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Hello, I really loved your blog post. It reminds me of my own thoughts on the importance education plays on our children’s lives and how our children then grow up and effect the environment. This entire semester has felt like a fight for me. I have been fighting for people to see that the education system we have now is not working. The care and understanding of nature that indigenous people have been described to have stemmed from traditional teachings of nature. Traditional education meant actually spending time with nature and personal discovery of its aspects allowed for care and empathy to develop. I see how the current education system is still assimilating my people into a colonizers perspective. I see it every day in the people and children who come through my families convenient store/gas station. Compared to the people who’s beliefs are still intact and still live some-what traditionally. I have been fighting for them to be heard. Our children don’t know how the world is supposed to work and will develop in the way we shape them. We chose to shape them into more people who want to take from nature without giving anything back just like a colonizer. 

However, that doesn’t mean we can’t change the education system and shape our children into more caring individuals. I believe that if our education curriculums were based around wildlife/nature education that would allow our next generation to treat nature with more kindness than our generation. I just wish that was in the interest of all people. I am fighting a lost cause when the majority of people on Earth have already been brain washed into believing economic growth and development is more important than the environment being destroyed for those causes. The government controls the education system and the education system controls us all. I will continue to fight for what I believe is right but it almost makes me feel like the faster humankind destroys itself, the better. Then nature would really be able to thrive. 

We are borrowing from our children

Hello and welcome to my follow-up blog of the last week of blogging. In this blog I would like to touch on this week’s content that was covered on Courselink, which is how we can be responsible educators and protectors of children - our hope, our future generations.

A Native American saying that has stuck with me since I was a freshman was “We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children” (Gilbert, 2015). Unfortunately, not everyone lives by this saying, and often those with the biggest, heftiest invisible backpack of privilege tend to be the ones who “borrow” the most. We often see corporate giants of all sorts of industries in first world countries such as Pepsi, Coca-Cola, H&M and Shell operate without much regard to the environment (Riley, 2017). The plastic waste, the oil spills and the gas emissions found in all habitats from soil, air to ocean is causing irreversible damage to ecosystems on Earth (Young, 2019). This happens because in the end, the ones that are most affected by the horrible consequences of climate change and natural disasters are the vulnerable developing countries. These are newly industrialized countries, where technology has yet to reach a point where it could combat extreme weather events, and people barely have any privileges.

While I can see how much our generation is trying to save the planet, voicing our opinions and protesting against the horrible things that are being done to our only home, those companies don’t seem to hear us, or if they do, they are not making changes fast enough. Therefore, I believe that means we need to expand our duty from fighting for our present, to protecting our future. The foundation lies in how we can educate and inspire young children because they are our hope.

Beck et al. outlined certain tips that would definitely come in handy when we need to effectively communicate with children. The most important one to me, is to focus on the process (Beck et al., 2018). The end result is just a bonus, it is extremely vital that us educators help children fall in love with the process of nature interpretation instead of trying to make them do whatever it takes to achieve the end result. Like Rachel Carson had said, “It is more important to pave the way for the child to want to know than to put him on a diet of facts he is not ready to assimilate”. The next important tip is to get down to a child’s level and interact with them personally whenever possible. Getting down to their level can both mean to bow down so you’re on their eye level, giving way for effective communication, but it can also mean you’re speaking to them in a language that appeal to them and that they can understand (Beck et al., 2018). Just like what we did in the first podcast assignment, this can be challenging at times, but in the end, the effort is all worth it because we are doing this for the sake of our planet’s future.

There are many other tips that are helpful for communicating with children, which one do you find most helpful? Do you also think like me, that we all have the responsibility to preserve current resources for the future, or it does not really matter in the end?

References

Gilbert, P. (2015). Inherit the Earth, or Borrow it from our children? National Recreation and Park Association. https://www.nrpa.org/blog/inherit-the-earth-or-borrow-it-from-our-children/

Young, A. (2019). Coca-Cola, Pepsi highlight the 20 corporations producing the most ocean pollution. 24/7 Wall Street. https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2019/06/17/20-corporations-behind-the-most-ocean-pollution/39552009/

Riley, T. (2017). Just 100 companies responsible for 71% of global emissions, study says. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/jul/10/100-fossil-fuel-companies-investors-responsible-71-global-emissions-cdp-study-climate-change

Beck, L., Cable, T.T., & Knudson, D.M. (2018). Interpreting Cultural and Natural Heritage for a Better World. Sagamore Publishing.

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Nature Interpretation At It’s Finest

Some people would think I am uniquely suited to being a nature interpreter. I am indigenous so I have grown up surrounded by nature my whole life, I care and empathize with nature, and must co-exist with wildlife on a daily basis. My ethics though, to care and understand nature as if it was an equal, also make me uniquely unqualified to be a nature interpreter. In all honesty, I thought this course would give me new perspectives on nature, and therefore a deeper understanding, I had no idea nature interpretation was meant in the modern sense when I signed up for this course. I have no intentions of becoming a nature guide and to interpret nature for a bunch of tourists who think of nature as an excursion on their trip. I have no desire to be a part of devious actions backed by good intentions. That is what nature interpretation is really about now, isn’t it? The good intention of wanting more people in the world to care for nature as you do but the action of bringing in masses of people into parks and areas meant to be protection from humans for the species who live there, furthering the development of travel and economic growth by making it more accessible for people to get to these supposed “protected areas”. Creating paths, bus routes, washrooms, for more people, more development, more concrete and more challenges for our wild species to overcome. The intention is good but how can we claim to want to protect nature when we are furthering the cause of its destruction? Humans were just not meant to invade some places, a concept we really haven’t grasped yet. Some things are better off left alone.

I believe nature and all of its parts should be treated as equals to ourselves. Treating every plant and animal, even the landscape, as if they were another human being keeps me responsible for harmful actions towards those people. It makes me think twice before harming any other living thing and disturbing the balance of the ecosystems I enter.

My responsibility is to nature and my people. I am responsible for representing my people and knowing my words and actions allow others around me to make assumptions about my people. By treating others with respect, I represent my people as respectful. By treating nature as a people, they become an extension of my own people and family. Therefore, the protection and respect people deserve is extended to them as well. My responsibility is to do as little harm as possible to my people and make sure my presence has a beneficial effect. That is all I can do for them.

The approaches I would take if I ever did become a nature interpreter, would be to take a small group (1-3 people) into a natural area to sit and observe. No walking paths, no washrooms, just nature. I would allow them to become curious enough about their observations to try and get a closer look and teach them how to do that without disturbing the natural things they are observing. They don’t need to be talked at or lectured to. Just to discover and play as if they were a wild animal too. They could spot a bug or bird and follow/observe it if they wish to discover their secrets. They could also leave and not have an effect on the natural area at all. Those would be the only options, either one is good by me as long as their effect on that natural area is not a harmful one. Nature is beautiful and we are already so curious about it. We don’t need to speak for it, just allow it to speak to us. I would not be able to make it in this world as a modern nature interpreter because I refuse to be a part of the “development” of this world. But maybe I could have been a traditional interpreter a thousand years ago. A person who would have taught the children about nature through stories and allowed them to discover nature for themselves. I think I could have been really good at that.

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The Most Amazing Thing About Nature

The thing I love most about nature is that it makes sense. Animals and plants know what they need to do to survive and do it. They spend time finding food and water, finding mates, and finding their home. I have always wished I was an animal or a plant or had lived with my people before the colonization of our home. My wish stems from hurt. For my people’s suffering, for the destruction of nature (my only real connection to this world) and for over-complicating life with government agenda. The development of technology has led humankind to live complicated lives with very little time to focus on the things we need. We need food and water, to find a mate and we need shelter to raise our young in. We need these things to survive just like all the other animals. We do not need to spend most of our day providing for the government. Providing for someone you’ll never meet in your lifetime. Working towards furthering societies technological advancement by being apart of the machine. Machines have a tendency not to change. They are constantly fixed to serve their only purpose and do it without question. But nature is change and that is why we cannot seem to find a place for it in our economic machine. Governments are constantly trying to keep the world the same and make it run smoothly for themselves. That just isn’t realistic though, the thing that makes nature so beautiful is that it has the ability to change. Change gives way for improvements to yourself, to the state of the environment. A forest with no room for growth, needs to set fire so that the next generation of trees can feed from the nutritious ashes. Without that change, the forest will still die, just much slower and without replacement since there would be no nutrients. If there is no change in our own lives, we remain the same person, behaving the same way which we might not necessarily be happy with. It is the mistakes, the life altering decisions we make that change our perspectives and make us think about our own effect on the world. And when we change we become happier for we see our own growth. Concrete cannot grow unless we make it. Nature grows without us and it will continue to grow long after humankind is gone. Look at what happened with the dinosaurs, the whole planet desolated by a giant rock and yet the plants still grew, the animals were able to survive and the whole planet started a new.

