Edith Coates stands on a strip of land between I-75 and the Mill Creek and zips up her life jacket. Around the Clark Montessori student, a dozen other high schoolers and adult volunteers are carrying canoes down to the water and scoping out rocks to avoid.
The group is headed out on a paddle as part of Adventure Crew’s canoe and ecology series, a seven-session, after-school program introducing students to the Mill Creek and paddling. It’s one of many trips the Cincinnati nonprofit hosts with the goal of connecting city teens with nature, and each other.
“In canoe club, we’re working on canoe control and, like, learning our partners because it’s important to paddle with someone that you know,” Coates said.
She and her peers also are learning something bigger as they start to sink their paddles into the shallow stream.
Kids today are spending less time outside than in generations past, according to the National Recreation and Park Association. That’s causing young people to be disconnected from nature, which, in turn, makes them less likely to advocate for the environment as adults.
Adventure Crew wants to change that.
Fostering a connection
Half a mile into the paddle, Coates and the others hop into the creek, eager to look for animals and rocks.
“We saw a bunch of tadpoles in a small pond, and a small hatchling of a turtle; a snake,” Coates said. “Did I already say tadpoles? Well, there's a lot of them.”
One of the volunteers recruits students to set up a mesh net to sample the stream's macroinvertebrates.
“We have little bits of ecology — it is more paddling-based, but we kind of go over the education as we paddle. So, it's been really fun to watch the kids learn new stuff,” said Paige Young, Adventure Crew’s program director.
She says the organization provides outdoor experiences, education, and transportation all for free, to remove any barriers that might keep young people from spending time in nature. More than 1,000 teens participated this past school year.
“I mean, students don't have to be here,” Young said. “It is voluntary, so they roll out of bed on Saturday morning to come out or stay after school. I think that is really inspiring and a true testament to Adventure Crew.”
By hosting these trips, Adventure Crew hopes city teens, who might not have the opportunity otherwise, are able to build a strong connection to the environment and preserving it. The organization says people don’t protect what they don’t love.
Generations of environmental history
That's part of the reason Lisa Link volunteers. She says playing in the creek as a kid fostered her decades-long love for paddling and environmental advocacy.
“I hope that they get the same types of experiences that I had when I was a kid,” Link said.
But, the Cincinnati native never played in this creek during her childhood.
“Growing up, I heard a lot about the Mill Creek and how terrible it was,” Link said. “My mom actually grew up in Elmwood, and she only tried to go into the creek one time and got into a lot of trouble.”
For decades, meatpacking, soap making and other factories operated along the creek. Much of their industrial waste ended up in the water. In the 1990s, the Mill Creek was named one of most polluted streams in the country by environmental advocacy organization American Rivers.
That degradation spurred organizations such as the Mill Creek Alliance to work on restoring the creek. After 30 years, the stream is seeing improved water quality, fish populations, and recreational opportunities.
Lessons learned
The kids with Adventure Crew are doing their part, too. Some pick up pieces of glass and trash from the creek banks and bring them back in their canoes. Others take a minute to listen to one of the volunteers explain the significance of a mussel shell they've discovered.
Coates, the high school student, says she wants to take what she learns here into her future.
“I want to go into environmental science, so this is a very good source for that,” Coates said.
She isn't the only one. According to Adventure Crew, 97% of students who participate in programs like this say they want to continue their environmental education.
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