Teens in the Wild

By taking care of greenspace, we care for ourselves. Hear about best practices for getting young people involved in land stewardship, and about how fostering a relationship with the outdoors is essential climate action. Featuring Naturalist Educator Nyjah Cephas and two of her students from the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy’s Young Naturalists program.

Visit pittsburghparks.org to learn more about the Young Naturalists internship, and about Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy’s work to steward urban greenspace.

Watch the companion We Are Nature video series here.

Episode Credits: Produced by Taiji Nelson and Michael Pisano. Field Reporting by Di-ay Battad. Field Recording by Delaney Greenberg. Editing by Michael Pisano. Music by Mark Mangini and Amos Levy.

Transcript

Michael Pisano (00:00:12):

Welcome to We Are Nature, a podcast about natural histories and livable futures presented by the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. I'm your host, Michael Pisano, and today I'm joined by my dear friend Taiji Nelson. Hey Taiji.

Taiji Nelson (00:00:24):

Hey Michael.

Michael Pisano (00:00:25):

Taiji, when you and I first met, you were working at the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy. Can you tell me a little bit about what you did there?

Taiji Nelson (00:00:33):

Oh my God, dream job. So what I was is I was a naturalist educator. So a naturalist is a person who understands nature through careful observation over time. And so if you ever a person who geeks out about birds and can name that bird when they hear it some half mile away in the woods, that's a naturalist. It's a person that spends a ton of time outdoors and just learns how to read the landscape. But I was also an educator, so my role was to use that connection or understanding or ability to read the landscape and connect other people, mostly young people. My sweet spot is middle school and high schoolers, get them outdoors, curious, excited and engaged in nature and the outdoors. So that was my job at the Parks Conservancy, which it was just so fun. I was in streams, flipping over rocks, looking for salamanders and just getting paid to geek out.

Michael Pisano (00:01:38):

Give me some more flavor. I'm curious about what your favorite kinds of things to teach about and learn about with students out in Pittsburgh Parks were.

Taiji Nelson (00:01:48):

I did a lot of your typical environmental education stuff like digging around in streams, looking for aquatic insects and bugs and identifying them and teaching people that, yeah, these bugs are... Catching a crayfish, that's just fun, that's just cool. But when you start learning that the different types of living things you find in a stream tell you about the health of it and you can tell you about how we're treating the land. Can tell us about ourselves if it ain't healthy for these plants or animals, is it healthy for us?

Michael Pisano (00:02:22):

Good question.

Taiji Nelson (00:02:23):

And that's a doomy way of saying it, but it's the flip side to that would be like, oh, if we care for the environment, we caring for ourselves. And I think that was the overall message of my time at the parks was like, you can love what you do and also have it be beneficial to you and the community.

Michael Pisano (00:02:41):

I love it. So today's episode features a specific internship program, the Young Naturalists Program that Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy runs. Taiji, you've got history with the Young Naturalists internship. Can you just tell us a bit about it and how you were involved?

Taiji Nelson (00:02:57):

I was involved in basically designing an internship program, Young Naturalists. We started with this question of how do you design an internship that students from across Pittsburgh would all want to come to, and then how do we support them so that they can? And so I worked with my boss at the time, Marijke Hecht, and then I also worked with another learning scientist from the University of Pittsburgh named Stacy Kehoe. And so it was this really cool example of a research practice partnership where we were designing a program so that no matter where you come from in the city and no matter what ways you connect with the environment or with the outdoors, you would feel at home here. And so what we found is some of the typical things that you need to design an internship, like providing bus passes so people can get there, paying them, which is actually not a typical thing, but the students are out there building trails, planting trees, doing physical labor in addition to assisting our scientists to understand the ecology of the park and do some monitoring, that thing.

(00:04:11):

So it's real work, it's meaningful work. It's paid work. And if we want students to choose this over working at Burger Joint or picking up a shift at a movie theater, you got to pay them.

Michael Pisano (00:04:23):

Of course.

Taiji Nelson (00:04:24):

So pay them for meaningful work. So we paid them, we gave them bus passes, we give them the gear they need because we're out there in the 90 degree heat or a downpour so give them boots, give them raincoats, give them rain pants because expecting that every student is going to have that stuff, particularly if this is, they just found out they were into nature. They met this weird dude on a field trip to the park who seemed really excited to be out there and they were like, okay, I'll bite. Not everybody's going to have the gear. And so just both of those things, having the place to do it, the people that can support that interest, the gear. When you provide those supports to youth, particularly youth that their friends may not do this, their family may not do this, they don't really have a lot of experience, but they trust you. You can get really great involvement and have people deeply connected to parks by making a contribution of their physical time, their physical labor, their interest.

(00:05:26):

And so this internship, it's about careers and learning pathways, and what will their next job be, or where will they go to school or that we care about that stuff because we'd think about, okay, what people are these students, do they want to become? Some might want to become a scientist who studies birds. Some might just want to, I really contributing and making a difference in my community. So I could see people like that becoming organizers or politicians. Other people, it's just about who they meet. We just had extreme amounts of racial diversity, gender diversity. We had hearing and deaf students working together. Again, because my family's mixed, we have it's just every single type of person, every bubble on a demographic part of a survey, that's in my family. And it just felt like family. It felt like my Thanksgiving table where everybody's so different, but we all have this thing in common and it's not weird that we're different and still like this thing in common.

(00:06:34):

So yeah, my role on that was I was designing it with these researchers from Pitt, but I was also facilitating it and showing up as myself, so.

