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ECO SPEAKS CLE
ECO SPEAKS CLE is where the eco-curious explore Northeast Ohio's unique and thriving environmental community. Each episode delivers thoughtful and informative interviews with local sustainability leaders and offers tips to help listeners connect, learn, and live with the community and planet in mind. ECO SPEAKS CLE is hosted by Diane Bickett and produced by her son-in-law, Greg Rotuno. Diane draws on experiences and relationships developed during her 31-year environmental career to showcase the impactful work shaping Cleveland's environmental future in a podcast that speaks to sustainability newcomers and masters alike.
ECO SPEAKS CLE
The Cleveland Children's Outdoor Bill of Rights with Renee Boronka
Happy Earth Day! In this episode, we discuss the importance of connecting kids with nature and the Cleveland Outdoor Bill of Rights, with Renee Boronka, Director of Conservation Education and Outreach at the Western Reserve Land Conservancy. The Cleveland Outdoor Bill of Rights outlines twelve fundamental nature experiences every child deserves, from breathing clean air to camping under starry skies.
What began as a grant-funded project to better connect urban youth with nature evolved into a collaboration between environmental organizations, libraries, schools, and community groups. Through hundreds of survey responses, Cleveland's children revealed not only what they love about outdoor experiences but also the barriers preventing them from enjoying nature in their neighborhoods.
John Marshall High School AP Environmental Science students wrote the Bill of Rights based on community input and guidance from Renee and their teacher, Mary Kennedy Brown. Rights include breathing clean air, safe recreation on Lake Erie, hiking in nature, walking tree-lined streets, camping under the stars, and more.
With Cleveland City Council poised to adopt the resolution this month, the Children's Outdoor Bill of Rights serves as a powerful statement of values and a practical framework for future environmental planning. As Boronka explains, similar initiatives in cities like Austin and Baltimore have catalyzed significant improvements in youth access to quality green spaces.
Join us to hear the Children read the Bill of Rights they created and how the Western Reserve Land Conservancy and others are addressing the growing disconnect between children and nature, a disconnect linked to concerning trends in physical and mental health.
Today's Guest - Renee Boronka, Director of Conservation Education and Outreach at the Western Reserve Land Conservancy.
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About the Western Reserve Land Conservancy
Nature Everywhere (formerly Cities Connecting Children to Nature)
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You're listening to EcoSpeak CLE, a podcast for the eco-curious in Northeast Ohio. My name is Diane Bickett and my producer is Greg Rotuno. Together we speak with local sustainability leaders and invite you to connect, learn and live with our community and planet in mind. Hello friends, happy Earth Month. I'm going to lead off with a proverb today, and you may have heard it before. It goes like this a society grows great when old men and women I will add plant trees whose shade they know they will never sit in. And such is the work of so many in our community who are sowing the seeds that will lead to the well-being of our younger and future generations.
Diane Bickett:Whether it's planting trees, planting bike trails, creating green space or bringing us green energy grids, this work is planned with future generations in mind, and today, in honor of Earth Day next week, our children get a voice through our guest today, Renee Boronka. She is the Director of Conservation, Education and Outreach at the Western Reserve Land Conservancy and for the past couple years, Renee has worked with students in the city of Cleveland to help develop the Cleveland Outdoor Bill of Rights. This Bill of Rights is a list of nature experiences that Cleveland's children want to enjoy as they grow up, and this Bill of Rights is a list of nature experiences that Cleveland's children want to enjoy as they grow up. And this Bill of Rights is expected to be formally adopted by Cleveland City Council later this month. Join us to hear Renee explain how the Cleveland Outdoor Bill of Rights came to be and the benefits of connecting children to nature.
Diane Bickett:Welcome, Renee, Thank you. Thank you for having me. Greg is not able to join us today, so we are recording in the beautiful Moreland Hills office of the Western Reserve Land Conservancy. I live like two miles away and I've always, you know drive or hike by this location.
Renee Boronka:It's a beautiful building right across from the polo fields. Yes, beautiful facility. Yeah, and as you experienced this morning very dog friendly.
