Rough Draft!

Imagine an eight year old who had never ventured from the suburbia of Northeast Ohio standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon for the first time. Or standing at the base of the Teton Mountains in Wyoming anticipating a hike through it's hills. Or laying in Rocky Mountain National Park next to a genuine campfire watching the moon rise above the mountains and seeing more stars than she'd seen even during school trips to the planetarium. Imagine how these sites would affect an eight year old girl from Mentor, Ohio who had hardly ventured beyond the contained neighborhoods and highways that surrounded her.

I consider myself fortunate that my experience with nature began at a young age. As I transitioned from childhood to my teenage and young adult years, exposure to some of the most impressive natural sites in our country became a part of my concept of nature and how we interact with it. While other kids my age were traveling to Disney World or visiting their Grandma in Texas, my family of five drove our rusty minivan and vintage 70's pop-up trailer cross country to the Rocky Mountains. Over the past twelve years we've spent weeks with our retro pop-up in some of the Rockies' stunning park and campsites. As a young child the sites I saw amazed me; no photograph I'd seen could do justice to the magnitude of a mountain range or the Grand Canyon or Old Faithful. As I grow older, the sites continue to awe me, though this amazement has developed into a genuine respect and admiration.

The first few trips we made to the mountains had the most significant impact on my environmental ethics. As we grow older, we are taken from a naïve state of ignorance and slowly introduced to new concepts about the world around us. Our universe grows from our neighborhood to a country and an entire planet and even solar system. These concepts are learned through our education systems, our family’s narrative, television, and storybooks. However, nothing can teach as well as practical experience. I firmly believe that there is no way to teach a young child about their respective size than to take them to one of nature’s major creations. During the course of our family vacations, I quickly realized that we are a miniscule part of nature and our world; it is impossible for anyone who stood where I stood to feel any differently.

This realization has become central to my beliefs and actions throughout the later years of my life. I don’t consider myself a religious person; the strict rules and restrictions of the Roman Catholic faith never set well with me. However, I believe that my experiences with and immense respect for nature has created, or at least enhanced, a form of faith for me. This respect is grounded in the belief that something unnatural must have helped form the world that we live in. Though I have trouble believing some of the stories of the Bible I can see many of its concepts in our surroundings. Furthermore, I believe that one can live well in the eyes of God by living life to the fullest and appreciating all that we are given. For me, the environment is one of the greatest gifts we have been provided and therefore I feel it is each person’s responsibility to protect it and enjoy it.

Stemming from the experiences I have had with nature, I have become very aware of how our actions affect the environment around us and how much damage mankind is capable of doing. This consciousness has guided my actions and motivations throughout the past few years. I have grown more conscience of how my actions affect the environment and how I can become more responsible for caring for it. Small steps - recycling, using cloth bags while shopping, not drinking bottled water, walking instead of driving - have been integrated into my daily routine. Admittedly, I still have a long way to go; there is always some way we can improve our commitment to preserving nature. However, I recognize the need for responsible living and have a strong motivation to keep working towards it – a family photo from a past vacation always does the trick.