urban youth

2019 Intern Reflections: Madi

by

Eagle Eye’s Residential Summer Internship is a unique experience for college students to live and work outdoors for six weeks, practice sustainable living, and connect with themselves, others, and nature in a beautiful forest environment. The internship offers a dual experience to develop hands-on land management and outdoor skills and gain outdoor education and mentoring experience with youth and teens ages 8-18.

Below is a recent reflection from 2019 Residential Intern Madi McCarthy of UMass Amherst. Madi is a junior majoring in Psychology and Education.

Working with Eagle Eye this past summer was one of the most impactful experiences I have been lucky enough to have had. I gained so many life skills, underwent personal growth, and made life-long connections with very special people. This summer helped me realize that I want to pursue a career in education, especially in an urban community. Working with the youth will have a lasting impact on me, because I saw how much nature can affect youth. I was also able to hold the Champion role and lead a youth program. That was one of the most intimidating things I have done, but also such a great learning experience!

When the youth were not on site, we worked to maintain the site. [Site Manager] Scott taught me so many skills that I never had exposure to before. I leaned how to operate various tools and create a lot, including helping to finish a cabin! Doing trail stewardship daily helped me learn the skills behind land management, give back, and appreciate the land more overall.

During the internship, I was able to establish healthy routines and a healthy lifestyle. Cooking and eating good food, meditating daily, and having group check-ins and feedback with everyone during the week helped me to realize that I can apply these routines to my daily life in college. Since the internship, I have been back at UMass and the routines that I established this summer, such as daily meditation, yoga, and journaling, have all stuck with me more than ever. It has had a big impact on my well-being.

The deadline to apply for the Residential Summer Internship is Friday, April 17th, 2020, with applications reviewed on a rolling basis. Read the full internship description here and contact us to learn more!

2019 Intern Reflections: Gabby

by

It’s a new year, there’s snow on the ground, and it’s time to start thinking about our 2020 summer internship. We typically start to promote the internship and recruit college students in January for a July start. Below is a recent reflection from 2019 Residential Intern Gabby Gracia of UMass Amherst. Gabby is a junior majoring in Natural Resource Conservation with a concentration in Wildlife Ecology and Conservation.

Working with Eagle Eye was a breath of literal fresh air that took me away from a very fast-paced and stressed-out life. Having a routine everyday was something that made me feel secure, and I loved working on Eagle Eye’s site. The tight-knit community gave me a sense of security that I could not find outside of the site. 

Spending the day with the youth was refreshing because of the games and activities all of the interns got to lead. Leading 20 people is harder than it seems! Practicing the communication skills necessary to keep the day going smoothly was beneficial and has certainly helped me to express thoughts concisely and effectively outside of the internship. 

My favorite part of the internship was waking up and going to bed with the sun. I felt so connected to the Earth and being outside 24/7 made me realize that nature is so complex and beautiful. The youth definitely realized that as well. They asked so many thoughtful questions about our plant-based diet, the land, the program, and the stewardship work we completed. 

Overall, it is a very unique experience that creates opportunities for the youth and interns to connect with and appreciate nature in their own ways. 

We’re looking forward to working with our next group of interns! The residential summer internship is a unique experience that allows college students to reconnect with themselves, others, and nature in an immersive and intentional environment, while developing land management and youth education skills. Find out more about the summer internship here and contact us to learn more.

The Importance of Community

by

Mount Tom Hike-a-thon, October 26, 2019

By Cass Pastorelle, Program Director

I can’t help but feel grateful after our Hike-a-thon at Mount Tom this past Saturday, October 26.

Eagle Eye has been holding this event for 17 years, an idea first hatched by two volunteer instructors as a way to bring the Eagle Eye community together and raise money to support our work.

For most of Eagle Eye’s history, our work took place in the Boston area and at our forest site in the Berkshires. After many years of fruitful programs and partnerships, we closed our Somerville office at the end of 2015 and moved our operations west, where we have had our site since 1991. In making this move for organizational sustainability, it was necessary to transition out of partnerships that were very dear to us. While we are still connected to our friends and partners there (and still hold an annual Hike-a-thon in Eastern Mass), the programs and partnerships have moved west.

Four years ago, we weren’t sure who our new friends and partners would be. Thanks to our network of former staff, board members, and supporters, we started to make connections in the Pioneer Valley, including Holyoke, an urban center an hour from our forest site. We began offering programs on site for Holyoke youth from Paulo Freire Social Justice Charter School in 2016 and reintroduced our residential summer internship program for college students in summer 2017. We also built relationships with faculty and staff at Hampshire College, co-founder Anthony Sanchez’s alma mater, and engaged their students in outdoor learning opportunities.

When we were connected to Kestrel Land Trust in 2017, our work started to expand. Kestrel had been working with students at Dean Tech (now Holyoke High School Dean Campus) for the past year. We joined them in offering opportunities for students to get outdoors, learn about the environment, play games, connect with each other, and have fun. At the end of the 2017-18 school year, we offered two overnight Learn More About Forests programs to Dean students. The results were inspiring. The power of nature and community were evident as students reflected on their experience of transformation, internal and external. Students and staff alike left with a transformed outlook on themselves, others, and nature.

