Throughout the book, we are shown the connection this child has with the land she calls home, from both a natural and a cultural context. I forget, I will take a twig of the cottonwood tree. I will take a little bag of prairie dirt. I cannot take the sky. I think many of us have had places in our lives that have spoken to us.
People often learn best from personal experiences and relationships with the subject at hand.
It is this desire to provide a connection to a place, and a field laboratory for examining concepts we learn in the classroom, that motivated Gary Deason in 1991 to form the School Nature Area Project, and for the past eight years we have actively worked with 211 schools to do just that. Today, these SNAP schools have many sources of support, ranging from local to national. At the local level, sportmen's clubs like Pheasants Forever and Ducks Unlimited have contributed thousands of dollars and hours of labor to support school nature areas. Regionally, the Twin Cities Tree Trust, the DNR School Forest and WILD School Sites programs, the DNR Conservation Partners grants, and the Center for School Change have all provided expert assistance with school and community efforts. Finally, at a national level, the National Wildlife Federation's Schoolyard Habitat Program and the EPA's environmental education grants have supported schools in Minnesota and throughout the U.S. in developing and utilizing school nature areas.