Michael Pisano (00:06:46):

From my own experience as an educator and a student, I think that a lot of environmental education is just getting people outside. The more time that I spend in parks and preserves and other green spaces, the more I feel like I'm gaining this special vision for picking out these small marvels for noticing a mushroom on a street tree or a beautiful butterfly on a flower that's growing out of a crack in the concrete or all these little ecological moments wherever I am, even in the heart of the city. And it's exciting. You get a little dopamine hit or endorphin hit, I don't know, my brain chemistry very well. You get a good happy one when you identify something.

Taiji Nelson (00:07:31):

The Happy Chemical. I don't remember what that one is. What's that?

Michael Pisano (00:07:34):

Well, it's 2022, Taiji, so I'm working on it.

Taiji Nelson (00:07:40):

Oh yeah. That whole idea of learning to see nature, it's such a thing. I still get texts or Instagram DMs from former students eight years later that I remember after the program it would be on the weekend and we'd like, it's Monday to Friday, 8:00 AM to 3:00 PM. It's hot, it's sticky, it's Pittsburgh summer. But what told me I was doing a good job is when students would text me on the weekend and be like, I'm on a walk and I can't stop identifying trees. Or they'd be sending messages to the group chat of photos of bugs and being like, who can help me identify this?

Michael Pisano (00:08:22):

Awesome.

Taiji Nelson (00:08:23):

And still years later I'll get people messaging me being like, what was that park we went to? I want to take my family there. Years and years and years. And I'm just like, that is when it moves from something that they know to something that they are, it's part of their identity. And I feel that. It is part of my identity. And I think students when they have access to nature and they have time and support and just space in their life to do it, it can become part of their identity. And that's the beauty of access. And that's something everybody deserves. If you have nature as part of your identity, you know everybody should have that opportunity to find that deep meaning and just a sense of yourself and your place in the universe and your place in existence. It's a thing.

(00:09:09):

And I think the other point I'll make is that parks, people have the misconception that they just are there and they've always been there and it's just not doing something is what keeps those parks there. But no parks are there because we prioritize them. Oftentimes, they're there because in Pittsburgh people needed a place to go that wasn't polluted. The air quality in Pittsburgh historically, it was awful. You would go to work in a white shirt and you'd come home and it would be gray or black. That's the story we tell and we think we're past that because our pollution, you can't see it. But we still have some of the worst air quality in the country and the parks are still there for us if we protect them. When we think about climate change, parks will be there to keep us cool if we protect them. They will be there to catch excess rainwater from these big summer storms if we protect them. They'll be there to hold our hillsides up with their roots if we protect them. Air quality, water quality, heat. Cities are a warm place to live. Parks help with that. They reduce the urban heat island effect, but they only do that and they'll only be there for us if we protect them, if we invest in them. They do not just happen. There's people out there taking care of it. It's money, it's time, it's energy, it's a priority.

Michael Pisano (00:10:31):

It's material. Definitely. Definitely, definitely. Yeah. There's a couple things you touched on there that I want to hear more about. So let's come back to this conversation throughout today's episode, which is about how access to green space and spending time with non-human nature changes humans for the better.

(00:10:50):

Over the summer, field reporter Di Batod took a trip to Pittsburgh's Frick Park to chat up some students and educators from Young Naturalists. First up, we've got naturalist educator, Nyjah, who's one of the teachers who currently runs the program, and who also happens to be an alum of the internship herself.

Di Batod (00:11:08):

Introduce yourself. What's your name and what do you do here?

Nyjah (00:11:28):

My name's Nyjah. I'm a naturalist educator here at the Parks Conservancy.

Di Batod (00:11:31):

And you started as a naturalist, right? A young naturalist.

Nyjah (00:11:36):

Uh-huh. I started off as a young naturalist in 2016.

Di Batod (00:11:39):

Can you tell us a little bit about that journey?

Nyjah (00:11:42):

So my high school had a partnership with the Parks Conservancy where we would come and do restoration work or remove invasives around the environmental center. And they said that if you're really interested in it, you could apply for a five-week internship here and hang out and get paid and learn about different STEM careers in nature. And I was like, I want to do it. So I applied and I did it and I hung out with a former employee here who really mentored me and helped me find my place in nature work. And I went to college in Ohio after that for a little bit. And when I got done with my first year, that same mentor called me again and was like, Hey, instead of it being five kids this summer, we're going to do 10, so I need somebody to help me. Do you want to help me? And I was like, yeah, I want to help. So I've been here in the summers doing that ever since.

Di Batod (00:12:42):

That's awesome.

Nyjah (00:12:42):

Yeah, it's pretty cool. Full circle.

Di Batod (00:12:45):

Yeah. So for anyone who's never heard of it, what are the Young Naturalists?

Nyjah (00:12:53):

So the Young Naturalists, it's 10 students from high school. It's a five week internship and they come Monday through Thursday and we do half learning about different careers in STEM meeting different professors from University of Pitt that are doing work in their own labs on plant research. We do stuff with Gavin who's a goat herter, and the goats are here to help remove invasives this year. So we worked with that and a couple other folks come in and share their career pathways and how they ended up in a STEM career. And then the other half of the day we're doing stewardship work, we're digging trenches to try to make check dams. We're moving vines from fences, just trying to take care of the parks, the hard work way.

Di Batod (00:13:38):

Why is bringing youth in important?

