Natural Youth

Meet nine inspiring kids who are bucking the video trend in favor of birding, kayaking, restoring habitat, and speaking out.

by M.G. Bertulfo and Katherine Millett
Photography by John Weinstein

Ben May Student Voice for Nature

Ben May has hiked Peru, gone scuba diving in the Cayman Islands, and canoed in Canada. But it’s in his Illinois hometown that this Glenbrook South High School senior tries to make a difference, as the only student representative on Glenview’s Natural Resources Commission. “Nature is truly amazing when it’s not disturbed or destroyed,” he says. “We’re trying to preserve what’s left in Glenview.”

Some of Ben’s most dramatic nature moments have been in his own backyard. “One time, we were in the kitchen. I was in sixth grade,” Ben recalls excitedly. “There was a big Cooper’s hawk. It came and picked some kind of sparrow off. It started eating it on the lawn….It’s this big hawk just tearing apart this little bird!” Ben’s attitude is: “If stuff’s going to happen in nature, it’s better to just let it happen. It’s part of life.” For two winters, a flying squirrel lived in his backyard.

Ben has served on the Natural Resources Commission (NRC) since 2006. At monthly meetings, the group grapples with environmental issues, including the emerald ash borer infestation, the flood of Techny Basin, and the regrading of the Chicago River’s West Fork Corridor. Ben has also helped to develop a Natural Resources Plan.

With globetrotting, swim meets, working at a golfing range, college applications, and hanging out with friends, why does Ben make the time to attend NRC meetings? He’s relaxed about his activism and jokes, “I’ve got a lot of time on my hands!” But when prodded, he finally answers, “How many 18-year-olds can say, ‘Hey, I sat around the table and talked with adults about issues that deal with the village I live in? Being able to voice your opinion is cool and a thing to be proud of.”

— MGB

Maeve Zolkowski Green Scientist

“It was empowering to be using power tools!” says Maeve Zolkowski, an eighth grader at Hawthorne Scholastic Academy in Chicago. Equipped with a Sawzall (and mom’s watchful eye), a drill, glass jars, foil, salt, vinegar, and ammonia, the budding scientist sought a new way to counter buckthorn. “My goal was to find a way for people, especially children, to easily treat buckthorn without supervision and without hurting the environment.” Her project, “Is There an Organic Way to Kill Buckthorn?” scored a 99.5 out of 100, advancing to the regionals of the Chicago Public Schools Area Science Fair.

Last year, Maeve learned about invasive common buckthorn from her science teacher, Sonja Oliveri. She experienced buckthorn’s staggering growth while doing habitat restoration at St. Paul Woods in Morton Grove. “We got to see how much there actually was.” Maeve learned to identify buckthorn, studied its life cycle, mapped its spread, and weeded.

Soon, Maeve realized her grandparents’ Riverwoods home was affected by the invasive species, too. They “own an acre of land with buckthorn sprouting everywhere. For years it had been pulled and removed. Now, my grandparents are in their late eighties. It’s becoming difficult to weed their yard.” Their land once ran wild with flowers like purple phlox, red trillium, brown-eyed Susans, and spring beauties. These days, only a few patches are left. “Buckthorn

So, she got permission to experiment on her grandparents’ yard. “I cut down eight buckthorn trees to stumps...and drilled a two-inch hole in them. Then, I poured salt, vinegar, or ammonia in and put either a glass jar or aluminum foil on.” Maeve was surprised by her success: “With the glass jar and salt, I was able to suspend any growth of buckthorn suckers for a whole month!”

 “Originally,” Maeve laughs, “the goal was just to get an A in science class.” But now, “I’d like to apply knowledge from this experiment to other invasive species, like garlic mustard….I wanted to find a solution that kids could handle because younger generations are trying to improve the world.”

— MGB

Daniel Pedro Monarch Maniac

Daniel Pedro was working in the computer lab with three friends when their monarch butterfly hatched.

“As soon as we got to the science classroom,” says Daniel excitedly, “we saw it, all crumply. First there’s this liquid like blood, but it’s not really blood, and the butterfly is really wet.” His eyebrows and voice rise, as if this were a question. “But the pumping of its heart straightens out its wings, and then it can fly.”

Daniel is tall for his age,  a gentle boy of 12 with intelligent eyes and cock’s-comb hair. His essay on global warming earned him a place at the El Valor summer camp last August. The organization runs after-school and summer programs in Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood.

“We go to this place called Midewin,” says Daniel of a trip to the arms depot turned National Tallgrass Prairie. “We saw all these kinds of bugs and plants there, and we saw bunkers, where they made bombs and dynamite. They are covered with grass.”

