ROOM TO ROAM
The Celery Fields soon will be welcoming youngsters eager to learn about nature. Photo courtesy
Sarasota County
AUDUBON SOCIETY LAUNCHES KIDS PROGRAM TO COMBAT 'NATURE
DEFICIT DISORDER'
By Cooper Levey-Baker
Associate Editor
Hoping to expose as many children as possible
to the joys of the natural world, the Sarasota
Audubon Society has launched a collaboration with Around the Bend Nature Tours and
Sarasota County Schools to bring students to
the Celery Fields for a day of outdoor learning.
Starting in January,
groups of kids from
area schools will travel to the Celery Fields,
where they will be
supplied with binoculars to identify birds
and learn about native
plants and the ecology of the wetlands. The
cost of the program ($700 per trip) is being
split by the Audubon Society and the Gulf
Coast Community Foundation.
Audubon Society President Jeanne Dubi says
the program was created to combat "nature
deficit disorder," the increasing distance between local children
and the wilderness.
The term is a joke (no
There's a lot more to Sarasota such medical condithan the beaches.
tion exists, of course),
but the need is very
Jeanne Dubi
real. The Society adPresident
Sarasota Audubon
vertised the excur-