Nyjah (00:13:40):

Yeah, I think it's really important to get young people involved in the work that we do because they're ultimately the ones that are going to benefit from the green spaces in the city like the parks. And as they get older and they're deciding what they want to do with their lives, if they have a good experience here, hopefully they'll be more inclined to give back to the parks and in turn give back to the health and happiness of everybody that lives in Pittsburgh. So I think it's really important to start with them.

Di Batod (00:14:10):

Do you see that happening or have you seen it happen? Do you see a change in the Young Naturalists throughout the program?

Nyjah (00:14:18):

Totally. There's so much to learn about the world around you. It's just a matter of being given the opportunity to stop and look and learn about it. And once you give kids the chance to decide for themselves what they're passionate about and where they see themselves fitting in terms of helping, then that really empowers them to actually go and do the work. So we see a lot of young naturals get really inspired to give back to the parks and tell other people about how cool the parks are and why it's important to take care of nature. So it's pretty cool.

Di Batod (00:14:55):

So how about for you? Now's your chance to tell other people about how cool the parks are. How cool are the parks? Tell me.

Nyjah (00:15:03):

The parks are so cool. One thing that I really like about the parks is that I come here and I get to escape from overthinking about the state of the world or any form of oppression or anything like that. I just know that the trees are there and they'll keep going. And you get to meet a lot of cool people here that are also interested in nature.

Di Batod (00:15:31):

What are some of the things you can do here when you go on walks? You can...

Nyjah (00:15:36):

Yeah, so you can learn about sustainable practices from our awesome building. Our building is basically alive and there's a lot of work that got put into making it one of the most sustainable buildings ever.

Michael Pisano (00:15:50):

Michael from the Future here. Nyjah is talking about Frick Environmental Center in Frick Park where the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy has offices and classrooms and meeting spaces in a lead platinum and living building certified building.

Nyjah (00:16:04):

We have solar panels behind us that work to do a bunch of different things like keep cars shaded so they don't have to use their AC and use as much energy as they leave the park. It also collects our solar energy that we use for the building. So that's just one thing. We also have different Slavery to Freedom Garden, which really helps illuminate the stories of people who haven't been able to tell their stories themselves as far as people who've been enslaved and the knowledge that they had to use to escape to freedom. And most of that knowledge was nature. So that's really cool that we're allowed to tell these stories here. You can always walk around, you can go on a bike ride, you can just look for little critters in some leaf litter. You can sit and read a book, you can hang out at the fountain. Just a lot of really awesome stuff here.

Di Batod (00:16:58):

Yes, I agree. What is your personal mission in being a part of this?

Nyjah (00:17:06):

I guess my personal mission is to really let the teens in our program know that all the power that they need is already in them to make changes that they want to see in the world. And all it takes is just having a really solid community that you trust and that trusts you to help you get launched into whatever you want to do. So me as a co-leader, I try to get to know each kid personally and know where they want to be and think about how I can help support them in getting there because the people at the parks have also done that for me in my own journey. So I don't know, I feel like I'm just giving back what I was given. And also the students are really awesome, so they're going to do super cool stuff when they get older and it's cool to have a little part in that so yeah.

Di Batod (00:17:55):

Yeah, for sure. If you think back to your own time as a Young Naturalist, do you remember ways in which you've grown?

Nyjah (00:18:07):

Since a Young Naturalist program, I think I've grown as far as knowing that there is more to every situation than what meets the eye. I think I can connect that to nature really well. There's a lot of processes happening in nature that we don't know about, so what's really happening looks different than what we can see on the surface. And I think that applies to people and situations a lot. Also, the world seems really like divided right now and it's really easy for me to just be upset with people that I don't agree with. But in reality, there's a lot more under the surface that I can't see when I'm making just judgments about somebody. So I think I've grown a lot in that way and realizing that people and nature and anything else, we're a lot more similar than we are different, and I think that's helped me build bridges between different people a lot since I've been a Young Naturalist. So maybe that's it.

Di Batod (00:19:19):

Yeah.

Michael Pisano (00:19:30):

More from Nyjah shortly and Di. First, Taiji, I wanted to ask you about access to nature. It's this phrase that comes up a lot in environmental education and in the environmental justice discourse. I'd love to hear about what the phrase means to you and how it relates to your experience as an environmental educator.

Taiji Nelson (00:19:52):

So that's a great question. I would start by just acknowledging that I think a major message of the museum is we are nature, which is so true. You cannot separate humans from the rest of the living and non-living world. So humans are nature and the more you know about it or the more you learn to pause and look for nature, you do see it all around you. You don't even have to step out your door to see nature. Some people immediately grab the slipper and smash the bug in their house, which I get it. Totally. But I also have friends like you and I, Michael, who if a cool bug is in the corner of the basement, we're like, Ooh, let me get down and use a hand lens.

Michael Pisano (00:20:44):

Oh sure.

Taiji Nelson (00:20:44):

And that's not everybody vibe.

Michael Pisano (00:20:46):

I got the basement grime on my knees to prove it. I also keep a large Tupperware and a piece of mail in both my basement and by my door in the kitchen so that if a bug does get inside, I'm going to gently trap it. I'm going to observe it, I'm going to show it to my wife, I show it to the cats, and then it gets to go live where I think it might want to live. God, saying all that out loud is weird. It's just something I do every day though.

Taiji Nelson (00:21:11):

So to turn the question back on you, what do you think got you to that place? What places or experiences or people got you to the place where you are not a person who just slaps the bug and walks off, but you're a person that gets down and looks at it?

