The Redmond-based non-profit Nature Vision is raking in awards for its fun, experiential approaches to environmental and cultural education.
Executive director Clay Heilman recently received the 2009 Regional Grant W. Sharpe award for demonstrating excellence in environmental education. Nature Vision was also honored with the 2007-08 Environmental Education Association of Washington’s (EEAW) Award for Organizational Excellence. And in 2007, Nature Vision’s teaching team received the first annual Michael Mercer Water Conservation Educator award from the Partnership for Water Conservation.
Back in October, Heilman helped to present a pilot program for an Oregon Trail recreation in Redmond’s Juel Community and Farrel-McWhirter Parks. Students from the Lake Washington School District’s Explorer Community School pulled “covered wagons” and supplies through the woods and acted out scenarios that came from the diaries of actual pioneers. They also learned about making best use of precious commodities such as clean water.
More programs of that scope are in Nature Vision’s plans, according to Heilman.
“We are in a time when Puget Sound is in trouble. We need to act now, to educate people about the environment, yet we are in an economic slump,” Heilman explained. “People have to think outside the box. We are keeping alive a lot of educational programs that agencies have been dropping in the last five years.”
For instance, Nature Vision offers Pioneer Treks at Farrel-McWhirter Park for Scout troops, youth groups, birthday parties or homeschooled children in grades 1-6. Participants learn what it was like to live and work in Redmond in the 1800s.
Also collaborating with Redmond Parks and Recreation, Heilman forsees the possible opening of an environmental center and additional “living history” programs in the newer, undeveloped parks such as Juel or Arthur Johnson.
“We’d like to develop more living history programs such as Native American and Homesteading because the lessons from the past about living in sync with nature are relevant today,” said Heilman. “It’s important to show how people reused and recycled what they had — how they had to live with their environment. We’re trying to tie all that together.”
Right now, one of Heilman’s personal favorite Nature Vision programs is “Walk in the Woods” at the Redmond Watershed Preserve.
“We offer them every season,” she noted. “You can go with a naturalist and get to know the same trail which will have different things going on at different times of the year.”
Signs at the Redmond Watershed Preserve mention possible animal encounters — meaning animals much bigger than squirrels. Should visitors be concerned about disturbing the wildlife or vice versa?
Heilman said cougars, bears and bobcats are known to live in the watershed preserve, but she’s never spotted any in 30 years of walking through those woods.
“They’re nocturnal,” she pointed out. And when walking with a group, “they’re not going near us,” she said. “We actually seem to them like a big, scary monster. We do see a lot of smaller animals, a lot of birds, pileated woodpeckers, chipmunks, frogs and salamanders. It’s a wonderful learning experience — and it’s way more dangerous to be out on the road, in a car, than in the woods,” she stated.
For information about Nature Vision programs in Redmond, visit www.naturevision.org or Redmond Parks and Recreation at www.redmond.gov.