Diane Bickett:Yes, and one of the 2024 best places to work, according to the Cleveland Plate Healers. So maybe there's some job opportunities you would like to share later. So thank you. So I think we could talk about the Bill of Rights first, or we could hear the Bill of Rights first. What do you think we should do? I don of Rights first, or we could hear the Bill of Rights first. What do you think we should do?
Renee Boronka:I don't know, maybe to introduce this topic, it would be good to just read the Bill of Rights and let folks hear it, and what we're proposing as Cleveland's Children's Outdoor Bill of Rights.
Diane Bickett:Okay, very good. So there's a preamble and there's 12 rights, so why don't you read the preamble, as it will read in the resolution that you hope to have adopted by the city, and then I will play for you the recording that I made last Friday at the Northeast Ohio Youth Climate Summit, which is six John Marshall students reading some of the rights that they helped develop. Exactly Okay. So let's do that. Okay, here it is the Cleveland no, the Cleveland Children's Outdoor Bill of Rights. Perfect.
Renee Boronka:Whereas studies show that children who learn and play in nature are healthier, happier and perform better in school. Play in nature are healthier, happier and perform better in school. And whereas children who have safe access to parks, zoos, nature centers, lakes and rivers and other public outdoor areas are more resilient, more confident, more creative and better problem solvers. And whereas children who develop a positive relationship with nature are more likely to become tomorrow's caretakers of our natural heritage.
Renee Boronka:And whereas children and families will have access to Cleveland's parks, pools, trails, playgrounds and green spaces where they can freely play, feeling safe and secure, whereas through its parks, trails, lakeshore green spaces and other outdoor areas, cleveland provides a wide variety of quality outdoor opportunities for its residents, and therefore we adopt this Children's Outdoor Bill of Rights, in which every child in Cleveland has the right to Right number one breathe fresh and clean air.
Students:Right #1 Breath fresh and clean air. two
Students:Right #2, Recreate on the beaches and in the waters of Lake Erie.
Students:Right #3 P lay in clean parks, green spaces, rivers and streams.
Students:Right #4 Bike on safe trails and parks that connect community.
Students:Right #5 Hike and explore safely in nature.
Students:Right #6 Walk along tree-lined streets in their neighborhood.
Students:Right #7 Play in the snow. Build a snowman, ride a sled, throw a
Students:snowball
Students:.
Students:Right #8 Bond in soil, plant and nurture a seed. Watch it grow.
Students:Right #9 engage Watch and connect with your community at events in parks and green spaces.
Students:Right #10, Learn with family and friends over an outdoor meal.
Students:Right #11, watch the stars shine bright during a peaceful night of camping.
Students:Right #12, learn in nature, building confidence, to be stewards of our natural world. All right, so that is the Outdoor Bill of Rights.
Students:Renee, do you have a favorite, or which one of those speaks to you the most?
Renee Boronka:I think for me as a kid that grew up in Cleveland and I grew up on the west side in the Cadell neighborhood it was always very special for me to walk to Edgewater and me and my friends would go to Edgewater in the summertime and go swimming and, you know, lay on the beach. And so for me, number two resonates the most with me because it's recreate, safelyate, Safely on Beaches and the Waters of Lake Erie, and I feel so passionate about helping residents in Cleveland connect to Lake Erie and be able to put their hand in the water and touch the lake.
Diane Bickett:Okay, yeah, I think one of my favorites is number nine, which is engage and connect with the community at events in parks and green spaces, which is all about bringing people together, yeah, and Cleveland has lots of wonderful festivals and things like that that bring folks together too, so yeah, Ethnic festivals, yeah. So how did the Bill of Rights come to be?
Renee Boronka:Oh my gosh.