I love nature because it lives. Truly lives. We waste so much of our time doing things we have been brainwashed into believing is important. Going to work to do our part for society, to feed our families, to have a purpose. I don’t need to go to work all day to feed my family. I could hunt, garden and forage to feed my family. In that same sense I would be doing my part for my own society and my purpose: to care and protect the things I love most in this world by spending time hunting, gardening, and foraging with them. That is all I want and all I have wished for since I learned about colonization when I was a little girl. To hide from the society the government has forced upon us. I want to live in nature and live because of nature. I don’t want to help the economy grow until there is no more nature left. We spend so much of our time tolerating our livelihoods and wishing we were actually living, it’s sad really. Working for the man to bring home our pays for love. The love we crave out in nature, going on vacation with our loved ones seems like a dream most of the time. At least we treat it like it’s a dream. Like we couldn’t quit our jobs right now, stay home with our families, and walk outside to enjoy the beaches, waterfalls, and forests around us instead. We could, the problem is we have become too reliant on technology to provide for us. To make the work of harvesting hundreds of animals easier, to make going to the grocery store and grabbing some food easier, to make providing for our families easier. But is it truly easier? We end up hating so much of our lives, filling it up with regret for not actually being with our loved ones because we were too busy working for the man. It doesn’t feel easier. Not to me anyways. I crave to be wild, to live the way animals are supposed to live. I don’t want to worry about the bigger issues in this world and trying to make my own small, miniscule effect. There’s no point in doing that. Wild animals don’t do that, and we wouldn’t have to either if we lived naturally too. The modern world doesn’t make sense to me and nature does. That is why I love it. 

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It is important to see the whole picture. I liked your post, Grace. Simple and sweet, to the point.  The past is history, the future is a mystery, and the present is a gift. Knowing our history is important so we don’t repeat the same mistakes in the future. That is how we use our own knowledge. As we learn to avoid making the same mistakes, we become wiser. However, history cannot help us if it is not truthful. That is where it gets complicated. Every winning side in history gets to rewrite their stories to cast a more favourable light upon the atrocities committed to get them to the top. This knowledge is then inaccurate and biased. And how fair would it be to make assumptions based on inaccurate information? That is what I have been dealing with my whole life. I have heard a lot of assumptions about my people and about my home simply because I am indigenous and the reserve scares white people. The government is to blame for this. They won, so they made us out to be savages. Our women had rights, they didn’t want their women to strive for this, so my ancestors were raped and treated like animals to make an example. Our people became a nuisance for the Americans by fighting back for their home, so our villages and crops were all burned to drive us out like rats. Our people were vulnerable and easy to find. Easy to capture and start assimilating. History class left this out when I took it in high school. Because the government controls the education system, and the education system controls us all. There can be no real change until the education system is allowed to incorporate teachings from traditional knowledge. To teach a love and understanding for nature.

The History of Nature

 There is no peculiar merit in ancient things, but there is merit in integrity, and integrity entails the keeping together of the parts of any whole, and if these parts are scattered throughout time, then the maintenance of integrity entails a knowledge, a memory, of ancient things. …. To think, feel or act as though the past is done with, is equivalent to believing that a railway station through which our train has just passed, only existed for as long as our train was in it.

(Edward Hyams, Chapter 7, The Gifts of Interpretation)

At first glance, this quote was confusing to understand. When taking the time to read it slowly, I started to understand the meaning. The comparaison of history to a train passing through the station stood out to me a lot. When you compare that to nature interpretation, you can understand that the story behind the nature being interpreted does not just exist right now, it has a history and it will have a future as well. With this in mind, it is important to share that history with others so it does not lose its past.

For example, the first thing that came to mind when unpacking this quote was the Keystone XL pipeline project. This pipeline was set to carry oil from the oil sands in Alberta, to Nebraska. This project was opposed by many, including the local communities that would be at risk due to the construction of this pipeline. If you think about the history of the nature where they planned to put this pipeline, it would have interferred with many first nations groups. Some first nations groups even sued the provincial and federal government in northern Alberta due to 15 years of oil sand development that they were not consulted on. When planning out the construction of this pipeline, they should have considered the history of the land that they wanted to build on. In the end, with protests from first nations groups and climate activists, the project was terminated.

It is important to see the whole picture, to aknowledge the past and look forward to the future, and enjoy the present. 

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The Nature of History

History has not been kind to me. Nor, has it been kind to my people. And many other peoples out there. History can be learned from, but only when it sees the light of day. Honesty is truly the downfall of History. The textbook was right. There is no merit in ancient things and there is merit in integrity. However, if integrity entails the keeping together of the parts of any whole, and if discovering the parts of our history shows integrity, then shouldn’t the pursuit and enlightenment of complete honesty be a part of our history education? I took History in high school, it only showed me how blind the world is to the history of our country. For one reason alone, every side of History is told and rewritten differently to cast a better light on terrible events which the government would prefer to be looked upon in their favour. I have not seen any integrity within history this far in life. Every education curriculum needs approval, so only the truth they would like to be revealed is revealed. We spent a month in History class learning about the war of 1812 which is when indigenous people first started being slaughtered, raped, enslaved and assimilated. This is when the colonizers started fighting over stolen land. This is when the colonizers started abusing our resources to make a profit back in their own countries. However, the only mention to indigenous people in the history books, is when they fought for the British in hopes to get their home back and how savage they seemed to the American soldiers since they had no formal training. It wasn’t mentioned that George Washington had been keeping indigenous women, it did not mention the start of colonizers destroying our planet with greed. That I had to learn on my own. They won, so history favoured them in the education system. We spent two days learning about residential schools, and we watched a movie for both days.

History has the capabilities to teach us a lot but only when it is honest. History has no part in nature interpretation until the education system and the government change. If only the winners get to tell their version of history, it cannot be relied upon to tell the truth. Therefore, it cannot help interpreting the true version of nature. The only way history will ever have its place in nature interpretation, is if the education curriculums allowed for traditional environmental knowledge to teach the next generation a love and understanding for their home. Only that next generation has the ability the truly change the world. When mankind allows for traditional knowledge, a knowledge the colonizers would have gained if they had actually been from here, then the next generation will have the wisdom to treat this Earth better than how we currently do. It is easy to go to a strangers’ home and destroy what you want to benefit yourself. It is a lot harder to do that to your own home. That generation would not allow their next generation to treat the Earth as if it meant nothing. The Earth is our life source, all we hold dear comes from it and we need to learn to be a part of it again.

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Hello, I enjoyed reading your post very much and thank you for another unique perspective I now get the opportunity to understand. The song you have translated for us is a great representation of my own feelings towards nature and has reminded me of my most fond memories of nature.  That is what nature interpretation through music is all about by reading your post so you must be doing something right! This song reminds me of the deep personal connection I share with nature. From a very young age I was taught to love and respect nature, I could chop it up to being indigenous and living on-reserve so close to nature all my life, but I cannot. Not all of it anyways, my grandma was the one who taught me to love every species and treat every plant and animal as if they were a human being as well. As if they were family. I am grateful to her for this view and thankful to you for reminding me to appreciate her more for this view. I believe music can connect our people if we were only willing to listen. I hear songs on the radio. Cries for help. Songs such as “another brick on the wall” by Pink Floyd and “Earth song” by Michael Jackson. If you listen closely, you can hear the pain and anguish over the world’s current state. I also believe we can change this. Using environmental education. Not just education about the environment. How to live and survive off the resources from our own native lands. The reason I have such a passion for nature protection is because I learned to emphasize and find compassion for the species around me. This sort of wildlife and nature education should be deeply ingrained within the education curriculums across every continent. Traditional knowledge from all cultures incorporate some sort of aspect of nature education which is what we need in todays world. Wisdom through recognition of traditional knowledge. Teaching our next generations to find that love for nature is the only way we will make real changes to the state of the world.