Michael Pisano (00:21:25):

Yeah, it's a good question.

Taiji Nelson (00:21:26):

That's access to nature is my guess.

Michael Pisano (00:21:28):

It absolutely is.

Taiji Nelson (00:21:29):

What do you think? What experiences, places or people?

Michael Pisano (00:21:31):

Yeah. Oh man, great question, Taiji. I grew up in rural New Jersey that was farmland turning into a suburb. And my folks still live in the same house that I grew up in. A very cookie cutter suburban home, but surrounded by trees. A five-minute walk to woods with a big ugly retention pond and railroad tracks. Great place for a young misgrant to go and skulk. But I was a pretty socially anxious little kiddo with bifocals and pulled up socks and tucked in shirts and I really loved dragons and I didn't really have coordination at that point for sports and the woods back in the zone behind my parents' house as well as just the yard that they had, which was maybe 80% grass, 20% garden, a couple of trees scattered in. I would climb those trees and stare at bugs all day.

(00:22:35):

I think starting in that backyard seeing tiny things is what sparked my curiosity to say, Hey, what is that? Someone else might just say that's an ant, but I want to know what ant that is. I want to know more. And I was very fortunate to have a dad who had been in the Boy Scouts for a really long time, was interested even though it wasn't his career or something he had formally studied, and he was willing to go to the library with me and open up a book and try to figure that out.

(00:23:03):

And so it was access to green space and then access to a person who was willing to help me make sense of what I was seeing. And from there, it took care of itself. And I think that's what I've seen in many students is that from there you start building this internal map of the ecosystems around you. And as more and more connections get made, you do feel less separate from nature. You do start to get that we are nature feeling organically, I think. I don't know. Back to you, what do you think? I mean, how does that sit with you?

Taiji Nelson (00:23:35):

Oh my god, yeah. I think that is so unique. It's a unique story, but I think it's also such a relatable story for many people who find personal or professional meaning in nature, in the outdoors, in this ecological thinking space or whatever that means to you. I think you mentioned a few things. One, that it can happen by yourself or with another person. I think there are social aspects to learning, social aspects to building that as part of your culture and your identity being outside. But also there is this thing about time alone in nature and self discovery. You made that discovery on your own. You saw this thing that nobody else saw in this moment that I think is, that is the wonder. That is what keeps me coming back. That's the hook, right?

Michael Pisano (00:24:25):

Definitely.

Taiji Nelson (00:24:25):

It's both of those things. Sharing a love of nature as well as discovering it for myself, learning for myself, experiencing for myself. So I think oftentimes when as in Young Naturalists or I've seen other educators, I've seen other environmental educators and I think myself, earlier on in my career, I wanted to recreate the experiences that I had for other youth because I was like, this was my path to loving nature and I want to recreate that path for them. And I think as I got older and as I worked with more students and embraced their differences, the different way that people find their entry point, I was realizing that I'm not trying to recreate my path for these students. I was trying to leave space and create the environment, set the table in a way that allowed them to pursue their interests. And I think we're all moving in a similar direction.

(00:25:23):

We're all in the same place. We're building a community, we got some shared projects we're working on, but the idea is that interest does not look the same for every student. Some student really vibes on if we're doing a trail building project, some students and myself, parts of me really the part where I'm just outside making a difference. Some people it's for you see your trail finished and you're like, I did that. Some people, it's the person walking down the trail that says, thank you. Some people it's teaching somebody else how to use a tool. There's just so many things.

Michael Pisano (00:26:03):

There's space for all of it.

Taiji Nelson (00:26:04):

Yeah. If I was so rigid and this is what you're going to learn and this is how it's tied to the major in college or the job you're going to do, you lose some of the potential pathways. There's so many forks in the road and you just got to recognize that not everybody is looking at that. Not only would they not choose the same direction in that fork, they might be looking at a completely different fork in the road. And so I think how that relates to access is just giving people time outside. The other thing you mentioned in your story was just tons of time outside as a kid, either by yourself, with other people. That is what people who study...

(00:26:49):

So there's this really interesting research paper I read a few years ago that was about, they just interviewed a ton of people that the outdoors and nature and the environment is a huge part of their identity. So they just interviewed all these adults and said, what in your life led to that? And almost all of them said, time outside as a kid. And largely it was positive time outside and it was exploring the woods out back or spending time as a family on a trip to a national park or something like that. But that's not everyone.

(00:27:25):

My former boss, Marijke, who helped me design the program, she did not discover her love of nature until well into college. She grew up in New York City, she had a few experiences outside and Central Park. She tells this story about she was standing, if you've ever been to Central Park, they have those big rocks that are just popping out of the city. And it's this really neat juxtaposition with the buildings in the background and the trees and the noise of the city. But there's also these massive boulders sticking out of the ground. And she had this moment where the person she was with, this educator was, these boulders go down. I don't know how deep, but it was when you see those memes about the icebergs and you see the top of the iceberg, but there's a whole world beneath the water. So I think that was from Marijke. That story sticks out to me for her because that was hers. It's like, whoa, there's a world out there.

(00:28:22):

And I think when you could find that in your backyard, right? Oh my gosh. When you start looking, there's a whole world there. And so when it comes to access, a lot of things have to be in place for students to be able to access nature. In the traditional sense we think of it. you have to have a place to do it or things that help. You don't have to have. The things that help. You have to have a place to do it. The time to do it. You have to feel safe to do it. And that's both physically, socially safe. You have to be open to it. Having people that can support it is really good.

