Time for Cooling Off and Connecting
MASSACHUSETTS > BROOKLINE CHAPTER > KIDS EARTH ACTION CLUB
The Brookline Chapter of Mothers Out Front has started a new group, the Kids Earth Action Club, whose aim is to engage children and families in shaping a healthier future and livable climate.
As a kick-off event, we hosted a family nature walk on Saturday, August 14, 2021 in a small gem of a nature sanctuary, Hall’s Pond, located in an urban area of Brookline. We considered rescheduling the event given the heatwave, but the cool shade of the trees proved to be refreshing. Holding the event in the heat was quite illustrative of the state of our climate: our temperatures are rising and trees play an important role in helping us out!
We began our time with a book about trees, inviting us to look up overhead (“A hawk!” exclaimed a child) and all around and to consider that trees, like us, can be small and strong.
Through the forest and in the pond we found things living and dead, natural and human-made, turtles, fish, tadpoles, dragonflies, birds, a blue heron, cattails. We looked with our eyes, listened to our surroundings, and touched the earth. We moved and stayed still, but mostly moved! This group of 16 people was mostly comprised of kids – 10 of them! – ranging from age 2 to 9. They ran loops, climbed trees, and enjoyed a scavenger hunt.
To end our time, we invited the children’s thoughts on nature and arranged their words into a poem:
Shady
Tadpoles, turtles
Listening, running, laughing
We look forward to more opportunities to gather, enjoy nature, explore, play, laugh and learn together, and turn our experiences into poetry, inspiration, and action. Come join us in our next event and our efforts to be lots of Cs: a caring community of children for climate change!
Bernardine Ileto Chan is a volunteer with Mothers Out Front in Brookline, MA. She enjoys finding ways to work for climate justice alongside her children, integrating her background in teaching and spiritual care in these endeavors.