Nature has music for those who listen ~ blog post 07

Music in nature: 

While there may be many different theories on why humans began creating music, music’s highest goal is to connect one’s soul to their Divine Nature, not entertainment ~ Pythagons. 

Music can be a practical addition to nature interpretation, yet it is essential not to get carried away (Beck et al. 2018). The course readings introduced how music helps people recall messages, which is no surprise for anyone who listens to advertisements on radio and television for public attention or response (Beck et al. 2018). Likewise, nature interpretation can use many types of music, from background music during a presentation or as an integral part of every evening campfire (Beck et al. 2018). Songs work in several ways to get words and facts to stick in the listener’s mind or paint a picture in their imagination and, most importantly, evoke emotion that makes them most memorable (Beck et al. 2018). You would think that it’s easy to integrate nature in music through lyrics, but I honestly have no words to explain how nature and music go beautifully hand in hand.

Since the earliest time, the universe has inspired and intrigued humans with the “soundscape” of innumerable natural sounds. It is said that every known human culture has music as our emotions are profoundly tied to musical sounds while we also have deeply rooted emotional connections with nature (Gray et al. 2001). In some way, these early forms of communication among our ancestors were thought to imitate and depict nature. For instance, the sounds of the whales in the ocean were first recorded in the 1940s (Gray et al. 2001). Yet the Inuit, Tlingit and other seafaring tribes have been hearing them through the hulls of their boats for millennia. Similarly, the ultra-low frequency communication by elephants has recently been recorded even though the Hutu and Tutsi tribes had incorporated these sounds into their songs and stories centuries ago (Gray et al. 2001). At the same time, those who live closer to nature may perceive a broader range of sounds than those living in industrialized societies who have only heard this insightful earthly music through recordings and technology.

Perhaps our innate attraction and universal reactions to various elements of music were created on the foundation of the natural environment. Recent research has claimed that humpback whales’ music and many bird species have similar characteristics to music created by humans. Humpback whales use rhythms and phrases similar to our music and then create tunes out of several phrases before singing the next chorus (Gray et al. 2001). I have always recognized that nature has music but just didn’t know what drives humans, whales, birds, and many other animals to make music. Furthermore, these mammals reiterate their material to form melodic rhymes just like human composers, even though their songs can proliferate without repetition (Gray et al. 2001). Another more commonly known example is within the bird’s melodies. Birds communicate the same rhythmic effects, variations, intervals and combinations of notes as humans do. Likewise, they sing in canon, follow the same musical scales as humans, and consistently transpose motifs into different keys (Gray et al. 2001). 

 Nature IS music: 

We are discovering so many connections between human and natural music. It wouldn’t be surprising that musical communication proceeded linguistics communication and that animals utilize music as interaction. Additionally, the human foundation of music-making has a relatively similar structure to animals, knowing that our ancestors imitate nature’s sounds to converse about the environment with one another.

 A few years back, I firmly believed that I would never see myself admiring Satinder Sartaj, a globally renowned artist who has been gifted for his mesmerizing singing and uniquely beautiful writing in Punjabi-Sufi music. 12-year old me would always criticize my dads music choice (guess he was right) as I just had no clue what his lyrics meant, why his songs were so slow to start with or be able to create any visuals from it. Still, he has always been my dad’s favourite music artist. And here I am today, immersed in his poetry that embraces his fans with insight into the deepest feelings and it’s meaning in life. One of my favourite creations of his work is the song that immediately takes me back to a natural landscape. Since this song is in another language, I have listed a translation below for you to enjoy! 

https://www.rhyme.cloud/satinder-sartaaj-zikr-tera/

This song is like a love letter dedicated to a girl who Sartaj loves and how he admires her beauty of innocence and relates it to the context of nature’s beauty. When someone mentions his love to him, it’s like he hears the trees talking; even the autumn season seems so colourful. He asks how I would praise your beauty? I can never say enough when you say the moon goes down; it goes down; when you say it rises, it rises; it seems like the moon is your slave now too. He once heard a fairy-tale story, and now he’s starting to believe in it. Ever since his eyes met hers, the trees started talking to him, and the autumn season became mesmerizing. His thoughts are ready and eager to be written into a song. The way he describes nature through his lyrics helps us visualize it even without the visuals in the music video. The messages come out so beautifully, and it’s those lyrics that we link our memories with, like a breeze touching your face or the wind touching the trees’ leaves. The presence of nature in music is a persuasive tool in nature interpretation that can deliver a meaningful experience and enhance ecological understanding (Beck et al. 2018).

I have always believed that nature has something to tell us, which gave me my sense of place in nature. Whether it’s the calming sound of the waves along the shoreline, the rain dropping down on a roof or perhaps the forest leaves rustling in the wind. Surrounding yourself in nature by sitting and reading a book in the heart of the woods, paddle-boarding in a lake or going for a walk in the forest hearing the bird’s chirp, the endless sounds of nature will always be your great escape to help relax your body, mind and soul just like this song has become for me. 

Q: As a nature interpreter, how would you like to integrate music in interpretive programs for your audience? 

Thank you for reading!

Farheen D.

References:

Beck, L. et al. Interpreting Cultural and Natural Heritage for a Better World. 2018. Sagamore Publishing.

Dr. Satinder Sartaaj. Sufi Singer | Satinder Sartaaj. (n.d.). Retrieved March 4, 2022, from https://satindersartaaj.com/index.php/About_c

Gray, Patricia & Krause, Bernie & Atema, Jelle & Payne, Roger & Krumhansl, Carol & Baptista, Luis. (2001). The Music of Nature and the Nature of Music. Science. 291. 52-54. 

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The Cries of Injustice Through Music

Growing up indigenous but going to school off-reserve was very challenging for me. There wasn’t anyone else who looked like me or shared the same views. I was the native girl. That is how my classmates saw me and how my teachers treated me by singling me out to share “my peoples views”. For a 2ndgrader this terrified me, I was different but treated like I should strive to be the same. I remember not being allowed to participate in weekly show-and-tell because the first time I brought a whole turkey wing. It was beautiful to me and displayed all their wing feathers. My dad hunted it and gave it to me. However, the teacher did not think it was appropriate. I thought calling me out in front of the class to share opinions that I wasn’t even sure about was inappropriate. This became my new normal though, in every class I’ve had the teacher has always pointed me out at least once. I thought maybe I am just educating them but the other kids took this to be a weakness so that is what it felt like.

Thinking about music in nature interpretation, I think about how the other kids in school would imitate their version of traditional indigenous music by tapping their hands against their mouths and yelling. It wasn’t until today that I realized I had been shamed into believing my cultures music was an embarrassment. It wasn’t until today, that I realized the kids were not at fault for these behaviours, but the teachers were. The education system plays a big role in teaching our young unacceptable treatment of other cultures because other cultures do not get a role in the western education system. In high school, we spent a month learning about “Canadian history” which started in the war of 1812, when colonizers started fighting over stolen land. Then we spent two days learning about indigenous people and residential schools. My teacher played a movie about residential schools for both days. However, he forgot to mention the part in the war where the indigenous people were slaughtered like cattle and their villages and food sources burned for fighting back. He forgot to mention that this was the start of cultural assimilation and residential schools. It also wasn’t mentioned that even when these schools “closed”, the government just opened schools on our reserves where the treatment was just as harsh. My grandma went to one of these schools and later when they had at least decided sexual punishment was too far, my dad attended one of these schools and believe me physical punishment was still in effect. My history teacher did not intentionally leave this information out, but the information was just not available for him to share. The government has fought hard to hide it. That is why we were hidden away on reserves. Concentration camps where the people could be assimilated into a white supremacist’s world.

We are still being assimilated into western society to this vary day as the education system put in place a hundred years ago is still on our reserves today. The education system which belittles our people and allows teachers to inadvertently bring shame to native children by not being honest about our history. It is time for a change. For education systems to incorporate forms of knowledge from all cultures.

