Janice Kelley is an independent informal educator, author, and principal at Nature Detectives, an after-school enrichment program for children with curious minds and a love for problem-solving.
Learn more about Janice's work on her website at NatureLegacies.com. View additional resources by visiting the show notes at Talaterra.com.
Episode 7: Janice Kelley, Nature Detectives
March 7, 2019
Tania Marien
Welcome to Talaterra, a podcast about freelance educators working in natural resource fields and environmental education. Today, my guest is Janice Kelly, an independent informal educator, author and principal at Nature Detectives, an afterschool enrichment program for children with curious minds and a love for problem solving. How did Janice create Nature Detectives? What does she do in this program? And what is the focus of her current book tour? Let's find out.
Thank you, Janice, for your time this afternoon and for sharing your story with listeners for this podcast.
Janice Kelley
Thank you for inviting me.
I've been reading your writing about the Fair Oaks Bridge, which is the focus of your new book and your writing is very thoughtful and very calming. And I can feel the world slow down as you focus on particular elements of what you're looking at. And I can tell that you observe the world in a very active way. So I suspect that your appreciation and love of nature goes back quite a ways. And so I would like to start our conversation by asking you this question. What is your first memory of enjoying the outdoors?
I used to play in my backyard a lot and swing on the swings. I rode my bike around the block, go on walks. I don't remember really how old I was. But I know I I always liked being outdoors. We went camping a lot, as I got a little older and I was always walking and being outside. I never really thought of it as a vocation. I didn't know that I liked doing it.
Tania Marien
So when did you realize that nature was important to you? And that it could be your career.
Janice Kelley
That was not until 10 years ago, actually. When I want a break, when I really want to get away from the day-to-day life, I will take a drive. And in this particular day, I drove to Point Reyes, in San Francisco Bay, and I was driving down the road. I took the exit off the freeway, and there was a creek by the road and I had the windows open. I was listening to the creek. I stopped. I just want to listen to this. I wanted to just be part of of that experience. I listened a while. And then after a time of enjoying that, I got in the car and I saw the green hills. And I thought what a miracle this is, this is beautiful. This is what I want to share and capture. And after that I decided, okay, I really want to do environmental education. I want to do something that I can share this beauty of nature so people can appreciate and understand it. And so that was the beginning of my journey. I looked for resources to get educated in a topic so I could make a career out of it. I looked for work that gave me the opportunity to be working on the environment, and I progressed from there.
Tania Marien
What were you doing then? At this time.
Janice Kelley
I had been doing community outreach. A lot of writing. I had been doing some public relations work. And I decided that I really wanted to stop promoting everybody else's programs and do my own program. I wanted to be the leader of the program. And that was where I really found my joy. So I was fortunate that shortly after I had this experience of wanting to work on the environment, I became the LEAF steward program coordinator for the Sacramento Tree Foundation. I was responsible for developing and implementing a volunteer program to train adults on aspects of urban forestry, planting a tree leading a planting, understanding tree biology. It was an eight-week program that I implemented. And we did that for three consecutive times. It won the best urban forestry training program of the year that I did it. And it was one of my favorite jobs. I love the training element. I love meeting the people. I love creating the program. And after that I went into graduate school to get my degree in Recreation, Parks and Tourism, my Master's degree. So that opened up more opportunities for me because I worked with California State Parks and I worked on their state park brochures and a lot of research on different parks. And after I left state parks, I went to Sierra Nevada Conservancy and did more than 100 narratives on California historical landmarks, so I was still working on the tourism, part of the work of getting people outdoors and understanding the destinations and the history. Then I did some field trip curriculum, which was really exciting for the john Muir National Historic Site, which was field trip stations getting kids involved, teacher training. I created the field trip curriculum, and then I decided it was too good to sit in my in a file drawer, and I knew that they would use it. So I created a book. And so now that book is called "Through the Eyes of john Muir: Practices in Environmental Stewardship." I was actually embarrassed the first time I went to the site, because I didn't hardly know who John Muir was. And there I was talking with the experts at the site. Well, I learned a lot about him and created that project. And that actually gave me leverage to do another field trip curriculum project at the Lewis and Clark National Historical Park in Astoria, Oregon. That expanded my knowledge to archaeology and trade of the Native Americans, the Chinook people and their culture. So that was really exciting to do. And since then I've just been doing writing and later on started my blog, which turned into my book. And Nature Detectives was my way of applying my skills so that kids could really be involved in nature at school. They didn't necessarily have to go to the park to learn that there's nature they could learn about it in their own campus after school.