(00:29:02):

But I think that the thing I have learned is that there's so much that people... I've seen so many different people hooked by different parts of being outside that it's not... And I think a mistake we often make is assuming that learning about nature and the very much the scientific book way is the only way. Your head is part of it. But there's so much more to you than just your brain, right?

Michael Pisano (00:29:33):

Definitely.

Taiji Nelson (00:29:33):

The head, the heart, the hands, it's all of that stuff.

Michael Pisano (00:29:37):

Definitely.

Taiji Nelson (00:29:38):

Outdoor recreation, there's like, yes, one of the episodes we talk a little bit about outdoor recreation and I would love for more environmental education programs to let themselves do what they love to do. Integrate outdoor recreation. And that's how you're going to get students to ask the questions when you're get them to love something and experience something and see something. And it's starting with the wonder and outdoor recreation, oh my word. You can't... If you're smiling and you're having fun and you're with people you love, of course you're going to start asking questions about the things you see.

Michael Pisano (00:30:16):

Definitely.

Taiji Nelson (00:30:16):

Or talking about the things you see.

Michael Pisano (00:30:18):

And you're just logging time outdoors. And it's a numbers game in a way where the more time you have your eyes out there, whether you're tubing, fishing, hunting, building a trail, whatever it is, the more likely you are to come across something that sparks that wonder or sparks a question that leads to another question.

Di Batod (00:30:48):

So what might be some of the challenges of engaging youth in this work?

Nyjah (00:30:55):

What's challenging about engaging youth right now is that there's a lot of hopelessness that they're seeing. I feel like in the last couple years that's all we've been shown is how hopeless things are and how hard things are for everybody. And when you grow up only seeing that, that's what your perspective becomes. So I think it's going to take a lot of effort and patience and understanding to let people know that not all is lost and that there's still things that can be done to make a better future. It's just going to take connecting to people and really hearing out their fears and working together to see a better future before that can happen.

Di Batod (00:31:38):

How is the Young Naturalists helping with that?

Nyjah (00:31:41):

I think what's really special is that the Young Naturalists have nine other students to connect to and to talk about hard things with and feel understood by. And trying to navigate this world right now is not something you can do alone. So I think just having people around you that you trust, and since we have so much time together to build relationships, we end up being really close. So I think that group dynamic is really, really important.

Di Batod (00:32:15):

Absolutely. So that ties really well to my next question. Can you talk about the importance of collaboration and community and the work that you do?

Nyjah (00:32:25):

So when it comes to community, we really try to focus on how important the relationships in our community are. Because we're all Pittsburghers, we all want to see better for our city and better for our planet. And we didn't end up in this situation by any one person's doing. So I think that knowing that this is a community based issue and using our own community to help solve that community-based issue is really important. And if you're just alone trying to figure out how to stop climate change or fix combined sewer overflow, you're just going to get really overwhelmed and probably end up feeling a little hopeless. So it's really good to have other voices to bounce your ideas off of or share your struggles with so yeah.

Di Batod (00:33:24):

Absolutely. So there's a lot of messanging, messaging on also messanging, but messaging on social media and the news and things like that about individual scale actions that you can take like zero waste lifestyle. Can you talk about the difference between that and collaborative actions?

Nyjah (00:33:43):

I think the individual actions you can take are important to try to implement in your life. But a lot of the times people don't have the opportunity to live waste free or to make some lifestyle changes just because of their circumstances. And when you collaborate with people in your community, you can always make a greater impact because it's not just you. So regardless of whether you can change certain aspects of your lifestyle, if you're working with your community and you all have a common goal that you can all work at at your own pace and I don't know, as your resources allow you to, I feel like the end result can be a lot greater and it doesn't always take too long. I feel like when you work together with people, you can actually get stuff done in a reasonable amount of time. So maybe that too.

Di Batod (00:34:38):

I totally agree. So thinking about a problem like facing climate change, what are some of the strengths do you think your community actually has and what does it need?

Nyjah (00:34:54):

I think a strength that we have is that we care so much about everybody and everything. And because we feel so connected to those things, it motivates us to work through some of the hopelessness that can come up along the way. But I think it's really hard to get people that don't think like you on the same page as you sometimes. So I'm hoping that in the future it won't just be people that care about parks or people that I'm friends with that care about issues. I'm hoping that people from different walks of life can come to an understanding and see that we do have the same goal. It just might not seem like that at first glance. So I'm hoping that we can all understand each other a little bit better and make some changes.

(00:35:53):

I guess I just want us to all be in agreement that we need to make changes. I feel like there's still a lot of denial going on, which is really understandable because scary things are easy to just sweep under the rug and not think about, but we're in some really dire circumstances right now and I'm hoping that we will have come to an agreement on what's really happening and started to make some changes like community-based changes and then those community-based changes go to statewide changes and national changes and we're all just putting our best effort towards making the world a little better, so.

Di Batod (00:36:43):

Oh this is a fun one. How will climate change impact how we pursue happiness?

Nyjah (00:36:50):

Interesting.

Speaker 5 (00:36:52):

Brace yourself [inaudible 00:36:54].

Nyjah (00:36:54):

Yeah. How will it affect how we pursue happiness? This might be a weird answer, but I feel like if climate change is getting worse, we're going to feel a lot more of that hopelessness and we'll be forced to be more appreciative of the small things in life, which has its benefits because we should be appreciative for the little things in life. But I feel like just the whole morale of the world will be down and we'll really struggle to keep going and keep working towards our goals. So I am not sure about that one.

