Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
- The Nature Conservancy educates children on conservation at Great Salt Lake wetlands.
- Volunteer guides, like Brad Timothy, aim to instill a love for nature.
- Andrea Nelson emphasizes early exposure to nature fosters comfort and stewardship.
LAYTON — Sometimes, peak migration season can provide some prime opportunities to teach conservation. Volunteer tour guides, like Brad Timothy, helped lead groups of fourth graders from Adams Elementary School, showing them how the wetlands of the Great Salt Lake are teeming with life.
"I've always been thrilled to be out in nature and be in the wild," Timothy explained. "It's almost a spiritual experience to come out and to feel nature and to see it and to understand it."
Guides like Timothy are hoping to instill some of that same love for nature in young minds.
"Their food is here, and so that's why it's so important for us to preserve their habitat," he said to a group of about a half-dozen kids.
The Nature Conservancy has been leading schools through its Great Salt Lake Shorelands Preserve for 19 years, teaching around 27,000 kids each spring and fall.
"Being introduced to those sorts of concepts and places really early on allows us to forge those relationships and kind of feel comfortable and safe in the outdoors," Andrea Nelson, a community engagement manager for The Nature Conservancy in Utah, said.
The short visit Thursday afternoon left an impression on several of the fourth graders, as they spotted many birds, including sandhill cranes, red-winged blackbirds, and pheasants.
"It's really cool," fourth grader Oliver Yates said. "There's so many different types of birds."
With these types of events, The Nature Conservancy hopes to instill a love for nature, and the recognition that all of us can do our part to help preserve the Great Salt Lake and the wetlands around it.
"It's good to remember that these places are alive and that we can care for them actively and in an ongoing way," Nelson said. "To see something and have that wonder kick in, you know, … just is a magical experience."
