Having a healthy respect for the limits of our environment can help instill a strong environmental ethic no matter what career one chooses to pursue. I believe that ultimately these kids’ actions early on in life will lead them to take more of a personal stake in the well-being of their communities, and spread hope for a better future to others.

I remember a sky that turned purple at night instead of black; leaf shadows dappling the concrete from street trees as I walked to school in the morning alongside lanes bustling with cars. Growing up in the city, nature was all around me—and yet it was obscured. It was nothing short of an imaginative act to envision the soil beneath the pavement I walked each day, water beneath the soil. 

Last month, Grassroots Ecology staff and community members explored Byrne Preserve at night, viewing the oak woodland for the first time in the ultraviolet spectrum. We carried small ultraviolet flashlights that allowed us to examine the world that we cannot see with the naked eye.