The world needs new education curriculums which honour other cultures and the environment. Environmental education took up the majority of indigenous people’s lives as learning how to survive off the land and thrive in the natural environment was a necessity for them. Without wildlife and nature education, the western education systems have allowed the children of this world take for granted the environment that surrounds them. We cannot make any progress in climate change, invasive species, or sustainability if the education system does not allow our children to empathize with nature and find a deep understanding of the life source that sustains them. The people of this world need a change. You can tell by the songs that come on the radio. If you listen closely, you can hear cries for help. Songs such as “another brick in the wall” by Pink Floyd, “this is America” by Childish Gambino, “waiting on the world to change” by John Mayor, “they don’t care about us” by Michael Jackson, “Earth song” by Michael Jackson. They all express the need for change in this world. The daily modern world forces us to sacrifice the moments we cherish for the work force which allows the government to propagate. To often do we find ourselves wishing we were travelling far away from our regular lives to get away from work. Where do you imagine you want to go? I could bet that wherever you wish you could be, it is absolutely bountiful with nature. We want to go to the beach, up North, to waterfalls and canyons. However, the government has programmed us to believe we cannot live without going to work so that time with nature will just have to wait. Now, I want you to imagine what it would be like having complete confidence in yourself to survive off the land. Work would become spending time with your loved one’s gardening, hunting and building handcrafted items. Fun would come easily with all-you-need access to beautiful natural areas. The times we cherish would fill up our entire lives instead of only coming after business hours. We have a tendency to take life for granted and its not that life is short, its that we waste so much of it. This can change and it needs to if we are ever going to find peace between races and between the government and the environment.

Do me a favour, the next time you are able to take a break from modern life, go for a walk in the closest forest to you. Listen to the bird’s sing, the rustling leaves, and the whistling wind. Listen to the music the forest makes and the communication between the animals and plants as they make these sounds. You are apart of this natural environment. Try to whistle or sing along if you can. See what type of responses you get. How does being apart of the environment make you feel compared to being a working part of the governmental machine?

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Wow I love your post! It is very thoughtful and inquisitive which is why I like it so much. I too share these worries. I can’t stop thinking about migratory patterns, food stores, and specific adaptations all being disturbed due to climate change. It is so much more evident when you spend time outside in the winter. It is very worrisome and makes me think of ways we can help. There are so many people on this Earth you remain in blissful ignorance towards the Earth’s condition and I am somewhat jealous of them since they do not have these worries. However, I am too passionate about helping this planet to remain ignorant to its problems. This brings me to education, how to educate people who don’t actually care to learn about the earth? This sentence bugs me because humans crave so much knowledge but most of us are completely blind to the Earth we live on because it is not taught to care about it in our school systems. This needs to be fixed, wildlife and nature education should be ingrained in our young from day one. No one on Earth should be able to live on Earth without actually being able to use it’s resources to survive. And yet, most of us don’t need to worry about that anymore due to modern conveniences. This does not create an empathetic or understanding people towards wildlife and nature on Earth. I believe serious improvement need to be made to the education curriculum within Canada in order for climate change, invasive species, or any of the ailments this world is suffering from to be improved as well.

What I’ve Been Thinking About: Winter

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about winter, since it is winter in Guelph at the moment. A lot of people I know hate the cold and snow, but I’ve always loved it. I always try to get outside as much as I can during the winter. I try to go skating, cross country skiing, and winter hiking when I’m not doing my work for school. Getting outside in the winter makes me think about how animals and plants have adapted to living in these harsh conditions.

For example, mice, voles, and shrews use a network of tunnels under the snow to move around which keeps them warm and hidden from predators. This is called the subnivean layer meaning “under snow.” But conditions need to be perfect for this to occur. There needs to be a thick enough layer of snow and there can’t be too much ice. So, in Guelph currently, it appears that the conditions would be pretty good. However, there have been years where we haven’t had enough snow or have had a lot of freezing rain. I wonder what these animals do when conditions are like that. I suppose that they would have to find shelter and stay warm in other ways.

Birds also have different ways of dealing with winter conditions. Some birds like robins and many songbirds migrate to warmer climates before winter begins. Other birds like cardinals and chickadees do not migrate and have strategies for keeping warm during the winter. Some of them huddle together and find shelter from wind to stay warm, while others can puff up their feathers to trap warm air.

One of my favourite animal strategies to handling winter is the wood frog. These animals produce a natural antifreeze to keep the inside of their bodies from freezing, but on the outside they are frozen. The inner parts of their body are able to stay unfrozen because they are high in sugar, which raises the freezing point of these parts. Their heart completely stops, and they have no brain activity during this period of time. Usually, they find shelter before freezing under leaves and logs which keeps them safe from predators. In the spring, once temperatures are high enough, they thaw out completely and begin search for food and mates. I find this to be an incredible adaptation. I can remember learning about this for the first time in high school and being amazed. It just goes to show how many different ways there are to handle the harsh winter.

These adaptations also make me wonder about the future and how some of these animals will be able to adapt to climate change. Will mouse, vole, and shrew populations decrease as there is less snow cover and they become more vulnerable to the elements and predators? How will the wood frog be able to stay frozen if temperatures remain warm for too long? Will there be more birds who don’t migrate because conditions are milder? Or will their migration timing change? There are so many questions regarding climate change, and the winter makes me think of these in particular.

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Science and Nature

I am not sure how I feel about science. When I was a child, science seemed like the only thing for me. It could satisfy my curiosity about the natural wonders of this world and get me an animal related job in the future. That was it then. It was decided. I was going to become a veterinarian and learn as much as I could about helping animals. By the way, I made this decision when I was in grade 2 with a very naïve version of the world in mind. When you get older, you start to see the world for how it really is. Science is relentless, becoming a veterinarian takes at least 8-10 more years of schooling after high school, and your degree has had very little relevance to nature or animals so far. Just the concepts and ideas of animals. That is what angers me the most. I got into science to help animals and so far, all I have learned is how scientists perceive animals when running experiments on them.

Learning proper scientific methods for discovering new things in this world is a rigorous and timely thing. The proper protocol is to come up with a question regarding the natural order of this world, for instance, “Will increasing urbanization in Southern Ontario effect the mortality rate of local coyote populations to the point of extinction?”. To answer this question, you must invent a possible explanation and prediction for why and how it occurs, ex. “Increasing urbanization will increase mortality rates in coyote populations” with the prediction, “increasing urbanization will increase the number of human-coyote interactions which will result in more conflicts. This will lead to large community-based culls and the extinction of the species.” Then, you need to gather data. This requires entering their habitat, their home, to systematically find the distribution of the species, finding the number of dens located near communities, running tests on the diets of this population to find out how much human garbage the population consumes, the tests can go on and on forever. Finding every single detail out about the community.

However, do these types of studies need that much human involvement within the habitats of these animals? The stomach contents of animals can be analysed in a lab using several methods but how accurate is it? Would is not be much easier to set up trail cameras from every perspective you could possibly need? Wouldn’t you be able to observe and measure exactly how much they are eating of that one exact thing you are seeing on the screen? If we didn’t have the technology we have today, this would all need to be done just through personal observation alone. That’s what the indigenous people did and what some of us still do today. Some people still live off of the land and most of their time is spent observing nature such as hunters. Wouldn’t it be easier to ask these experts for specific information on the species they have been living with and observing their whole lives? Rather than rushing to find information in a cruel and gruesome way, why not observe slowly and have a more in-depth personal observation technique? This could be another crucial way to bring nature back into people’s live’s. By teaching our young scientists to have a more hands-off, personal, and in-depth observational perspective.

We should be teaching our students to spend hours and hours outside observing nature to find the answers that satisfy their curiosity. Our modern students do not get the ability to develop their own minds and create their own world, as they are only taught to work off of the progress of our history and to keep our society functioning the same way it always has. Well I personally don’t care for a lot of our actions in the past, and I feel that our students should be able to have the opportunity to make their own way in this world, as our ancestors were once able to. And that starts with the scientist’s. Scientists propel the world’s education forward and set the pace for the world’s development. Since it is with our knowledge, that development is able to progress. But it also goes the other way. With our knowledge, we can also have real environmental progress. If we were able to slow down and teach our successors the value of personal observation, that would be the first step in the right direction.