Harrison Park is one of Daniel’s local places for finding nature. He sometimes goes with his brother to pick up rocks “to see what kinds they are.”

Like the butterflies, Daniel and his partners began life in Mexico. One was even born in Angangueo, Michoacan, near the oyamel, or “sacred fir” forests that launch all the monarch butterflies that migrate through Chicago. He describes how the team raised their own monarch: placing the caterpillar on a milkweed plant, watching it spin itself into a j formation, carefully moving the green-and-gold chrysalis to a butterfly house where it turned black and orange. He also helped clear invasive weeds from open city lots, then planted them with milkweed, creating butterfly gardens for future monarchs.

In August, Daniel and team released “Ju-ju.” Though he knows males have two black dots in their hind wings, and females have thicker veins, Ju-ju flew away too fast to settle the gender question.

“Butterflies are cool,” says Daniel. “It takes five generations for them to come north from Mexico, and then one generation flies all the way back down there from Canada. The thing I don’t understand is, how do they know where to go and how to get there?” Daniel continues to ponder the mysteries, all the while expanding his ideas of nature and place.

— KM

Marie Klonowski On the River

Paddling changes how Marie Klonowski sees the world. She says if she were a hawk, instead of an 11-year-old girl, she would scarcely notice the large houses flanking her favorite refuge in Lake County — the Des Plaines River.

“I’d see those cars driving over that bridge,” she says, “but then I’d see a big, wide river with plenty of food in it, and lots and lots of trees. When I’m on the river, I don’t even notice the buildings.”

Marie started paddling when she was 6. She goes out year-round with her parents, Paul and Molly, and with friends like Sharon Colht, a forest preserve volunteer.

Sharon calls Marie “a natural” who draws efficient strokes through the water and steers with confidence. Marie has already earned her Competent Kayak Aide rating from the American Canoe Association and passed the Red Cross’s water rescue course. From the stern of the 34-foot canoe at Independence Grove, a reconstruction of long boats once used by fur traders, the otherwise shy girl commands as the “gouvernail,” calling out instructions to paddlers of all ages.

During lazy summer days, Marie simply enjoys being on the river. “We mostly drift and talk,” she says. “We might find an eddy — a little swirl — and play in it for a while, paddling in and spinning around. We talk and joke a lot, then we stop for a snack.”

Last December, Marie, her father, and Sharon discovered “Otterville,” the name they conferred on a stretch of river where they saw not only an otter, but muskrats and a great horned owl. A beaver swam alongside their boats for a while.

When Marie isn’t paddling, she’s volunteering at the forest preserves. She has gathered seeds for Restore Galore, interpreted on the cicada mobile, and supervised fishing. She also plays softball on Warren Township’s traveling team. “My school friends don’t paddle, and they wouldn’t want to learn,” she says without apparent regret. “I do other stuff with them, like play softball.”

As for her time on the water, she says: “I feel lucky.”

— KM

Kevin Corrigan Birds on the Brain

Kevin Corrigan, 9, started the Kev-Kev Birdwatch Club in July 2007. The club has a mascot, the American kestrel; its own Web site; and a motto: “Birdwatching — It’s chirp-rific!” Membership in the Naperville-based club has grown to 68 since its founding. “If you want to join, just ask us,” says Kevin.

It all began last summer when Kevin used birthday money to buy binoculars at a discount store. He thought they might be useful, in a general way, for seeing things. When his big Irish family later gathered in a park to celebrate a new baby, Kevin noticed birds flying around a large pole. Using the binoculars, he saw that sparrows were popping in and out of holes, clearly up to something.

Captivated, Kevin began watching birds in earnest. He needed no encouragement, although he enthusiastically birds with family members like his naturalist uncle, Thomas.

“The way he feels about birds is contagious,” says his mother, Mary.

Watching Kevin watch birds inspires a feeling of expectant calm. He stands by the window in his family’s kitchen and loses himself in the scene outside. His engagement is complete, unselfconscious. In a dreamy voice, he narrates.

“First these juncos come, and then you get the nuthatchers [sic]. They take one seed and fly away, then come back for another seed and fly away. Back and forth. Sometimes, if you’re lucky, you’ll even see a mourning dove out there. They walk along” — he imitates their bobbing gait — “like this.”

“Oh look, there’s Scurry,” says Kevin. “She likes to be by the flowers. And that’s Hopper in the tree. See how he goes up and down that branch? I don’t know why he does that. Titter’s my favorite. He jumps around a lot, like Scurry but a little different.”

Kevin names the juncos because, he explains, “they all have different kinds of activity. I don’t name the mourning doves, because they’re all alike — not like my juncos.”