We are now in our third year of working with Dean staff and students, and are offering not only overnight camping trips, but also an outdoor after-school program that is student-directed and prioritizes connection to and stewardship of natural areas around Holyoke. In the interim, we have connected with many other local organizations and led youth programs with the Holyoke Boys & Girls Club, Homework House, Holyoke High School North Campus, Paulo Freire, and LightHouse Holyoke.

At our Hike-a-thon at Mount Tom on Saturday, I got to see a visual representation of our partnership- and relationship-building over the past four years. Representatives from Holyoke High Dean Campus, Kestrel Land Trust, UMass Amherst, as well as long-time supporters, board members, friends, and former staff, impressed upon me the importance of community in fulfilling our mission. We have never been able to accomplish everything alone, and from early on we have recognized the value of leveraging partnerships and working together towards shared goals.

But the value of community is also intangible. It is the feeling of warmth and connection as people are gathered for a common purpose. It is the feeling of being seen and known by others and being part of something larger than ourselves. I felt that on Saturday and I feel it whenever we bring people together in nature.

Finding Nature and Perspective in The City

by

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

by

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.

Partnership, Stewardship, & Mentorship

by

By Jose Sanchez, 2014 Spring Intern

For the past six months, I have been privileged to work with Eagle Eye Institute as an intern through Northeastern University’s Co-op program. Working in the office and leading youth programs I have witnessed the incredible passion it takes to make partnerships come to life. In particular, I am most proud to have been given the opportunity to help lead the first youth programming at Medford High School (MHS).

The formation of this new EAGLE (Earth Advocates Green Leaders for the Environment) Club was made possible with the help of MHS’s headmaster, John Perella, and physical education teacher, Matt Galusi, who are both focused on getting students and staff engaged in outdoor education. The 3,400-acre Middlesex Fells Reservation is located right behind the school, which would lead one to believe that it is commonly used by the Medford High community. Unfortunately, a large portion of the school community is unfamiliar with their forested reserve. The MHS EAGLE Club aims to connect the school community with their backyard oasis of natural beauty, wildlife, and ecological prosperity.

This past spring, over 40 MHS juniors and seniors spent their weekly gym periods learning about the ecology of the Fells while playing an active role in maintaining its integrity as part of an “Outdoor Pursuits” physical education elective. EAGLE Club lessons included vernal pool ecology, preservation and protection, invasive species removal, tree identification, water quality, and trail maintenance. Throughout the program we introduced concepts of environmental stewardship and related them back to youths’ daily lives.

Some of the students involved in this programming were inspired to take part in additional stewardship projects Eagle Eye offered in the Lawrence Woods section of the Fells when school was out in June. During these completely voluntary work days, we focused on invasive species removal, water bar installations, and the construction of a foot bridge along one of the trails leading from the high school. Students actively played a role in improving their community and protecting their environment – choosing to take their free time to connect with and care for nature.

Since the start of my internship I have grown both professionally and personally. Working with students so close in age to myself has caused me to reflect on the path I have taken since high school and figure out why I made the choices that led to my present course in life. For example, the first time EAGLE Club met as a class, students asked why I chose to study environmental science and why I chose to go to Northeastern University. I felt a deep searching and sincerity in their questions and it led me to some deep thinking on the matter. I realized I was in a unique position to be an example for the students. I recognized that they are on the verge of figuring out who they want to be in this world, what colleges or career paths they want to head on to – a position I so recently was in myself. I was amazed to realize that through sharing of myself, I might be able to help them navigate their own choices.

After giving my canned response initially, I came back the next week and shared truthfully and with full conviction. I told the students that my passion for the environment has been a recent discovery that is constantly widening and evolving. I conveyed how my love for the natural world caused me to change majors, colleges, and cities in order to be in the position that I am now. I shared with them my memories of exploring my dad’s old hunting grounds in upstate New York and my family camping trips to Letchworth State Park – where I first found the peace and comfort that nature continues to bring me today. I disclosed how I recently became aware of a strong connection between the natural world and my mental health. From the well of my honesty, students became comfortable enough to share their own hopes and desires for the future. I found the students that I made connections with seemed more able to step out of their comfort zones and become more involved in EAGLE Club activities. Slowly they were able to point out the role nature was playing in their lives and some said they wanted more connection with nature too.

I am blessed to have played an active role as leader and mentor in EAGLE Club. I was inspired by the students and the stewardship work we conducted. I was as transformed by the experience as some of the youth were. EAGLE Club was an opportunity for youth and adults to be directly connected with youth and each other – allowing nature to teach and be a conduit for sharing that couldn’t happen in the classroom. Eagle Eye and I are extremely excited to see how the partnership with Medford High School will grow and continue the important work of inspiring youth to care for the environment.

Thoughts on Nature and Childhood

by

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.