Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
FIGURE 23.1.
Two SOAR students dip netting for invertebrates in a constructed wetland at
Bader Memorial County Park, which is located along the Platte River, about ten miles east of
Grand Island, Nebraska, USA. (Photos courtesy of the Prairie Plains Resource Institute)
effective in familiarizing participants with prairie natural history, Nebraska Sandhills,
the Platte River, and central flyway sandhill crane and waterfowl migrations. The In-
stitute's educational direction took a quite novel approach in 1992, and with a direct
lineage to our college field station days at Itasca and Cedar Point. Prairie Plains began
to conduct two weeks of a grade school field day camp called Summer Orientation
About Rivers (SOAR) (fig. 23.1). In 2010, SOAR is still conducted at two locations,
with both programs capitalizing on the Platte River. The SOAR program features an
integrated curriculum of field science, writing and art activities, history, archaeology,
fun in the shallow Platte River, and the simple exultation of being outdoors in beauti-
ful natural settings. A joint planning effort by Prairie Plains staff and local public
school teachers, the idea for SOAR seemed to us like something every child should—
and could—experience in their home surroundings if only someone would create the
institutional mechanism for it to happen. The ultimate point is to give children a
basic understanding and enjoyment about where they grow up and about nature in
general.
What is good for children is also good for adults. Like a great field station experi-
ence, SOAR still affects me after many years. One recent year I related to groups of
SOAR campers the Loren Eiseley story in
The Immense Journey
, in which he talked
about floating in the shallow Platte River of western Nebraska—sliding down the face
of the continent with his fingertips reaching up into the cold mountain stream and his
toes in the warm Gulf waters. After walking a ways against a stout current, we turned
and floated down the Platte on our backs. It was memorable and I'm sure not just for
me. A graduate student volunteer mentioned that at SOAR we “enforced a sense of
beauty” about place, something she had never heard in her entire educational experi-
ence in rural Nebraska or in architectural studies at the University of Nebraska and
MIT. I have also seen the impact that restoration work has had on young interns. It is
very similar to the SOAR experience. The future holds great potential to cultivate
land knowledge and sense of place in all age groups in similarly soul-uplifting educa-