“Finally,” he says, “the male and female cardinal will come. They’re a delight to watch.” His voice softens on “delight.” He means it. Kevin ventures that one could spend an entire day watching, “if you just had enough food to eat.”

“Birds have real beauty when they spread their wings, and you see all the intricate patterns,” says the 9-year-old, shaking his head. “It amazes me how many birds there are.”

— KM

Hannah Barg, Shruthi Kumar, and Ellie Penticoff Sharing a Secret World

It felt colder than 20°F on the sunless January day that Hannah Barg and Ellie Penticoff, both 14, went to Middlefork Savanna in Lake County, Illinois. A tiny bluebird made its jerky motions too far away for their zoom lenses.

“The thing I hate about cameras,” says Hannah, “is you can’t really capture what you see. It’s a different feeling to be here.”

The girls tried, though. Ellie crouched for a close-up of an animal’s bones, while Hannah angled to get white oak, red oak, and shagbark hickory all in one photo.

Hannah talks almost nonstop about rare species and preserves near her home. (Her father, Steve Barg, heads the Liberty Prairie Conservancy in Grayslake.) “Nature is my secret world,” she says.

Last year, for a project at Prairie Crossing Charter School in Grayslake, Hannah worked with partner Shruthi Kumar to photograph rare habitats at Rollins Savanna, Ryerson Woods, and Almond Marsh. They mounted an exhibit at Grayslake Public Library and then at a storefront gallery in Station Square. Now Hannah is working with Ellie on a new exhibit, reaching out to younger kids to contribute artwork.

“Savannas are really endangered,” Hannah says, “They used to be common, but when houses shot up, people weren’t thinking about savannas. And they’re really important, because they combine prairie and woodland, and lots of animals depend on them.”

At Almond Marsh, the girls discovered that a proposal to expand Route 120 would bring an eight-lane highway perilously close to the preserve’s heron rookery. “I hadn’t visited Almond Marsh before,” says Shruthi, “so it was new to me. We took pictures of the rookery after the birds had already flown south. Their nests are so well built and so high in the trees. Spending time in the preserves, I saw ecosystems thriving, but I also saw them threatened.”

“I have a lot sharper eye than last year,” Hannah says. “I thought there were no colors in winter, that everything was just dead, but there are so many!

“I hope I’ll grow up to be like my dad,” says the already mature Hannah. “He sees everything. He is so connected with nature, and I hope some of that sticks with me.”

— KM

Edward Warden Zest for Learning

Fifteen-year-old Edward Warden doesn’t sit still for long. On weekends, you’ll find him peeking into birdhouses, discovering a hornets’ nest, spreading prairie plant seed, or salvaging an old nest-cam. “I like being outdoors,” he says and grins. “I like being out there learning about ecosystems and caring for them.” Over the last three years, Edward, who is home-schooled, has taken serious initiative to learn about his twin passions, birds and botany.

He became a regular on birdwalks with Chicago Audubon at the North Park Village Nature Center and the Chicago Ornithological Society at North Pond. “Before going on the walks, I never knew what a warbler was. Warblers are these beautiful, colorful birds. On the really good days, we’d see upwards of ten species!”

At the nature center, Edward found a resource in volunteer leader Wayne Svoboda. Frequently, Edward would ask, “What’s this plant? What’s its Latin name?” He also joined a volunteer field trip to Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie. “I learned a lot of new plants that day. The one that stood out the most is this really vibrant flower called the royal catchfly….Virginia mountain-mint was another one. Everybody broke off the little heads and put it in our mouths. It tasted good!”

Prairie restoration taught Edward an unexpected lesson. He recounts how he and other volunteers “were intensely working” to clear an area behind Hawk Hill of invasive plants. “During that first year I was seeing our work, but I wasn’t seeing how it was affecting anything…. Now, about two years later, you see lots of savanna and prairie plants starting to come up. I’m glad I stuck it out. One thing that really got driven home is patience.”

Recently, Edward drew upon his workday experiences and testified at a community meeting, an open forum to discuss restoration. Edward estimates 70 people attended — he and one friend were the only kids. “I was about the last person to speak. I stood up, and my heart started pounding like crazy,” he laughs. “I’m never going to forget that moment. I managed to get my opinion out. It basically was this: The North Park Village Nature Center, the people who work there, have taught me so much. These ecosystems have taught me a lot.”

— MGB

Related Articles:
Into the Wild: Your Kids in Nature, CW Spring 2008
Special Report-People: Nurture & Nature, CW Summer 2007
Growing Green Kids, CW Fall 2004
Kids Wild About Nature, CW Spring 2002