit disorder only has one solution: exposing youth to nature. I was so excited to be able to do this through Eagle Eye as one of the 2013 summer interns, and I look forward to doing more of this in the future.