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Hello, I loved reading your post and how much thought you have put into being an interpreter and your audience's needs. You obviously understand the needs of the audience very well considering you feel they would engage better on a local scale. I feel that community and knowing your local environment is extremely important and something that is often lacking in today’s generation. Not because of disinterest, but from the fact that the modern world is relentless and constantly busy. Also, from the education system’s ability to dispel curiosity from our children’s minds and promote complacency. The idea of travel and being able to live anywhere in the world is amazing but has also diminished the importance of locality and doing your part for your community, where you came from. This is a sad fact. There is so much beauty and protection in knowing every single thing about the environment you live in and the community you are from. There is so much to do to help our own communities prosper, so why would we not all take that role seriously and do our part? I believe when we run out of fossil fuels and our other resources are depleted, it is our community and home we will come back to. Your local environment will become more important than ever when all the lithium is used up for our electric car batteries. If it takes literally everything (every drop of fossil fuels and every ounce of minerals mined) from the environment to be able to travel so fast, over such far distances, were we ever meant to use that form of travel? If our ancestors knew global pandemics and invasive species were only possible because of international travel, would we have started it? There is not enough appreciation for our local environments, the places we call home which provide us with so much, this is why I was happy to read your blog post. I feel better knowing someone else is out there making sure people know the importance of their local environment too.

My Environmental Interpreting Dream...

Funnily enough, I had a lot of trouble choosing my ideal role as an environmental interpreter. My first answer would be to travel to remote locations to film a docuseries like Planet Earth and be the next David Attenborough. Although this would mean my interpreting could reach global proportions, I decided it would feel more impactful to be present with my audience. After taking a few days to ponder, I went on my usual walk through preservation park. Although I felt like I was about to get a full-body case of frostbite, it finally clicked! Interpreting for a local forest is an ideal role for environmental interpreting. If done right, sharing the significances and beauties of a local trail can really open up the eyes of the community to see how special forests can be. This can motivate them to explore more and join as a community to not only preserve local ecosystems, but forests like these all over the world.

Leading a tour through preservation park would likely be the best approach to interpret, and the theme of the tour would be the connections and relationships that are needed for the entire forest to function harmoniously. To satisfy the auditory learners I would explain how these relationships work. For example, I would explain how beneath the forest floor trees trade nutrients with fungi, in which the fungi act as messengers, sending signals and nutrients to neighbouring trees, essentially making the forest a community of trees helping each other thrive! For our visual learners, I would point out any displays of natural relationships, like watching a squirrel bury a nut, and explaining that many trees depend on squirrels to disperse their seeds which likely make up many of the trees already in the forest. Lastly for our tactile learners, I would encourage them to flip over decaying logs and rocks. Getting their hands dirty won’t only allow them to “get in touch” with nature but will also expose all the little decomposers that act as the clean-up crew for the forest, recycling anything dead into nutrient-rich soil for the plants.

These are just a few of many ideas that came to mind about how I would interpret a natural site for an audience, but I could spend hours finding relationships in a forest. Hopefully, learning more about how organisms work together to form a complex community in a neighbourhood forest would help people appreciate the balance and importance of every interaction that allow an ecosystem to survive. Additionally, I would certainly need to brush up on my presentation skills and work on not over-complicating the content I teach. This way the audience can have their attention grabbed and prevent them from being intimidated by complex topics. Lastly, I would also work on story-telling skills to paint a more relatable picture of how a forest works. This would enhance the audience’s experience and hopefully make more of an impact!

Overall, it was a tough choice deciding where and how I would like to be an environmental interpreter. Preservation park, or another neighbourhood forest, would be a great place to begin integrating nature into the lives of the community. I have no doubt that the more people that have the opportunity to learn about nature, the more of a difference we can have on preserving it. Being an environmental interpreter means you’re making a difference in peoples’ life and the world.

Here are some pictures taken at Preservation Park from Fall 2021, taken with my poor-quality phone camera, haha!

Thanks for reading my post, and can't wait to discuss more later this week!

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Hello, I found your ideas similar to mine and loved hearing your opinion that nature is beauty. I believe art is a very powerful tool in bringing out human emotion and being able to relate to the environment in a world where nature can seem so far away. It is an important tool for the future, as it will help inspire people to protect nature. I feel that appreciating the beauty of your environment is what allows us to connect to it. However, I do not believe that simply seeing a depiction of nature will be enough to get people back into it. For one reason alone, the instilling of the importance of conservation into people. The definition of conservation is to prevent wasteful use of a resource. That is what they had in mind with the first conservation initiative, and it was a good idea. However, the way we went about it was completely wrong. The goal is to protect threatened wildlife and their habitats, but how is restricting wildlife into distinct areas (parks and zoos) that we deem not in the way of human development, protecting them? Why do species that have been evolving for millennia, need protection? From humans? If that is the case, then why do we not protect them by leaving them to be actually wild. And to make it worse, if we were actually trying to protect them, why are thousands of research projects conducted within conservation areas, where human-animal interaction is inevitable and often quite harmful to the ecosystem? We are taught to make sure we mention how we followed specific protocol when handling ‘research animals’, but these ‘protocols’ often allow for capture, killing and testing on large populations with little regard for the effects we leave.

A team of wildlife technicians (AKA animal control) and analysts walk into the forest, to shoot and capture wild animals, so we can run tests to learn more about how to care for those wild animals, that would rather not be cared for.

It sounds like a bad joke.

Maybe because it is.

We are joking ourselves if we think conservation is doing anything for our wildlife.

I think we should be instilling the idea of wildlife being wild.

Blog 4: Interpreting Nature Through Art:

When I thought about the question “who are you to interpret nature through art?” It took me a while to answer. I am not artistically gifted and so I have never been able to capture the beauty of art through drawing, painting or sculpting. For many people it is difficult to truly gravitate towards art and to be able to express themselves through art, me being one of them. I struggle to find a deeper meaning to art pieces when visiting art galleries and museums. However, I believe that we all just need to find a connection to art in our own ways and that can help us strengthen our connection to nature because nature is art. Interpreting nature through art does not necessarily mean being able to find the deeper meaning or micro-analyzing a piece of art; it could simply be appreciating how that piece of art was able to capture the beauty of nature.

When considering how I interpret the "gift of beauty," I had to acknowledge that beauty is subjective. If I find something beautiful it does not necessarily mean that other people will share my sentiment. “The gift of beauty” is when your art, whether that be a photograph, painting or piece of music, touches the heart of your audience. Your art becomes their safe space and it is something memorable for them. Sometimes the viewer needs more encouragement or knowledge to properly appreciate the beauty and depth of your art, and other times it is "love at first sight". Our responsibility as nature interpreters is to make our audience “feel” something.

How I interpret the “gift of beauty” is through photography. I love taking photos which is why when reading the textbook the line “taking a picture is capturing a snapshot in time” really resonated with me (Beck et al. 2018). Some claim that photography isn't actually art, but I disagree because the pictures photographers take are able to capture nature in a unique state that it will never be in again. Every sunset is different and every tree tells a different story. Being able to capture all of this is a skill and is also a form of art. Interpreting nature through art goes beyond words and employs a variety of mediums, including paintings, pictures, and music, to express information that words by themselves can't convey (Beck et a;. 2018).

Here are some of my favourite photographs that I have taken over the years on my adventures.

I find it amazing that I can capture the beauty of a sunset, the tranquillity of a lake, and the magnificence of a tree just by a click of my finger. By simply glancing at that photograph again at a later time, I am able to relive the same feelings I had while taking the picture. I can share these beautiful moments with other people and encourage them to also appreciate the beauty of nature through photographs. Being able to share these photos on social media for my friends and followers to see and enjoy makes this a form of interpreting nature. Whether we are sharing our photographs/ paintings or our knowledge about nature, the ultimate goal for us is to help individuals in appreciating the beauty of their environment, regardless of where they are, and instilling in them the importance of conservation (Beck et al. 2018). If people are able to recognize the beauty of the world around us it will encourage them to do everything they can to protect the world from harm.

Work Cited:

Reference: Beck, L., Cable, T.T. and Knudson, D.M. Interpreting Cultural and Natural Heritage For a Better World. Sagamore Venture Publishing. 2018.

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The Objective

My ideal role as an environmental interpreter would be to help people open their minds to the possibility that they can make a real difference in this world. Each and everyone of us can make a significant effect on this world, but only if we come together. To share common ideas and passions and to put that effort into effect is what I want. I want to see a world where people come out from under the control of the government and realize we, the people of this world, make the difference, not some president or king on the mountain telling you they make the rules. They do not have the ability to change this world. They only fix the mistakes of their predecessors and continue in their footsteps to make more. When we are raising our children not to ask questions and have their own minds, but to listen, sorry no not listen, obey preconceived ideas of the world, that is when we should have said no. I want to live in a world where my children are free from the feeling that nobody is doing anything, to save this Earth, to save the education system from brainwashing us, to save our future generations of having no hope.