Tania Marien
That is fantastic. That is a lot of work. And you that's amazing. It really is amazing that you you wrote interpretive copy for 100 different sites.
Janice Kelley
And I've done some interpretive writing for interpretive panels for a couple of different, as a subcontractor for, for a couple of different interpretive planners. That's, that's also been really good. So, as projects come in, I do those things, enjoy it.
Tania Marien
Then your clients have been interpretive planners, they've been historical sites, they've been schools as well?
Janice Kelley
Public agencies, I, I also would work with UC Davis to do a publication on invasive species, which I thought I know nothing about this. So I did a lot of research on invasive species. And now every time I go to the Bay to the Embarcadero in San Francisco and I look at the cargo ships, I look at them differently because now I know that they have so many invasive species coming into the port. Like how is that affecting our Bay and, and I see that when I go out to the river to the parkway, I can see plants growing that aren't supposed to be there. So the more you learn, the more you are attentive to the things that happen. And that's really what I've learned from my "Mornings on Fairoaks Bridge" blogs. People say I take great pictures and I'm very proud of that. I am lucky to be at the right place at the right time because I'm there often enough to see the interactions of the wildlife to see when the egret arrives. Very carefully walking the riverbank very quiet, never makes a sound and then suddenly the Great Blue Heron will show up and squawking and the great the the egret instantly flies away. Like, I don't want anything to do with that. So I love those interactions of the ducks. And so I learned those things by being there regularly.
Tania Marien
Yes. And, you know, that is one of my questions I had for you. You are there so often and you've documented it so well. What change Have you seen over the two years? I understand it's two years that you've been doing writing about the bridge. What change have you seen in those two years time?
Janice Kelley
When I very first started in September of 2016 and through the fall. It was a it was a pretty big salmon run and I would see the fishermen catch the fish many times, and lots of fishermen, and I would see the salmon jumping and jumping and jumping. And then the next fall, it was not nearly as abundant, because I didn't see hardly anybody actually catching fish. I know they did. They just may not have been doing it right there or when I was watching, but I didn't see as many come through. I didn't see as many jumping. Obviously, the beginning of 2017 was our serious flooding. So that changed the river a lot - overflowed the banks overflowed the parkway. A lot of the waterfowl stayed away from months because it was too deep. They went they wanted to go to shallow water. So I've seen I see seasonal changes. But what I have noticed is that the salmon run is really the driving force for all the wildlife to come. And when there is less salmon, the wildlife are just not as plentiful. The first time I would watch the ducks feed in the channel, and I didn't see as many of them. I saw salmon, I just don't think there was quite as many. So those are things that I see over time. They could have been somewhere else. They just weren't where I was watching. And from a consistency standpoint, it was different.
Tania Marien
Now you've been having author events with your new book and book signings. So where have you been speaking about your book?