Di Batod (00:37:44):

No, that's a good answer. It makes a lot of sense that you are being educational about the environment, you have an eye on the mental health impact of climate change. So someone needs to keep an eye on the mental health of climate change, which ties into amidst the grim and depressing news. What personally gives you hope for the future?

Nyjah (00:38:09):

Just hanging out with my students this summer, I realized that this generation of teenagers is so ready to take action. I can't wait until they're able to vote that it really restored my hope for the future a little bit.

(00:38:27):

They're just so young and so ready to point out what's wrong and figure out how to change it. And I know when I was in high school I did that sometimes, but not as much as these teenagers right now. So I'm just super excited for them to be old enough to go into office and change some rules around. And they're already making a lot of huge impacts if you see a lot of youth in the spotlight of this climate change movement. So we're a lot more alike than we think. If we work hard enough we can see from each other's perspectives and make some changes. So I'm hoping that we'll be able to do that in the future.

Speaker 5 (00:39:14):

Hi. [inaudible 00:39:15].

Nyjah (00:39:14):

Yeah, that'll be awesome.

Michael Pisano (00:39:30):

Let's talk about youth voice for a second before we turn it over to youth voices. That's something that, yeah, maybe it's maybe not a phrase that everybody has heard, but what pops into your head? How would you describe the importance of youth voice and giving youth voice?

Taiji Nelson (00:39:47):

Voice is one of those things that you learn to appreciate it when you don't have it. And I think there's many ways in which our culture and our communities do not provide a space for youth to talk about what they want to talk about, what they hope for, to talk about what they're afraid of, to talk about how they're experiencing formative years. Adults, we have the benefit of being able to look back and be like, oh these were the great things in my childhood that led me to be this person that I am. But why do we only get to talk about that when we're older? So I think voice, again, something that you appreciate when you don't have it. And I think if you as an adult, if you can think back to times where you had something to say, but there wasn't a place to say it or it wasn't heard or it wasn't valued or it was immediately met with someone being like, that's wrong. You don't understand, you don't really get how it really is. That, to me, is youth voice. It's recognizing that, hey, I have had these experiences where I either can't say something or when I try to, it ain't heard. So yeah.

(00:41:03):

So the other way I would also challenge adults listening to this podcast right now is just to stop and think about how often in your day do you really have to stop and listen to young people. Because I think that many times there's a choice or we listen to young people because we're doing them a favor or because we do genuinely care. But we know we always have this option of just doing what we want. And then I want you to stop and think about how often do young people have to listen to adults. All the time. And when they're not listening to adults, often they're having to work for that. They're having to carve out space for themselves.

(00:41:46):

So to me, that's the other thing about youth voice, it's about being humble and being respectful that young people are people and they have something to say. They have something to contribute. They are leading the climate movement. They are in many ways our moral compass when it comes to climate. As adults, yes, we have a lot of experience. Yes, experience is a great teacher. But I think as we're listening to these stories and these perspectives, I would challenge the adults to just be like, maybe the power of youth voice is in showing that it doesn't have to be done the way we did it. There's a lot of power in that. Fresh eyes, fresh perspectives. Yes, we should still bring our perspective and our experience to the table, but also we need to place some value on the idea that we know the way we are doing things right now ain't it. It's not the only way. It's not the best way.

(00:42:50):

So leaving space and really being able to set aside our own fears, our own hopes as adults, our own things we wish we would've done or things that we are going to do now because we've learned things from our experience. Really just try and listen to them as people.

Michael Pisano (00:43:07):

Beautifully put, beautifully put. And without further ado, let's listen to some young people.

Naeja (00:43:25):

I'm Naeja and I was a young naturalist at the Frick Environmental Center and we basically just helped keep the park up and keep it clean and talked about different birds and trees and it was just a lot of nature and exploring the park and keeping it nice and clean for everybody to enjoy.

Di Batod (00:43:44):

So you learned a lot, you learned a lot of things about nature.

Naeja (00:43:46):

Yes.

Di Batod (00:43:48):

What would you say your favorite thing that you learned was?

Naeja (00:43:52):

Probably that some trees are really, really old and they probably won't seem like it, but they really, really are old. So yeah.

Di Batod (00:44:01):

Why do you think it's important to engage people like you, teenagers in this work?

Naeja (00:44:07):

I think it's important because most people are stuck in certain places and they can't really enjoy certain environments because of where they live or which school they go to. And my school had the opportunity to sign up and give me the opportunity. So I think it's important because students should just enjoy being outside and being with students their age and enjoy being a child and enjoy their childhood. So I like that.

Di Batod (00:44:33):

So is there anything that you learned about yourself and your connection to nature while you were here?

Naeja (00:44:41):

I learned that I should sometimes just take the time out to just observe certain things because I'm always going to go. I never really sit down unless I'm in the house. So I just learned that I should take my time and enjoy what's actually in front of me and take a look at the flowers or take a look at birds. And also before this program, I didn't look at trees or anything, but after now look out the birds or what bird or crickets that is. So I'm able to observe more than I did.

Di Batod (00:45:10):

Why do you think it might be challenging for you to remember to do that? What are some of the things that might stop you?