In order to make this world though, I need the help of everyone. I need all of us to reflect on this world and see that it needs changing. I need all of you to realize that we made the world we live in today so we can make a new one too. You don’t have to feel like nature is out of your reach, or disconnected from the Earth, your culture, or even faith (both created by the environments we experienced). Even in our cities. Especially in our cities. We can come up with solutions to re-introduce wildlife into cities. We can do literally anything if we come together. If you are already a nature lover, then we won’t have to feel an impending sensation as we watch more and more of our natural areas being destroyed. We cannot wait for someone else to fix the world for us, it won’t happen. Even among religion, gods don’t play a direct role in our lives, but they are able to use us to carry out their will. We need to take solace in knowing that our world and way of life might be coming to an end, because that leaves us with only possibilities for the future. After that, it is all up to us to carry out a better future for ourselves.

My role as an interpreter is to look at the bigger picture of the world and hopefully help you see it too. One of my tasks is to not just look at all the different things in this world that is destroying it and simply say ‘you are bad’. No, it is to look at the effect they have on the Earth and the beings living here and reflect on that. It is looking at the combined effects of all the bad things and realizing our people are in mental agony. Anguish from our voices not being heard, from the oppression of individuality and from the relentlessness of everyday life. The overall objective being, to help our people self-reflect on that agony and use it for the fuel that will ignite change in this world. That is my role. What is yours?

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Art and Conservation

Who am I to interpret nature through art? I am nobody really, a taught scientist, an indigenous woman, an artist. There are many reasons to listen to a professional artist talk about their craft, to learn how to create yourself, to gain more information on why they created it or how. But why listen to just a regular person’s interpretation of art? In the past, when you have listened to a professional in any field talk about their specialty, it is very precise. They know everything about that one specific idea. Whether you are listening to a professional artist, historian, or scientist, the specificity can be easy to overlook, and you can often come away from that experience wondering what the point of it was. The idea of interpretation, however, is not to be specific but to see the bigger picture. To look at a piece of art for the first time and wonder what it means, how the person was feeling when they made it, how they connect to it or what else it might connect to. That is interpretation. So, a regular person’s point of view might be exactly what it takes to interpret art or anything for that matter.

Art has been apart of this world for as long as we have. We have created many beautiful things in this world, inspired by nature. You may be thinking ‘not all art is inspired by nature’. You are wrong. Every single thing humans have created, has been inspired and made through means provided by the Earth. If you don’t believe me, I urge you to take this as a challenge. To try and think of one idea/creation/invention that has not originated from this Earth. We humans, tend to forget about the Earth as modern life envelopes us and takes our attention with its haste and relentlessness. Using art to enlighten our lives and add a little more beauty to this ever-developing world. We have always used art to find our way back to a time or moment when something was beautiful. In crises, we have used art to bring hope to our people. After colonization, there was a boom of indigenous art produced to help my people heal and remember a time of joy (art that was later used by colonists to develop tourist gift shop ideas). Art was used to revitalize our culture in a time of complete social and economic crisis; when there was no hope left. Art is in many ways our most pure form of expression and communication. It cannot be muddled, or deceitful and manipulative with tricky wording. It can only be interpreted. There is a reason we say a picture is worth a thousand words.

Indigenous art was often inspired by communication with spirits or animals. You can see below, a picture of a man in communication with a serpent. When I look at the picture, I see two beings, a snake, and a man. The snake looks scary, and the man looks worried but not terrified, maybe just startled. The man looks like he is being scolded by the snake for something.  The snake has two heads, one angry head and one nice, but both look scared as well. The man and snake are connected by tendrils and two circles. The circle above the beings looks like the sun. The one circle which is between the two beings, is the same colour as the body of the man and the heads of the snake. This makes me feel like the circle is also a body or head of something. Or maybe an egg/offspring! This makes me feel like the picture is about how we can run into conflicts with other beings when we are trying to protect the things we care about, such as our offspring. But the beings will always be connected for as long as they share the same sun (or Earth).

Artist: Norval Morrisseau.

  Our connection to other beings and nature is as important to recognize today as it was then. Art is interpreted in many ways and there are no right answers. What I interpret, may not be what you interpret, but that does not mean it is any less right or wrong. As a scientist, I am sure most of my colleagues and I have been in the same position of doubting the quality of information received from the social studies. Maybe even looking down upon the field, as we have been taught, because the information obtained from these sources is deemed, ‘inaccurate’.  However, I invite you to find one thing from the picture above that is not an accurate portrayal. Art is used to try and capture the accuracy of a situation. Now, if you can remember the last journal article you read, think about how much accurate information you received.

The last peer-reviewed journal article I read was Factors influencing reproductive success in male white-tailed deer. Normally, I’d read the abstract first and then try to find the specific information I’m looking for within the paper. I’m sure many of you are practiced at this. When I get to the methods, my brain goes on autopilot looking for the correct information so I can save time and not have to read the entire thing. My brain is so busy scouring for the information needed for my paper, that I overlook the bigger picture of the paper. Of all of it really. Today, I read the whole paper carefully and when I got to the methods section, I started crying. The methods used to capture ‘adult’ deer (greater than 6 months old) in this study, were to chemically immobilize sighted deer within Auburn University’s Deer Research Facility. From October to July (9 months of the year), from 2007-2014 they gathered data. Methods for data collection included ear tagging (3-digit number used for identification), freeze branding (using an extremely cold iron to cold-burn a symbol into the skin for identification), ear notching (taking a triangular slice from the edge of the ear for genetic analysis), vaginal implant transmitters (facilitates the capture of a new-born fawn).

So, to reiterate, this population of deer (which have already been captured within a facility) spent 9 months of the year, over 7 years, living in terror for the means of science. To learn more about a species, we put them in a state of fear and agitation, we come into their home and disregard the impact we left because it was justified by science, we create a disturbance so large within the ecosystem and then publish the information as if it is an accurate representation of how that species’ lives their life. How can we believe that information is correct when just by invading a population’s territory, we have changed their natural behaviours? In a world that is constantly evolving, how are we so arrogant to believe we hold all the answers? If the journal article was actually a picture instead, what would it look like? 

I have changed the way I see science since I have been at the University of Guelph. I am a fourth-year student in the wildlife biology and conservation program. I have spent a lot of time listening to professors and studying the content, as I am sure you have as well, and what I have taken away from it is, we know nothing about wildlife and a lot about conservation. Wildlife and nature are all around us. Nature is not a place you can go, it is everywhere. Conserving it in a park or zoo, has not been working for us. Can’t you see that? I implore you to take a step back and try to look at the bigger picture.

-          Why are we trying to conserve species, trying to limit wildlife, when we have been told for years that biodiversity is decreasing? Why would we not instead spend time finding ways to increase wildlife found within our nature-lacking areas such as cities?

-          How many individuals are released from these conservation initiatives? How many of them survive once they’ve been released?

-          We have been told for years that large agricultural practices are non-sustainable, so why are we not trying to increase local farming initiatives and hunting practices, and dispelling the large agricultural industry?

-          We have been told climate change is an issue for years, yet we are still trying to use up all the fossil fuels and mining millions of tons of lithium to create electric vehicles (another unsustainable way of travel)

-          The pandemic keeps producing new variants and spreads around the world as people continue to travel

After reading these questions, try and look at this world as a whole. With all of these problems interlacing together. Now try and come up with solutions to these questions. What answers did you come up with?

We are running out of time, and nobody is doing anything about it.  We’ve been faced with the facts, but we are refusing to listen for it is a harsh reality. Things are going to change. There is no doubt about that, but will we listen before that change is for the worst? It is our generations turn to shape this world. We can mould it into anything we want with effort and time. We need to make sure the upcoming change is for the better, even if that means sacrificing our modern lifestyle. The time for passively waiting by needs to come to an end. Action is our only option, for our children’s sake, I hope we are up to it.

References

https://www.native-art-in-canada.com/woodlandart.html

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Thank you Tamia! For your kind words and thoughts make me feel privileged to have discussions with people as well! I feel being self-aware and reflecting on our actions makes us accountable and makes us realize our own effect on others. I really like your views on this topic and appreciate your response to my post. I honestly didn’t think I’d get a response. I didn’t know if anyone would relate and/or feel comfortable enough to speak about such sensitive topics. So thank you again for the response! I’m glad you find it easier to envision yourself as another animal and that you have practiced this before.

