Key Ideas & Recommendations from Chicago Recreation Forum

The following are some of the key ideas and recommendations delivered at the Recreation Forum in Chicago, Illinois, on March 22, 2007. Please feel free to add comments on these suggestions and how they can best be implemented.

Welcoming families is key. They’re a hard audience to draw because they’re being pulled in so many directions. Find the hooks that will draw them in by presenting them with opportunities for brand new experiences. We also need to make more connections with partners. We must do a better job of telling our success stories through documentation. The Field Museum is a good model for doing this.
Peggy Stewart, Chicago Park District

We have to make land valuable to people again by reconnecting them.
Michael Howard, Director of Eden Place

We have to go to our communities with information about the Forest Service. We are competing with contemporary influences on young people to engage them outdoors. We must find stakeholders in our cause, especially in our underserved populations.
Daryl Pridgen, USFS, Graduated Experiences

The change in climate at school districts over the years has limited the number of field trips and has started to erode the mandatory curriculum concept. If classes are only allowed one field trip per year, teachers don’t necessarily want it to be a mandatory one. This has to be addressed. We also have problems with groups approaching us with recreation activities that are inappropriate for the site.
Steve Swanson, Grove National Historic Landmark

We’ve got to figure out how to juggle the paradox of our public lands being loved to death while thousands of children from underserved communities are being left out.
John Elliot, Forest Preserve District of Cook County

To help us create better courses, you all could give us more accurate maps of your lands.
Gale Teschendorf, U.S. Orienteering Federation, member of U.S. Olympic Committee

Teens can drive this engine because they don’t know what they can’t do, so figure out ways to challenge them. Make sure they sail on ships: stewardship and fellowship. Also, the governor has just set aside $1 million to promote urban agriculture. We must tap into these new funds.
Wayne Schimpff, Board member of the Prairie Club

It’s important to promote adult education classes that are separate from family events.
Cyndi Duda, Environmental Education Specialist, USFWS

Agencies looking for partnership opportunities should turn to the colleges and universities in their areas and ask them to incorporate service learning into their curriculum. As Louv has said, it’s up to the adults to get the kids outside. When the parents aren’t available to do it, we need to find and work with the adults who are taking care of the kids after school.
Sydney Sklar, Assistant Professor at the University of St. Francis

Our children are book smart, but application is where we have the void. We need to provide children with the opportunity to observe nature and form their own perspectives.
Peg McGann, retired teacher

People need to hear about sustainability and natural resources in multiple ways. We decided we needed some branding for the resources of the Great Lakes. We've even got buses in England that promote the Great Lakes. However, in the states there seems to be unnecessary competition and duplication. This needs to change. We need to partner with tourism organizations to provide packages and branding to those who visit the Great Lakes as well.
Judy Beck, Lake Michigan Manager, EPA

As administrators and park directors, we need to remember where our roots start: open space. We need to protect it. We also need to better inform people about safety issues in the parks. In reality, there are not many dangerous wild animals roaming Chicago’s parks.
Chuck Balling, Director of the Glenview Park District

We must figure out how to provide both structured and unstructured experiences. Our offerings need to provide a combination of both. We also need to let people know they don’t need to go far away from home to experience the outdoors.
Betsy Quail, The Field Museum- Reporting on the breakout session "Kids in the Outdoors"

How we can develop caring behaviors:
-The mentoring relationship is key, whether it is an adult-to-child mentorship or a youth-to-child mentorship. -Keep kids in the system by going across institutions into multiple programs. Share resources and expertises across the board to create and experience ladder. This way we are also not competing with each other for resources.
-Provide programs that instill caring ethics in both children and adults.
-Provide more service learning experiences like volunteering and stewardship activities to give kids the skills they will later need to become mentors themselves.
Lucy Hutcherson, Chicago Wilderness- Reporting on the breakout session "Kids in the Outdoors"

-Partner with health providers and insurance companies that have money and an interest in keeping people healthy; get them involved in promoting walking activities. The Medical Mile in Little Rock, Arkansas, was funded by the medical community; use this as a model.
-Link schools with outdoor spaces. In some of the Mighty Acorns programs kids walk to the sites.
-There are all kinds of barriers that keep people from the outdoors: social, economic, physical, geographic, etc. Ex: Working people have to do their exercise after work, but the preserves are closed at night.
-Community transportation planning needs to be improved. There’s not a concentration on walking in city planning.
-Clubs such as walking clubs and hiking clubs should be promoted and advertized better.
-Create incentives like the Green Gardening program. Help people make the connection between health and recreation. Food is always a great incentive.
-Partner with other organizations with a vested interest in keeping people alive longer, live life insurance firms.
-There’s a lack of diversity at the table when we talk about these things. We need to be better at reaching out.
John Elliot, Forest Preserve District of Cook County- Reporting on the breakout session "Live Healthy, Discover Nature"

-Think in terms of starting locally; how can we create linear corridors between people and natural areas.
-Use a model for planning, such as deciding limits for acceptable change. Everything is okay until we come across something that doesn’t fit our mission.
-Engage the private sector. Then there’s opportunities for economic development and tourism.
-There are a lot of different user groups. Understand their recreation needs and wants.
-Idea for a "Trails Summit"- bring all trail users together for an opportunity for education and awareness. Include the public and user groups in planning, especially kids.
-Be careful that we’re not making exclusions and cutting certain groups off from access.
-Look for potential partnerships, such as friends groups.
-Share, share, share. Care, care, care.
Diane Banta, National Park Service- Reporting on the breakout session "Multi-use and Common Ground"

What can we do to better involve people right here- good community organizing:
-Don’t ask how to get communities involved, but ask how we can be involved with communities. -Find and listen to local leaders and empower them.
-Meet people where they are, not where you are. Be flexible when approaching your potential audiences.
-Seek new allies. Go beyond the usual suspects. Find a single point of contact.
-Mentors are so important.
-Transportation is a huge issue. We need more walkable destinations. Concept of a "biodiversity bus" to conduct organized trips to public lands.
-Treat volunteers well. Respect them, appreciate them, and reward them.
Glenda Daniel, Openlands Project- Reporting on the breakout session "Engaging Communities and Urban Partnerships"

-Maps our assets as a community of organizers and prioritize our needs. What are our accomplishments and where are our gaps?
-It would be great if we could get a grant that would fund bus travel anywhere.
-Do something visible in the environment, like build a garden or organize a clean up to get the community’s attention.
-Identify benefits that people will through participation. Cater to the different needs of different groups.
-Everyone needs to get together to advocate for the reinstatement of recess!
-Build ladders of opportunity. Start local and then spread to the parks and preserves. This concept can also be applied to how we serve different groups. Start kids off with one type of program and have them work through the system of opportunities.
Rebecca Blazer, Friends of the Parks- Reporting on the breakout session "Engaging Communities and Urban Partnerships"

In the 1980s the President’s Commission on Americans Outdoors (PCAO) not only emphasized the importance of volunteerism and corridors but also came up with a new strategy for funding. $1.5 billion dollars now comes out of the Highway Trust Fund to pay for transportation enhancements such as Rails to Trails, the Scenic Byways Program, and the Recreational Trails Program. We need these same visionary ideas to shape the future of recreation policy.

We’ve heard about the importance of easy-in, easy-out jobs. We had a park super intendant tell us he can’t easily hire kids just for the summer. We need to be able to do this so that people will look back fondly on their experience and be a friend of the parks forever.
Derrick Crandall, President, American Recreation Coalition