Renee Boronka:It's been a bit about four years in the making. It started Really four years ago. I learned about an initiative by the Children and Nature Network and the National League successful in other parts, other cities in the United States states, that were connecting kids to nature better than we were doing at the moment here in Cleveland. So through that grant opportunity I got to go to conferences and I got to go to workshops and I got to meet folks that had implemented initiatives in cities like Austin that has probably the gold standard when it comes to a city connecting children to nature. They've been doing it for eight years, though, so we'll give them credit for that. Also, cities like Baltimore, Rochester, Grand Rapids, and what I learned is that many of those cities started out by passing a Children's Outdoor Bill of Rights within their cities. So it demonstrated a commitment by the city and it sort of got the initiative rolling. It laid down a framework. It got people thinking about how are we going to connect kids to nature better within our communities?
Diane Bickett:So it was a launching point for other initiatives after that.
Renee Boronka:Yeah. So I started with thinking I'm going to get this done in Cleveland and it's taken me four years to get there. That grant was only two years long but I engaged with many, many groups throughout that timeframe. So this is such a collaborative effort and some of the key players in that first group of people that we got together and sort of thought, how are we going to create a children's after Bill of Rights? Because we really wanted it to reflect what children in Cleveland like to do when they go outside. We didn't want to write the rights.
Diane Bickett:Hence the building a snowman and riding a sled and throwing a snowball, right?
Renee Boronka:yeah, we wanted the kids to sort of tell us what they like to do. So the groups that initially got together with me are Footpath Foundation Nature Center at Shaker Lakes, cu at the top, cuyahoga Soil and Water Conservation District, organic Connects and others, cleveland Public Library. We got together and we were like how can we figure out what kids want to do? So we decided to develop a survey and we had our survey done on a platform, online, and we also had it done on paper and we would go to community events. The library was instrumental in having kids do the survey after school at the library and so they would help them sort of answer the questions, and essentially the questions were ranking these things that you can do outside which do you like to do the best, okay, but it also delve into why you're not going and recreating and using parks within your community.
Renee Boronka:And a lot of that stems from feeling safe and secure. Okay, and then we got a lot of really interesting data about if kids in Cleveland go to the park by themselves, if they go with a family member, if they don't even go to the park in their neighborhood, if they get in a car and venture out to go. So the survey really opened up a lot of our eyes as to what kids like to do outside and why they're not maybe going outside. Some of the barriers?
Diane Bickett:Yes, yes, and will that informate? So, the data that you develop through the surveys, first of all, I assume you'll share that with, like the parks and rec people in the city and the city planners and stuff so that can inform some of their decisions.
Renee Boronka:But how did you come to work with the John Marshall students so after um, it was a struggle to get people to take the survey, I have to admit. So it took a little time, um, but we started getting more responses as we started getting out into the community and advertising it a little bit more. But once we started getting a couple hundred responses back, we had hit a two-year mark with cities connecting children to nature at that point. But I really think it did a fantastic job of getting us all together. So we were starting to form this bigger collaborative of folks that are doing nature-based education with kids in the city of Cleveland and from there.
Renee Boronka:Mary Kennedy Brown is an educator at Cleveland Municipal School District. She teaches at John Marshall. She took the initiative to apply for a second round of funding from the same sources Children in Nature Network and the National League of Cities and they had tweaked it a little bit and at this point they were calling it Nature Everywhere. So it was a wonderful way to keep the momentum going. From working on the initial cities connecting children to nature, we transitioned into becoming Nature Everywhere, and at this point CMSD became much more involved in the collaboration than they had been in the past. Nice, so, with Nature Everywhere, we had Mary Kennedy Brown from John Marshall, we had Dr Terry Lyles, who is at the administrative level, and Kirsten Mihaljevic, who's also she's retired now, but she was at the administration level at CMSD. In addition, mary Rouse from Cleveland Metro Parks and January Miller from the Conservancy for the Cuyahoga Valley National Park and Councilman Casey. We all formed a pretty tight group of folks that started working together on the Nature Everywhere grant.
Diane Bickett:Okay and so what will the Nature Everywhere grant?