If you are interested in more ways to connect to nature and haven’t already heard of this, there is an activity where you find a sit-spot out in nature that you visit everyday. Anywhere in nature will do (Nature is everywhere, even in big cities if you look close enough). But you just sit for about 15-30mins a day and observe everything around you. No phones or anything. Just watching. Eventually you can notice more wildlife as they get used to you being in their habitat. This is a very peaceful way of finding a place within nature and connecting to it. Try it out if you can find the time!!

Privilege's Within Nature

The idea of privilege has always been a confusing concept for me. When talking about privileges, whether you have lots or none, it is always a tense topic. Nobody wants to admit they have gotten somewhere in their lives on the merit of their parents, and not from their own ingenious (As if it is bad that your parents have cared about your well-being and tried to give you the best? Maybe it’s more of a defence mechanism for the guilt over the actions of our ancestors?). Nobody wants to admit they haven’t had any privileges growing up either though (feeling embarrassed their parents haven’t been able to give them a lot or for where they live, for example). Privilege is a big part of nature interpretation, since some people aren’t born with access to natural spaces and others are, it is a big factor of how someone views and interprets nature. My definition of privilege is, an advantage you are born with, of which you benefit from throughout your lifetime.

I have grown up hearing how lucky I am to be native. How lucky I am to have my schooling and benefits paid for. How lucky I am to have a status card, identifying me as an “Indian within the meaning of the Indian Act, chapter 27, Statutes of Canada (1985).” which it actually quotes on my card and means I pay 5% of taxes, off-reserve, instead of 13% (like it’s a privilege having to present my card and wait at checkout while I get comments from the cashier like ‘oh your card is expired, I can’t accept it’ because suddenly that makes me not native anymore?). On-reserve, we don’t have taxes which is another thing I am extremely ‘lucky’ for because who doesn’t love an economy run off white people travelling to the reserve to buy gas and cigarettes without tax. When I think about being called ‘lucky’ for all these privileges imposed on my people, I think of the genocide and oppression my people went through to be given these things and how I would do anything, including rejecting the ‘privileges’, because they in NO WAY make up for what we have lost and the pain we feel today.

However, when I ignore all the things white people have told me I’m lucky for, I actually do feel lucky to be native. I feel lucky to have had the privilege to walk into the forest whenever I want when I was growing up which gave me the opinions and ideas I have now, and I love who I am now. I am also lucky to have a people and culture, no matter how disconnected I feel from it, since my great grandparents were in residential schools and had their spirit’s broken... I feel honoured to represent my people in my everyday life and take that role seriously since I know when I step off the reserve, others will take my words and actions into consideration as they form opinions and talk to others about my people.

My parents weren’t super well off, but they had enough money to provide me with opportunities growing up and, in this world, it is very fortunate to have your schooling paid for, so I grew up with things that other kids didn’t have. Privileges that I always felt I should be grateful for having in this world, but this isn’t the world I wanted to live in. I wanted to live in a world where my people were proud and were not weighed down by generations of oppression. Where I could find indigenous children whose parents treated them well, and taught, and loved them because they would all have healthy minds, that were not tainted by grief or resentment towards the world, their broken parents, and everybody else.

Privilege is a weird topic for me. It is a hard word to define because people use it in different ways. Privileges you think other people have might not actually be a privilege for them. In fact, it could be the very Bain of their existence, and things we consider privileges for ourselves might seem foreign and incomprehensible to others. In my case, being connected to nature is one of the biggest privileges I have but I am considerate of those who feel no connection with nature and realize that fear or wariness of nature is a very real thing for some. Some people love the idea of being apart of something bigger than themselves, but others can feel intimidated/afraid by this feeling as well.

I hope all of you can step into your opposition’s shoes and try and consider their point of views as you would take account of your own. This is the first step into truly seeing nature for all that it is. Taking the time to think about how other beings could feel just like we do is important in being able to consider yourself as a part of nature. To think about yourself as if you were an Earth worm or something humans typically think as less than ourselves opens our minds and eyes to the actual condition of our world, gaining different perspectives. Perspectives that we can use to navigate nature. So, this week find a little bit of time every day (maybe during your morning coffee) just to imagine yourself as a different species. This will take some of the risk and fear out of the idea of wandering out into nature, as you will slowly start to consider yourself as part of it.

I’m a raccoon. I wake up in my home, it’s about dusk now but the sun is setting fast. I live in a simple two-story burrow I found in a tree, right next to the clearing with the human house beside it. The added room gives me lots of space for my babies. Thinking of which, I should probably get them ready to go get some food. The humans will empty their garbage out soon so looks like leftovers for breakfast. Today I should teach them how to open the garbage themselves, so they are learning how to fend for themselves when they leave the den. They need to learn how to hide from the humans as well and not to make too much noise when they are digging through it. I will make sure they are ready. Should I look for food in the forest first? No, why waste time when the garbage is right there, and I still need to go get water and look for another mate today as well. Not to mention, needing time to get me and my babies across the road safely to get to the water source. No, we will just look through the garbage and then I’ll have more time later to play and groom them before bed. Yes, that is a much better plan.

[degenvs3000w22]

Hello, I thought your blog post was very interesting and you seem to have a good grasp on your own privileges without making any excuses for having them, you just own them, I like that. Being an indigenous female, I am familiar with the privileges and disadvantages that an individual from a 'minority group' could obtain. I agree that more natural spaces should be available to people who could not otherwise afford to see them but is it realistic? Providing free transportation for groups of people increases the costs on a hopefully extremely generous program/person/organization, it would also mean increased roads (non-natural spaces) and foot traffic within these natural areas (potentially harmful to the species that live there). So, by increasing environmental awareness, we’d be further damaging our natural spaces? This is not a solution to the climate change problem. ‘Efforts’ for nature conservation are extremely passive and lacking initiative to make big changes for the future of our planet. NOT changes in nature and how it functions (we've had a big enough role in that already). Changes in us and how we see ourselves as ‘outside’ of nature. I don’t agree that more people should be able to hop on a bus and go see nature, and then further damage our Earth with emissions and lunch garbage. Working in a provincial park, you see many people come in to ‘get outside’ and then hangout in their trailers for half the day and complain that the washrooms aren’t being big or clean enough. So many people come in for their first time camping and leave us recommendations on how the facilities should be updated. Did they come to get outside and be with nature? Do they even know what it is? The entire time being close to nature, what did they do? This is the reason I believe efforts to get people interested in nature are going to fail unless you bring nature to them. People were never meant to live in cities, and this is the reason why people are so disconnected from nature. I believe conservation methods should focus more on inclusivity of wildlife within cities and building a better relationship between nature and the people who live in cities. Versus believing we are outside of nature and that it needs to be 'conserved' within parks and zoos. Nature is all around us. It is not a place to go for a day trip. People need to realize that.

Blog 3

Privilege is an advantage ultimately granted or available to a particular person. This privilege may not be earned but will still be received. There are different kinds of privilege from financial, ethnicity, knowledge, location, health and even just having support. A great metaphor of privilege is the video of the $100 race where everyone lines up but once all of these advantages have been acknowledged you realize how unfair the race is and that life is not an equal playing field.

When unpacking my invisible bag pack, I realize I have many privileges that I was born with, and these privileges have enabled me to earn even more. Being a straight white male growing up in upper middle class with both parents in home. Having the ability to grow up and not think of money being an issue as my parents worked has given me the opportunities that many other people may not experience. Growing up playing sports and now currently in university where I don’t have to worry finically which helps me focus more on school is an unfair advantage itself. There are tons of privilege that occur with your relationship and experience with nature. Growing up getting to travel with my parents to all different types of countries being able to surf in different oceans and getting up close with marine life. To going to zoos and provincial parks and experiencing animals at a different level. To even the benefits of having access to internet and the knowledge you can gain from this source. I am extremely fortunate for my life and the opportunities and privilege I was born with and understand that not everyone is in the same boat. When doing the reading the author brought up some great points on how to prompt inclusivity; Beck et al. (2018),

1. Reducing economic barriers by providing transportation to those unable to travel to natural history sites

2. Reducing cultural barriers by “inviting, including, involving” minorities

3. Reducing communication barriers through strategic communication using varied languages and media

Another part of privilege is smaller audiences and the barriers faced by minorities that prevent them from visiting interpretation facilities. Race and ethnicity are a privilege and can help get rid of the stress associated with vising places. Beck et al. (2018) mentions, there needs to be some form of training or exposure to multiculturalism for an interpreter to be able to emotionally connect and understand their audience.

