could be improved?”). This year we had a habitat map of camp with fold-up cards that showed “what lives where,” a model bat and a model wolf spider with cards that discussed different parts and different activities, and a do-it-yourself food web game that allowed the user to connect different parts of the food web here at camp. We finish with a brief discussion of resources available, including museums, organizations, state and federal agencies, and more. We try to make this as specific as possible based on the camps and locations that our participants come from. The last thing is filling out the evaluation form (this is where we first received the idea of expanding the clinic), the awarding of completion certificates, and hugs all around for a job well done and new friends made. Results The clinic has both direct and indirect benefits. Our Pemi campers benefit from it because we use it to train our own nature staff. Our regular preseason is jam-packed (as is, I’m sure, yours) with workshops on child development, training on behavior management, discussions of safety issues and risk management, and lots of work preparing camp for the campers. There is little time for in-depth discussion of specific program-teaching techniques such as we do in the clinic. I imagine that many of your staff attend other specialty clinics during the pre-preseason. You don’t expect an archery counselor, for example, to teach archery unless he or she has been properly trained (as the American Camp Association standards require). Why shouldn’t this be true for something as important as nature? We hope that the clinic itself may serve as a model for similar clinics that could be developed elsewhere. As I said earlier, because one of the goals of the clinic is to teach participants to teach about nature in nature, you must know your own area. Hence, the clinic is very much place-based. So, versions need to be developed for other places besides northern New England. I hope that this article will inspire some of you to do so. This would truly spread the benefits to a much, much wider audience and help camps to deal with the unfortunate results of our detachment from nature. I, and my colleagues, stand ready and willing to help you do it. Editor’s Note : Read about the Camp Pemigewassett Nature Instruction Clinic from a participant’s perspective on page 64. Photos on pages 1, 26, and 27 courtesy of Camp Pemigewassett, Wentworth, New Hampshire. Reference Louv, R. (2008). Last child in the woods. Chapel Hill, North Carolina: Algonquin Books. R. Laurence Davis, PhD, is in his forty-fifth year as director of Nature Programs and Teaching at Camp Pemigewassett in Wentworth, New Hampshire, and is professor of earth and environmental sciences at the University of New Haven where he also is coordinator of the undergraduate Environmental Science Program. He holds AB and AM degrees in earth sciences from Washington University in St. Louis and a PhD in geological sciences from the University of Rochester. He has served on ACA’s Committee on Children in Nature and as chair of the Geological Society of America’s Geology and Society Division. He is a fellow of the Geological Society of America. Contact the author at rldavis@newhaven.edu. CAMPING magazine • March/April 2014 31
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