Cape Henlopen HS

My Individual Relationship With Nature.

In late February of this year, my family visited my grandfather in Florida. While we were there, my family members and I went onto his back porch. We embraced the clear blue sky and the vivid greenery and listened to the melody of the birds chirping in the trees. While this description of that day might sound like a day in a movie, that was how it was. Sometimes, when we humans are in the hustle and bustle of our daily activities, we forget to take a moment to experience the wonderful world around us. However, when I took a moment to just sit, watch, and listen, I felt relaxed and light-hearted.

    The connection I experienced with the natural world made me realize I and many other people take nature for granted. As you may well know, the natural world is beginning to shrink; as it does. Those movie-style sceneries and animals shrink with it. Therefore, the experience at my grandfather’s house made me realize that I have to find a way to protect this beautiful part of our world. However, I needed to figure out where to start. I always thought about if I could ever make a difference in the world, but then I realized several solutions.

    Although I am only one 14-year-old girl out of a million others there are many actions I want to take to help other future generations and teens see the beautiful landscape that is our natural world. These actions include, helping people become more aware of the natural world and how it is actively dying because of us, encourage more teens to implement eco-friendly practices in their daily lives, and let people know the importance of volunteering to help enlarge our ever-shrinking natural world.

    To help more people become aware of the natural world, I believe that using our advanced technology with the internet could raise awareness. For example, as I was researching about how other people have made us humans become more aware, I found that the Pachamama Alliance had many well thought ideas to let more people become aware of the natural world. As the site states, “Numerous resources are available to promote environmental awareness and education: group learning (inside or outside of the classroom), informational and inspirational seminars, online courses, books, articles, videos, and brochures” (Pachamama Alliance). The Pachamama Alliance stating this reveals that many ways to show other people about the natural world is through electronics and the electronics can then encourage the people to walk outside and take in our environment as I did in Florida. Now another example to show people that the natural world is dying and how that is not good, our technology also reveals that through movies, series’, and documentaries. All these methods can reveal how our natural world is dying and how that is bad. In doing so, the internet and our technology shows people how the natural world is beautiful and yet dying ,making more people want to help save it.

    Then, to encourage more teens to implement eco-friendly practices in their daily lives, I believe that people should make eco-friendly practices fun and appealing rather than a chore. Also, I believe when doing so, let the teens visit State Parks where they are eco-friendly to see the outputs of being eco-friendly. For example, to make eco-friendly practices fun, just going on bike rides or walking short distances can make a difference. Though this might not sound fun, it can give people a chance to be off their phone and either have more face to face interaction or make the person become more aware of their surroundings revealing to them the beauty of our world which naturally is proven to make people happy. In turn, this one change to someone’s day can have more teens implementing an eco-friendly practice to their day to day lives. An example showing that going to a state park can also encourage eco-friendly practices is from my personal account of going to Cape Henlopen state park. When going to Cape Henlopen state park for the first time, I was so amazed to see the forest while going through the trails and seeing turtle eggs on the beach. My account of going to the park can encourage doing eco-friendly practices because in doing so, it shows people how our natural world can be without pollution and human interference making teens want to help protect the natural world.

    Finally, ways of letting people know the importance of volunteering to let future generations see the natural world is by starting clubs at your school. An example of this is in Cape Henlopen High School there is the Interact Club which focuses on making our community a better place and they participate in many community service projects. As the club description states “This group of hardworking students strives to make the community a better place. With their motto ‘Service Above Self’ the Rotary-sponsored club works to make the community a better place by participating in various community service projects” (Cape Henlopen Schools). By the club showing the importance of volunteering, in turn, they are showing all the people in the club why volunteering matters and how it can change our world for the better.

    Overall, through the internet in letting people become more aware of the natural world, going on bike rides and visiting state parks to encourage teens to implement eco-friendly practices, and letting people know the importance of volunteering through school clubs are all ways to help other future generations and teens see our natural world. Therefore, now that I’ve told you many ways to help future generations and teens see our natural world I can now know that I can help other people experience the beautiful landscape that I experienced on that day in Florida at my grandfather’s house.