Just because I may not be able to know what it’s like to be in someone else shoes who is not as privileged doesn’t mean I can’t, or others make a difference. It’s important to educate ourselves and others on these topics and issues. We must understand the impacts of our actions while understanding what others have to go through. Introducing environmental opportunities to everyone no matter their race, ethnicity, or fortune.

[degenvs3000w22]

Privilege's Within Nature

The idea of privilege has always been a confusing concept for me. When talking about privileges, whether you have lots or none, it is always a tense topic. Nobody wants to admit they have gotten somewhere in their lives on the merit of their parents, and not from their own ingenious (As if it is bad that your parents have cared about your well-being and tried to give you the best? Maybe it’s more of a defence mechanism for the guilt over the actions of our ancestors?). Nobody wants to admit they haven’t had any privileges growing up either though (feeling embarrassed their parents haven’t been able to give them a lot or for where they live, for example). Privilege is a big part of nature interpretation, since some people aren’t born with access to natural spaces and others are, it is a big factor of how someone views and interprets nature. My definition of privilege is, an advantage you are born with, of which you benefit from throughout your lifetime.

I have grown up hearing how lucky I am to be native. How lucky I am to have my schooling and benefits paid for. How lucky I am to have a status card, identifying me as an “Indian within the meaning of the Indian Act, chapter 27, Statutes of Canada (1985).” which it actually quotes on my card and means I pay 5% of taxes, off-reserve, instead of 13% (like it’s a privilege having to present my card and wait at checkout while I get comments from the cashier like ‘oh your card is expired, I can’t accept it’ because suddenly that makes me not native anymore?). On-reserve, we don’t have taxes which is another thing I am extremely ‘lucky’ for because who doesn’t love an economy run off white people travelling to the reserve to buy gas and cigarettes without tax. When I think about being called ‘lucky’ for all these privileges imposed on my people, I think of the genocide and oppression my people went through to be given these things and how I would do anything, including rejecting the ‘privileges’, because they in NO WAY make up for what we have lost and the pain we feel today.

However, when I ignore all the things white people have told me I’m lucky for, I actually do feel lucky to be native. I feel lucky to have had the privilege to walk into the forest whenever I want when I was growing up which gave me the opinions and ideas I have now, and I love who I am now. I am also lucky to have a people and culture, no matter how disconnected I feel from it, since my great grandparents were in residential schools and had their spirit’s broken... I feel honoured to represent my people in my everyday life and take that role seriously since I know when I step off the reserve, others will take my words and actions into consideration as they form opinions and talk to others about my people.

My parents weren’t super well off, but they had enough money to provide me with opportunities growing up and, in this world, it is very fortunate to have your schooling paid for, so I grew up with things that other kids didn’t have. Privileges that I always felt I should be grateful for having in this world, but this isn’t the world I wanted to live in. I wanted to live in a world where my people were proud and were not weighed down by generations of oppression. Where I could find indigenous children whose parents treated them well, and taught, and loved them because they would all have healthy minds, that were not tainted by grief or resentment towards the world, their broken parents, and everybody else.

Privilege is a weird topic for me. It is a hard word to define because people use it in different ways. Privileges you think other people have might not actually be a privilege for them. In fact, it could be the very Bain of their existence, and things we consider privileges for ourselves might seem foreign and incomprehensible to others. In my case, being connected to nature is one of the biggest privileges I have but I am considerate of those who feel no connection with nature and realize that fear or wariness of nature is a very real thing for some. Some people love the idea of being apart of something bigger than themselves, but others can feel intimidated/afraid by this feeling as well.

I hope all of you can step into your opposition’s shoes and try and consider their point of views as you would take account of your own. This is the first step into truly seeing nature for all that it is. Taking the time to think about how other beings could feel just like we do is important in being able to consider yourself as a part of nature. To think about yourself as if you were an Earth worm or something humans typically think as less than ourselves opens our minds and eyes to the actual condition of our world, gaining different perspectives. Perspectives that we can use to navigate nature. So, this week find a little bit of time every day (maybe during your morning coffee) just to imagine yourself as a different species. This will take some of the risk and fear out of the idea of wandering out into nature, as you will slowly start to consider yourself as part of it.

I’m a raccoon. I wake up in my home, it’s about dusk now but the sun is setting fast. I live in a simple two-story burrow I found in a tree, right next to the clearing with the human house beside it. The added room gives me lots of space for my babies. Thinking of which, I should probably get them ready to go get some food. The humans will empty their garbage out soon so looks like leftovers for breakfast. Today I should teach them how to open the garbage themselves, so they are learning how to fend for themselves when they leave the den. They need to learn how to hide from the humans as well and not to make too much noise when they are digging through it. I will make sure they are ready. Should I look for food in the forest first? No, why waste time when the garbage is right there, and I still need to go get water and look for another mate today as well. Not to mention, needing time to get me and my babies across the road safely to get to the water source. No, we will just look through the garbage and then I’ll have more time later to play and groom them before bed. Yes, that is a much better plan.

[degenvs3000w22]

Hello! I found your thoughts very similar to mine. We all need to be doing our part to keep this planet healthy, if not just out of respect to the Earth than at least be motivated by self-preservation!! I am in the wildlife biology program, so I’ve taken a ton of environmental courses as well. The best ones are the ones with labs outside, actually being with nature always reminds me of why I got into this program in the first place. It is easy to forget in the rush of school and especially now with being online all the time. I also grew up very interactive with the outdoors and animals, I live in the country and have made it a point to rescue any animals/strays I find. So much in fact that I’ve started a reputation for myself in my town. Sometimes people will drop animals off at the end of my driveway, so I’ll clean them up and find good homes for them. It is sometimes a hard thing to deal with, another mouth to feed, disrupts my other animals who deserve peace, can possibly be dangerous/infectious to my other animals. It is always a gamble and pro-cautions always need to be taken. Oh, its also super time consuming, but I can’t turn away anything that needs help. I always end up doing what I can to help and hoping for the best. I am mostly animal obsessed but that’s not just limited to the furry babies. I love all animals in nature and jump at every opportunity to observe them in their natural habitats. Which also means I love their habitats and love exploring their world’s. From Damsel flies along freshwater streams to White-tailed deer in Forests. I just love sitting and watching them do their thing. That’s my thing, I guess.

Blog #1

I would say I have a strong relationship with nature as I am a consumer from it’s goods it provides and using it for recreational purpose. My major is Environmental Science so the majority of my classes are to do with nature and as humans how we degrade the environment. Growing up I was always an outdoor children weather playing sports in my background to going on hikes and even surfing the Great Lakes since I was 12. Surfing the lakes has really made me appreciate nature and what it can offer. My viewpoint on keeping the water cleaner has definitely changed once I took up the sport as your in the water for hours and realize how beautiful these lake are and want to keep it that way. I’ve done multiple beach cleanups with the surfing community and every year we grow grass on the upper shoreline as we want this environment to continue to stay healthy. Furthermore I live in a remote small farm town my whole life in Niagara on the Lake, constantly seeing wildlife around me and a grape farm on my backyard. With school now being online I realize how much I miss just walking to class and seeing nature first hand from tress blowing in the wind to squirrels on campus. I find myself able to enjoy nature a lot more in the summer and think I need to make more time through my classes to go on hikes to get out of my house. I’ve always loved nature and want to help out the environment and make it a better place from recycling properly to eliminating my carbon footprint but what are other steps do we need to take that can help with the negative impact we have?   

Growing up being interested with our planted and taking studies in this field I’ve definitely developed/evolved and realize that all of us need to develop a strong relationship with nature in order to make it a better place. Although individually some of us already have that viewpoint and do there part, everybody needs to be doing the same or the environment we live in today will not be the same in the future. 

 I would say my mother offered my a “sense of place”, growing up my mother always loved nature and has a huge heart for animals. It taught me that we aren’t the only creatures here and our degradation has serious consequences on others. From taking me on hikes to watching tons of programs on the nature network.