Janice Kelley
I was at the Fair Oaks Library on a Sunday. I had about 15 people there. And I, I did readings of three of my entries of my book. And people really enjoy listening. They tell me that they can see the visual images when they close their eyes. I don't even have to see the picture. I spoke at the Sacramento book Collectors Club the day before, on Saturday. And they loved to hearing about it. They they were asking you so many questions, because they are very literary. So they were not only asking me questions about the experience, and when did you start going and why? which is what I tell them to begin with. They also wanted to know how did you put it together? How did you publish it? So people aren't really interested in why I do it and how I would ever get started in thinking about it. And often they asked me, aren't you afraid to be there by yourself? And I say people are just not there at six o'clock in the morning that I sold many books from there and people are giving them as gifts. People are wanting them because they just want that experience. And I'm going to be speaking at Folsom REI in April, and the Folsom Library in May and I'm still looking for other places to speak. I just found out today that I'm going to have an event at the Avid Reader in Sacramento. I don't know when. So I'm continuing to looking for places to speak about it and read and share this abundant wildlife and this beautiful resource that we have right here in our our neighborhood.
Tania Marien
Yes, yes. Very nice. You mentioned you were searching for places. Have you looked at the indie bound website to look for the listing of the independent booksellers in your area?
Janice Kelley
No, I haven't done that. But I have looked done a Google search of bookstores in the area and call many of them. And some, some are not a good fit. Some are used. And so I continue to search that. People have told me to try hotels or resorts as a place where people would be interested in reading and I haven't yet tried that.
Tania Marien
Yes. And conventions people visiting the area visitors bureaus.
Janice Kelley
Yeah, I haven't tried that yet. I'm still in the very early stages of developing readings for the book. So those are all good ideas.
Tania Marien
Through your work you strive to establish meaningful connections between people and place. And so how do you determine which connections to make? Of all the possible ways you can begin to tell a story, how do you narrow your focus? And what is your first step?
Janice Kelley
In telling a story?
Well, I like to engage people. I like to ask them a question. Because once you ask a person a question, it gives them an opportunity to share what is special about that place for them. Have you been here before? What did you What was it like? And then we can come up with the commonalities of oh, okay, well, did you know that salmon come here through the fall? Or did you know that the turkey vultures are here or that the coyote is is attracted to the rabbits? And they usually have some kind of experience already. So that helps build the story because once they're engaged, then it becomes more meaningful for them. I've showed the pictures from my book to my Nature Detectors, and they get really excited because it's the real thing. And I was just sharing a story last week about a bear encounter that my family had at Sequoia National Park. And it seems like many people have had bear encounters and they all love to share their story. And that really gets them excited about being outdoors like oh, wow, wow. And, and then they really it's suddenly it's like, Wow, that's really exciting.
Tania Marien
Tell us about Nature Detectives. When did you launch this programming for schools, families and cultural sites?
Janice Kelley
I started Nature Detectives in February of last year, 2018. It was a trial. I went to the school site. And she said, "You know, I think we have a niche of parents that would think that this would really be something they want to do. Let's try it." So I created a flyer. We sent it out through the school distribution, and I got 16 kids, and they loved it. We were sharing wildlife and wild things. So I brought in seashells I brought in pine cones, I brought in bear paw pictures, so they could really draw an experiment. What did that look like and feel it and they loved it. And so then like, okay, what am I going do next what am I going to do the next month, I expanded to a second school. And then I actually had a third school for about a month. So I went all the way through the school year. And then I was doing some planning in the summer of how can I make this better? How can I improve the program? So I started in the fall with a couple of different schools. Now we do a fall program. So it's about tree studying trees and habitat and the creatures that live in them. We get out our magnifying glasses and our tape measures and they go study the outdoors from the tree bark to the grasses. We always have our Nature Detective field, field journals. That's a very important piece of the program because they love drawing and writing in their journals. They're very important. So we do a fall program that where they look at leaves and they draw leaves and oak galls and more pine cones because it's a texture. It's something that's really interesting for them to see. Sometimes they pick them up around school campus, sometimes I bring them. In the winter we've done more quiet study. We've done listening. We've done rain sticks. We've done we're going to do a blind walk tomorrow. It's a sensory walk, what can you feel they've laid on their backs and put their finger up? And what do you what are the sounds that you hear put up a finger when you hear sound, so it's more quiet listening in the winter. In the spring, we're going to do rebirth and birds nests and pollination. So it's kind of getting back outside. I found that seasonal was a lot easier for them to do and they love it. The parents love it. I take a lot of pictures and they pose and they they have a great time.
