c
 



    

By KATHERINE DAWSON ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE

Wednesday, June 30, 2010

LITTLE ROCK ² Starting this summer, young people have the opportunity to appreciate
Arkansas state parks in a new way by participating in an educational program that encourages
seeing, smelling and listening to what the parks have to offer.

The kids will have a chance to meet people who contribute to the parks on many levels,
including law enforcement officials, rescue workers and hazardous material handlers. They will
complete service projects - such as picking up trash - and are asked to share their impressions of
the parks - good and bad - with park leadership.

The Arkansas State Parks Explorer Program, intended for children 6 to 14, uses a State Park
Explorer Field Guide - a pocket-size, accordion-folded, to-do list of tasks - intended to help
children get to know and appreciate the state parks.

Those who complete a series of nine activities ranging from service projects to researching park
histories will earn the title Arkansas State Park Explorer.

The field guides are available free at any state park facility. Participants are encouraged to ask a
uniformed park official for the guide, which lists activities in four categories - discover, prepare,
connect and share. Once they complete the tasks, they earn a badge and certificate and are
honored in a small completion ceremony.

³Our staff has been instructed to make a very big deal of it,´ said Kelly Farrell, Arkansas State
Parks field interpreter. ³In the camping parks, there is traditionally an evening program, and
many people will come from the campgrounds and cabins. There could be 50 or 100 people
there. The staff will open the program with a ceremony to award that day¶s park Explorers.´

A few field guides were distributed in parks this month. The program officially begins in July.

³We are trying to build a more conservation-minded population who understand the deeper
values of state parks beyond fun,´ Farrell said.

³Long term, our youth now will be our voters in the future [who] will vote to support state parks,
to fund state parks, to help us continue to make sure we have state parks generation after
generation,´ Farrell said.

³We talk ... in state parks how we¶re in the forever business. Petit Jean, Lake Ouachita and
Village Creek ... those places are places where grandchildren were taken by their grandparents
and now are bringing their grandchildren.´
The Explorer program replaces the Junior Naturalist program, which began in the 1970s. The
new field guide asks participants about their reactions to the parks and park-related activities,
whereas the Junior Naturalist brochure only required participants to record something they
learned at the parks.

³The new program still has the same components, but instead of writing something they learned,
we have them write µA way I connected my mind ...¶ and µA way I connected my heart ... [to the
park],¶ because we really believe the way people buy into parks is to make intellectual and
emotional connections,´ Farrell said.

When participants complete the program, state park employees send a follow-up letter to the
participant¶s home to remind the Explorer of the pledge they took in their completion ceremony:

I promise to love, respect, and protect all Arkansas state parks. I will continue to explore the
history and landscape of these special places, and I will share what I discover with my friends
and family. Now and always, Explorers show we care.

The program, which is free to participants, is paid for by the Arkansas State Parks operations
budget. The production of the field guides, certificates and badges costs $1.80 per set. Parks
officials originally ordered 5,000 guides, but expect they¶ll need more as the summer progresses.

³We don¶t put the brochures in a brochure rack in part because we want the youth or their
families to have to engage with our staff,´ Farrell said. ³But also, it¶s a little bit more expensive
... brochure to produce than just a paper flier so we don¶t put them out just for free-taking, [but]
it¶s free if they ask for it.´

Family, Pages 31 on 06/30/2010