Naeja (00:45:19):

Probably school, because school take a lot of teenagers, especially me because I'm a lot on a lot of activities and sports and things like that. So you really don't have time to look at what's around you or observe what's around you because you're always focused on one thing. So yeah.

Di Batod (00:45:39):

That's true. Yeah, it's very distracting being in school. I remember being focused on the social aspects of it.

Naeja (00:45:49):

Yeah.

Di Batod (00:45:50):

Can you describe why it's important for us to have spaces like this with trails and everything?

Naeja (00:45:57):

It's important for the community itself so people can actually enjoy coming outside, things like that. And also just show plants can be plants and they don't have to, I don't know, we can just have them here to observe and be outside and don't have to pick them and you can just look at them and just, yeah.

Di Batod (00:46:17):

I love plants can be plants. I love that. Can you talk about why it might be important for you or for anyone to collaborate in doing this work?

Naeja (00:46:30):

Well, we talked about climate change also in this program and climate change has a lot to do with plants and everybody in the world basically. And I feel like it's important for everybody to get involved in this type of work because climate change impacts everybody. So it's just important for everybody to understand what's causing the bad things and what's causing the good things and what could we do to keep causing the good things in the world. So I think it's important for everybody to take some accountability and figure out how to be better in this world for certain causes.

Di Batod (00:47:09):

How do you think climate change affects your future and the future of other young people?

Naeja (00:47:14):

For future generations, if climate change is really bad, we won't be able to do certain activities, we won't be able to come outside as often because the air is so bad and if it keeps going like this, it just won't be good for future generations.

Di Batod (00:47:30):

It's true. Can you give an example of right now in your life seeing climate change in effect?

Naeja (00:47:40):

Well, from my generation I see that more people are more involved in climate change compared to older generations because they, I don't know why they're not as involved, maybe because they're not educated on it on younger generations. I think younger generations are more taking that lead and fix it and also give info to older generations so they can be involved in it. So yeah.

Di Batod (00:48:07):

Is there a message you would give to organizations, if you had a microphone and could deliver a message to all of the older generations in the world, what would you say?

Naeja (00:48:17):

I would say that climate change affects everybody. Even if you don't see it or you don't think it doesn't affect you, it affects you and it will affect your grandkids or your children in the future. So if you don't put no effort into fixing, it will just stay the same and it will keep getting worse. So put an effort in and try to help. Don't just stick it as an effective, it affects everybody who's living. So just be more mindful, that's all.

Di Batod (00:48:44):

Absolutely. How will climate change impact how we pursue happiness?

Naeja (00:48:51):

Well, if climate change keeps increasing the world will never really be satisfied with life because it's always something that needs to be fixed. So if we're not tackling everything that's happening now, it'll just going to get worse. And future generations, they're not going to be able to actually enjoy living because they will have to fix things that we didn't fix. So yeah. I was not educated on climate change before this Young Naturalist job, but now I'm more aware of what I do and how to educate other people on climate change.

Di Batod (00:49:27):

So would you say that you're hearing a lot of grim news about climate change?

Naeja (00:49:32):

Yes.

Di Batod (00:49:33):

These days. So what is something that personally gives you hope for the future?

Naeja (00:49:39):

I would say my generation only because we are more, I guess, more aware and more educated than some other people and we have more resources than other generations did. So I think if we take our resources and the things that we learn, we can actually put it to use and educate other people. So I think this are my generation, the younger teenagers and children. Yeah.

Di Batod (00:50:07):

So would you say that you are more hopeful for the future?

Naeja (00:50:07):

Yes, I am.

Di Batod (00:50:10):

I am too. So do you have any advice for folks who may be feeling hopeless?

Naeja (00:50:16):

If you're showing hopeless, then that means maybe you should put yourself on the line and put yourself out there to actually educate yourself. It's all about education. I just feel like educating yourself can save a lot of time and guilt in yourself because maybe don't know certain things. That's probably why you're feeling like this world is going to end sometimes because you don't really know certain resources that you could use to help climate change or children in need or Black Lives Matter or things like that. Maybe just put yourself out there and see what you find.

(00:50:49):

Even if a situation does not affect you, you can add to making a situation better. You can protest, you can sign petitions are things you can do that will affect people in a positive way. Even if it does not affect you, you can still put some type of effort or some type of help into the situation and that would make you a better person than you was yesterday, so.

Di Batod (00:51:11):

Is there anything else that you would like to say about climate change or there anything that we didn't cover that's been on your mind lately maybe since [inaudible 00:51:20]?

Naeja (00:51:20):

It affects everybody, that's it. If you don't think it affects you, it does. It affects everybody. Even if you're looking up every day happy, it's still going to be here tomorrow. It's not going anywhere.

Anna Lucia (00:51:52):

Hi, my name is Anna Lucia and I was a young naturalist at Frick Park.

Di Batod (00:51:56):

Great. So tell me about this green space. Why is it important to have parts like this?

Anna Lucia (00:52:06):

It's important. Trees provide a lot of help, especially in an urban city with our oxygen, which is known to be pretty bad in Pittsburgh. So it just helps faction everything up and it's also good for animals so they can also continue living here.

Di Batod (00:52:27):

Yeah. Why is it important to connect younger people with the green spaces also?

Anna Lucia (00:52:36):

It's important so that young people continue to help with the environment and also understand the impact that it has on our world.

Di Batod (00:52:47):

What are some of the things that you've learned about climate change in the program?

Anna Lucia (00:52:53):

We learned a lot about greenhouse gases and how they work, and we also learned about the impacts that we as humans have with cars and all of machinery. So yeah.