Tania Marien
Congratulations. That's, that is success right out the gate.
Yeah, that's exciting.
Janice Kelley
Yeah, they have a good time. And how long are your programs? How long is each program.
It's one hour per week. And I do it now an eight-week segments. So it's fall for eight weeks. Then I do a two or three week holiday. So there's holiday cards or nature gifts, then I do eight weeks for winter wisdom. And now I'm about ready to start oh, in a couple more weeks the spring program, which will also be eight weeks. So if there's any time left in the school year, we'll probably do some, some fun, you know, bear encounters or or getting ready for summer kind of thing. I found that eight weeks is really a lot easier to blend a lot of diversity into it storytelling, art, exploration, as the parents like it that way and it's easier for me I can retain the kids over a period of time.
Tania Marien
And all this happens within the classroom.
Janice Kelley
It happens on the school campus after school, either in their library or in a classroom, wherever they have an open space, but we are rarely inside. We usually are out. We are inside when it rains. In fact, it was a good time for us to be doing rain sticks because we were inside making our rain sticks. And then the following week, it was raining and so we were simulating rain and I brought in a balaphon, which is an African version of a xylophone. And that was the background and that was telling stories that were rain inspired. And so they were making rain and it turned out to be a really fun activity for them.
Tania Marien
On your website, you link to an article about how a doctor is now prescribing and other doctors are prescribing nature as a prescription. And the doctor makes an interesting comment in this article where he mentions that a generation of kids don't know how to be outdoors. How does Nature Detectives teach kids how to be outdoors?
Janice Kelley
They are outdoors. They learn how to interact with it. They study the tree. They are running around. They study the grasses. They look at the insect I've had them do mapping of an area and they were so fascinated with the whole like look at the hole, and they put their arm all the way down the hole and they go How deep is it and then we've done measuring the tree. And so they're very interested in measuring how big is the tree how big tree and I said, okay, the trees 48 inches around. How tall are you? How does that relate to how tall you are? And the more that they study the tree, the leaves the insects, that gets them excited to do it more, and they're not sitting. They are active, they are running. They're not fearful. They're having fun. I am really not the lecturer. I'm not really the teacher. In Nature Detectives. I'm the facilitator that gives them the opportunity to explore and and do what they do naturally. And the prescription for nature is really about getting outside for everyone because it reduces stress. It really addresses the problems of ADD Children because they can focus on something that engages them, it lowers blood pressure. So those things are really measurable. And it actually can invoke a sense of peace for everyone. If you are willing to put the time in. Not everybody wants to be outside. But there are benefits even for five minutes of just being out in the air and just feeling that. I started going to the bridge because I really wanted that feeling of peace in my life. I love the idea of watching the water. And then it came that oh, I can write about this too. So it's really a dual purpose. Last night, I took a bike ride along the parkway and whenever I see people stop, and just watch the river. I say, Oh, well, let me give you a gift. I give them my card. And I say if you'd like, if you really enjoying the river, I love to share my blog with you. Because this gives you a lot more information, the narratives of different times and the photos and some photos and video and you can enjoy this because you're already showing that you really enjoy it. And so I love to share that. And the kids just get really excited. They really love being outdoors. They literally love the exploration piece of it.
Tania Marien
You mentioned that some people don't like being outside and I've crossed paths with both adults and children who prefer not, prefer to have nothing to do with the outdoors. I was wondering, with all the interaction that you have with people, what elements of nature create the most anxiety for children.
