Celebrate Earth Day- Be a Nature Mentor

By: Breanna Wheeler, Executive Director

Having people to mentor us into closer connection with the natural world is important from childhood all the way through life. During the stay at home order, I have looked through my grandma’s old photo albums which, being the family historian, now belong to me. In them, I wanted to find pictures that showed how my older relatives taught me to appreciate the natural world.

One of my favorite things to see at River Bend Nature Center are parents and grandparents bringing their kids/grandkids out. It’s probably because I can relate with fond memories the value those early nature experiences brought to my life which I now try to spread to others.

My grandparents, who lived just up the street from us, and my dad were my earliest nature mentors. My dad used to take my sister and me to a gravel pit to skip rocks and we’d look for “the skipper of the world.” That, in case you don’t know, was a rock that produced a lot of skips. It was a lot of fun and reminds me the importance of having nature nearby, a cause I’m glad to be able to promote through RBNC.

My grandma and grandpa used to take my sister and me fishing by Emily, MN. Most of the pictures show lots of fishing, but there was also swimming in the lake and nature walks where I would fill my pockets with rocks. There was a bald eagle nest my grandma would take us to. It was the only bald eagle I had ever seen. It perched in the nest and there was a warning posted on the tree about how they were endangered.

As I grew into young adulthood, my peer group continued to mentor each other as we adventured around Minnesota hiking and camping in state parks. Not long after, we started having our own children who we brought up spending time outside. My children’s teachers often commented that when they took outdoor walks, my boys knew about the things around them and would teach the class names of trees or flowers. I hope that they will continue to seek to learn about and share the natural world with others as they grow older!

To sum up, I am grateful to the nature mentors in my life because they encouraged me to notice the world around me and do what I can to take care of it. As we discover and learn, we can share and spread these understandings with others over the course of our entire lives. Who knows how far your investment of being a nature mentor will go and how much it will impact others?

Be a nature mentor in someone’s life – it matters!