By Alaska Sea Grant on Comments Off on Youth camp expands across coastal Alaska
Images-Alaska Sea Grant
Now in its fourth summer, the Coastal Connection Camp program is serving more students and communities in the Gulf of Alaska region than ever before, offering hands-on activities involving science, technology, engineering, arts and math for middle schoolers. What began with seven participants in Valdez has now grown ten-fold to engage more than 70 students in Valdez, Seward, Whittier and Kodiak. Interest in the program from families continues to grow, with many communities needing waitlists.
New camp leaders participated in training focused on leadership skills, team building and youth development in preparation to lead Coastal Connection Camps in their communities. Leigh Lubin, Alaska Sea Grant’s education specialist, described it as “four intensive days of creating, learning, playing and laughing.” Experts from the Chugach Regional Resources Commission and the Seward Prevention Coalition provided local context and insight. In addition to the new trainees, many youth leaders from last year’s training returned this year to lead camps in their communities.
The camps support students’ cognitive, social, emotional and physical development, while giving them opportunities to explore and learn about their local coastal environments. Activities focus on outdoor exploration, team-building, cultural connections and personal resilience. Some of the activities for the kids included kayaking, exploring tidepools, exploration with a remotely operated underwater vehicle, and using nets to sample plankton.
In Kodiak, the camp worked with staff from the NOAA Kodiak Fisheries Research Center to engage kids in collecting tidal invertebrates and adding them to the touch tank for future visitors. It was a meaningful contribution for some of the kids who remembered exploring the touch tank when they were younger.
The Valdez camp had a number of kids that returned from last year and that signed up for two weeks of camps. Good weather created opportunities for swimming and paddleboarding in rivers and lakes. Students reflected that they gained new skills at “noming (eating) on wild stuff” and that camp sparked their curiosity in watersheds, intertidal invertebrates, and how they survive during low tide.
Seward hosted a successful pilot “Just For Girls Week,” which included activities with the Alaska Office of Boating Safety’s Kids Don’t Float program. Campers played in a pool using different life vests, wearing different clothes, falling out of a canoe and getting back in, and even sinking a canoe and retrieving it. Their camp finished with a kayak day trip in Aialik Bay, Kenai Fjords National Park.
After two years of collaboration and planning, Whittier hosted its first camp this summer in partnership with Whittier Parks and Recreation, with kids getting the chance to experience paddleboarding on Kenai Lake.
Overall, the youth leaders observed campers overcoming fears, talking about how much fun they were having, growing more comfortable in nature, and embracing Leave No Trace ethics. The experience sparked new aspirations for some, reporting that they now want to become marine biologists or scientists.
“I’m really excited and gratified to see the program’s growing partnerships and enthusiastic participation,” said Lubin. “I think it’s going to continue to make a lasting impression as it expands across coastal communities. I can see the personal growth in these kids and the stronger connection to their local environments as they deepen their scientific understanding.”