Janice Kelley
Well, some people are afraid of spiders. Some people are afraid of worms, they don't like to get dirty. And then some -- that's why they go outside! Because they get to see that stuff and they get to be dirty. So, there are children that are rarely sensitive, and loud noises bother them. Touch is really a difficult thing for them. And so in that case, it's a really slow initiation. Okay, you don't need to go out and run and play. But let's just come here and just feel the tree bark. Why don't we just see what that feels like? And that way they it's safe. I'll go with them. I'll hold their hand. A lot of times, people, the kids will say they will what me to hold their hand as they're explore. Let's just feel the tree bark. Let's just look at the grass and see if there's something interesting in there. And where they can feel safe. They need to feel safe first, and maybe that's just they just don't feel safe outside.
Tania Marien
Where would you like to take the Nature Detectives program?
Janice Kelley
I would like to be able to present the Nature Detectives program for sites or nature centers or conservancies that don't have a program and they don't even know how to create one. I would love to be able to present this as a program. Turnkey. Here's what you need to do. It's very simple. It's very inexpensive. I am still in the process of making it so that is basically a downloadable item. I'm working on a Leader's Guide right now. That will make it so that a site can say okay, here's what I do week-to-week. And here's the supplies I need and how here's how I make it go. I would love to do that.
Tania Marien
Is there anything else about Nature Detectives that you'd like listeners to know?
Janice Kelley
I think Nature Detectives, it's a lifestyle choice and some parents don't really understand nature themselves. They don't understand what nature education is. They don't know how to interact with their children outside. Because they just never were never. They never had that education themselves. And I would love for people to think of Nature Detectives, or any outdoor education program as a lifestyle choice, not just "Oh, great. They're having fun for an hour this week." Because when you just say, "Oh, it's an afterschool program. for an hour and they're done," that doesn't give an opportunity to open them up to support themselves when they're elsewhere. That's my answer. I like it. I like them to think of it as a lifestyle choice rather than a one-hour make-and-take kind of program. It really is a decision.
Tania Marien
What do you think needs to happen for people to get that type of thinking into their their normal daily life? And then what also what does Nature Detectives do now that opens the door to that happening just a little bit?
Janice Kelley
I can answer the first, the second question much easier than the first. This program gives children the opportunity to explore without being graded, without being evaluated. They don't fill-in worksheets. They do it all hands-on experience at their level of what they can do. Oftentimes they will say, can you help me spell this word, I don't know how to write that. And then I help them. So it's building their literacy skills. And it's building their excitement because they're seeing things. It's not part of their normal daily life. They may live in an apartment. They haven't seen a pine cone. They don't know what an oak gall is, and they certainly haven't seen feathers up close. So this gives them a real chance to see these things in their neighborhood that they may not have an opportunity to experience and once they see it, they can get excited about it. And once they're excited, they can learn to appreciate it other places and share that excitement with their parents or their other family members. And then it is kind of builds, "Hey Mom, can we go out to the park, I want to study a tree. We felt the bark, we looked for insects we measured, come on, let's go measure!" And that it's what helps perpetuate it when they they get excited and they want to share it with somebody else. And that's the same with the story. When they get excited about the story, then they want to share it with somebody else, then suddenly, oh, that's cool. Because I have had children hear a story and instantly they want to tell somebody else about it. And that's really exciting. The answer to the first question is how do we change the minds? It's a long process because we have so many competing demands for our our attention and our time. I think when people are personally affected by something, they start thinking a little differently. We've had a lot of fires, we've had floods. And people are thinking a little differently about where they live and how they live. And they've been personally affected. They go, "Oh, I guess I'm gonna have to change how I view things, how I do things, or I need to know more about the power of nature." Because where we can't really control all of that we can know about it, we can prepare for it. So and being ethical about it, being caring about it. Being ethical is really important. Because that that leads us to preservation and stewardship and really caring for something. Not everybody is that way and guiding people toward making better choices over time I think will be helpful. It's a long process. It's a re-learning process. And the more connections you have with the outdoors or with people who love the outdoors, I think the faster that shift will happen.
Tania Marien
Learn more about the Nature Detectives program, Janice's books, and her consulting work by visiting the show notes for this episode at Talaterra.com.