The Potomac Highlands Dispatch
Phone: 301-264-3147
Email: [email protected]
P.O. Box 651
Mount Savage, MD 21545
Related links
* Earth Scouts main website
* One man leaves Boy Scouts after the "video game badge"
* About the beginning of a new Earth Scouts group
* Official Earth Scouts blog
* Maryland Park Service's Park Quest 2011
* Author Richard Louv talks with NPR about his book. "Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature Deficit Disorder." * with audio
* The next local Earth Scouts meeting is set for 2 p.m. on
May 22 at Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Greater Cumberland, located at 211 S. Lee St.
* Group member Jack Slocumb is leading an unaffiliated nature hike on Monday, April 25 beginning at 1 p.m. At Rocky Gap State Park. Free. Meet at DNR headquarters. Bring water and light snack. Will cancel in case of rain.
New Earth Scouts group to learn about, protect planet
* Next meeting is May 22
By Kevin Spradlin
PhDispatch.com
FROSTBURG, April 22 -- Get them outside.
The rest will come - well, naturally. At least that's the approach being taken by Kerry Shoemaker-Davis and her effort to get area children out of doors and enjoying the many natural resources for which Mountain Maryland is known.
Shoemaker-Davis and her son Hayden, 9, came across Earth Scouts about two years ago. Now, the Fort Ashby, W.Va., resident is moving forward with her own, Cumberland-based chapter.
The goal of Earth Scouts is to promote the outdoors and educate participants on how to protect the area's natural resources. Earth Scouts is intended primarily ages 3 to 13 but all ages are welcome, Shoemaker-Davis said. The local group is using the moniker "Rainbow Tribe."
The activities are "based around nature and healing the earth," she said.
Unlike other scouting efforts that focus on Christianity, Shoemaker-Davis said the Rainbow Tribe chapter is following the national Earth Charter to be all-inclusive of all religious faiths - as well as cultures, genders and pretty much any other category or label of which one can figure.
Interest so far has been slow. Still, "we're growing slowly, but growing is better than not," Shoemaker-Davis said.
Each Earth Scouts group is to learn about three major areas: environmental integrity; social justice; and democracy, nonviolence and peace. Age levels are generally broken into prekindergarten, and grades K-2, 3-5, 6-8 and 9-12.
Shoemaker-Davis said this first year of activities will include lots of hiking in the area's state parks and forests. She said camping and educational activities related to nature also will be a staple this spring and summer.
Shoemaker-Davis began looking for a program like the Earth Scouts when she realized Hayden was "spending entirely too much time in front of a screen."
"I see what's happening to this generation of children," she said. "they just spend too much time inside. This generation's lost their touch with nature."
For more information, contact Shoemaker-Davis by email.
Click here for the complete article.