Di Batod (00:53:14):

So are there some things that you weren't doing before in your everyday life that you're going to be doing now because of the program?

Anna Lucia (00:53:20):

Probably trying to walk more. Also bike. I think biking is a good way of transportation without cars because they're still almost as fast as cars is.

Di Batod (00:53:32):

Absolutely. Especially in cities where traffic moves so slowly.

Anna Lucia (00:53:35):

Yeah.

Di Batod (00:53:35):

I love biking. It's also good for you.

Anna Lucia (00:53:35):

Uh-huh.

Di Batod (00:53:35):

So that was individual things you as a human can do. Can you talk about some things that are collaborative that groups of people can do?

Anna Lucia (00:53:52):

Well, I saw that there was volunteer group that were helping pull weeds or something. I don't know what they were doing, but just working together to keep the environment and park a good and healthy place where trees and plants can thrive is good as it is, it's a good thing to do.

Di Batod (00:54:16):

In your own words, why is it important to keep places like this healthy in your community?

Anna Lucia (00:54:23):

Well, one, they're super nice to go to and they just help with our overall environment and all the environmental issues that we have today.

Di Batod (00:54:34):

Absolutely. So apparently in Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania is getting warmer, it's getting wetter. There's some more extreme weather, there's worse air quality again. So are you experiencing any of that in your everyday life?

Anna Lucia (00:54:52):

In the past few years, I've definitely experienced an increase in the humidity and the heat that I do not remember when I was younger as being this hot and human.

Di Batod (00:55:07):

Absolutely. What about winters?

Anna Lucia (00:55:09):

Winters? They can either be extremely cold or just like a 50 degree day. That's not anything really.

Di Batod (00:55:22):

Yeah, exactly. I agree. I remember one day in January where it was 50 degrees and...

Anna Lucia (00:55:29):

Yeah. You could just go out with the shorts and a shirt and a sweater.

Di Batod (00:55:35):

And it feels nice, but also you know that it's not good.

Anna Lucia (00:55:38):

Yeah. That's not supposed to be happening then.

Di Batod (00:55:39):

It's not supposed to be happening. It's not right. All right. So how do you think climate change is going to affect how we pursue happiness?

Anna Lucia (00:55:54):

Climate change in itself is a depressing thing to think about. So as we continue to go into the future and we don't make change, then I assume it will make life more depressing and I don't think it'll have a good impact on the mindset of what we're doing.

Di Batod (00:56:17):

I agree. Are there some specific examples? Think of your everyday life, what are some of the things that you do on a day-to-day basis?

Anna Lucia (00:56:26):

I guess I go on a lot of walks. So in the summer I guess it could be very hot and humid and extremely painful to go on those walks.

Di Batod (00:56:37):

Exactly.

Anna Lucia (00:56:40):

Oh, I guess in the winter too, I like to go skiing, so I guess if it's too hot in the winter, then I won't be able to go skiing.

Di Batod (00:56:52):

That's true. No snow.

Anna Lucia (00:56:52):

Yeah.

Di Batod (00:57:00):

So what are some of the things that give you hope about the future?

Anna Lucia (00:57:04):

What I heard during the Young Naturalist program of people that are working to helping climate change and that are continuing to learn new information about it so we can continue to help.

Di Batod (00:57:15):

Do you have any advice for anyone who is feeling hopeless about the future?

Anna Lucia (00:57:24):

Look into things that you can do around your neighborhood or city that could help improve it.

Di Batod (00:57:31):

If you had the opportunity to talk to people who are in charge of policy that affects climate change, what would you tell them? What's your message to them?

Anna Lucia (00:57:46):

Tell them to take action because they're not doing anything right now and it's become such a political thing when it shouldn't be because that's the planet we live on and it's so important to take care of.

Di Batod (00:58:00):

If you are able to broadcast a message to everyone in the world about climate change, what would it be?

Anna Lucia (00:58:11):

You should contribute any way you can. Even if it's a small way. A small way is better than no way.

Michael Pisano (00:58:31):

Special thanks to Anna Lucia, Naeja and Nyjah for chatting about Young Naturalists. If you're interested in learning more about the internship or about a slew of other educational and exercise or social or volunteer opportunities in Pittsburgh's parks, check out pittsburghparks.org. Maybe better yet, go spend an hour in a park wherever you live. Thanks to Di Batod for their reporting on today's episode and to recording engineer Dwayne Greenberg. Thank yous are also, of course, in order for Taiji Nelson, Sloane McRae and Nicole Heller at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. Music in today's episode was made by two of my most talented friends, Mark Mangini and Amos Levy.

(00:59:19):

Until next time, here's some wise words to remind you to open your door and touch some grass this week. I sincerely believe that for the child and for the parent seeking to guide him, it is not half so important to know as to feel. If facts are the seeds that later produce knowledge and wisdom, then the emotions are the fertile soil in which the seeds must grow. The years of early childhood are the time to prepare the soil. Once the emotions have been aroused a sense of the beautiful, the excitement of the new and unknown, a feeling of sympathy, pity, admiration, or love, then we wish for knowledge about the object of our emotional response. Once found, it has lasting meaning. It is more important to pave the way for the child to want than to put him on a diet of facts that he is not ready to assimilate.

(01:00:22):

That was Rachel Carson from the Sense of Wonder. I've been and hope to remain your host, Michael Pisano. Thanks for listening.