Renee Boronka:Provide. Yes, so through the Nature Everywhere grant. They're more about trying to do some actionable things at this point. So we've we've gotten through the Children's Outdoor Bill of Rights and we're at the stage now where we're hopeful that it'll become a resolution within the city of Cleveland within the month. Nature Everywhere our group is looking at taking a vacant lot and hopefully we could do this with more than just one but right now we're taking baby steps. We're going to turn a vacant lot in Cleveland into a nature exploration area Cool. So think of fun things that kids like to do free-form to play outside jumping on logs, swinging on climbing trees, playing in the sand that sort of thing that we want to implement within a lot near a CMSD school.
Diane Bickett:So will the Bill of Rights be used to kind of build some of the things that the kids have asked for?
Renee Boronka:Yes, yes, the Bill of Rights is such an amazing framework in other cities and I'm hopeful that it has the same effect here in Cleveland. It shows commitment from the city of Cleveland that they understand how important it is for kids to have the mental and physical health benefits of time outside.
Renee Boronka:It's going to help groups that are doing nature-based education already leverage possibly funds and support to keep doing what they're doing. There's a lot of wonderful organizations doing education within the city of Cleveland. It's going to help groups that are planting trees to green up the city, creating green spaces, connecting kids to parks through trails. The Bill of Rights we feel like it's really covering all the bases to help kids explore the way they want to when they go outside.
Diane Bickett:So it's a bit of a mandate in a way. I mean, it's what the community has asked for. How did you turn all this survey data into these 12 specific rights.
Renee Boronka:That is truly the credit goes to the students at John Marshall High School. They're in the AP Environmental Science program at John Marshall and their teacher is Ms Mary Brown. Kennedy Brown and she and I took the survey data and we presented it to the students during their class time and from that they composed each of the rights.
Diane Bickett:Wow, kudos to them. Yeah, they did a great job. Okay, so these were written by the students. These were written by the students, with probably a little bit of wordsmithing here and there from me and her, and I For sure and will they be attending the city council meeting where you hope to have this adopted?
Renee Boronka:Yes, so a good lesson in civics for them. The students will be going down to the council meeting and presenting this as something that. Going down to the council meeting and presenting this as something that and that was a big, strong belief on our part is that we wanted this to come from youth of Cleveland, even though we shepherded it and helped make it happen here in Northeast Ohio. It's really the. The kids are the ones that I wanted to present it to council and you're. Most of them are 17 and 18. But you know they are respectful of the other kids growing up in Cleveland and they want to see these things happen for them.
Diane Bickett:Okay, as I mentioned earlier, I was able to meet six of the John Marshall students and their teacher, mary Kennedy, at the Northeast Ohio Climate Summit last week and they were so excited about this. When I asked them if I could just record them reading the rights, they're like oh yeah, they're all over it. So you could just tell they were really jazzed by having a hand in something this big and something this meaningful. It is.
Renee Boronka:It's really exciting. It is. It's great. I'm so happy that they have this opportunity when they go down to the council. I work with Matt Zone here at Western Reserve Land Conservancy and he's going to meet the students and take them on a tour behind the scenes at council. So it's a really wonderful program, especially since John Marshall is the home of civics for the city of Cleveland's.
Diane Bickett:CMSD. Oh, that's perfect. Yeah, that's perfect. So are there any fun takeaways or anecdotes you want to share about the students?
Renee Boronka:I did enjoy working with the kids and I am not a teacher and I would always tell Mary that when I would come to the classroom she's got a wonderful knack of working with the students. But whenever I was, I'm coming to a close of working on this project with, but then I have so much respect for them. They really dove in and enjoyed working on this and were present and just a really wonderful group of kids.
Diane Bickett:Excellent, so tell us a little bit about yourself and your background and how you came to work for the one of the top workplaces in Cleveland.
Renee Boronka:Well, I spent 25 years at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History working in their botany department in their natural areas division, so I met a lot of people and have a lot of really strong connections to the nature education and natural resource management world within Northeast Ohio. At the end of 2020, I took on the educator position here at director of education position here at Western Reserve Land Conservancy. There had been educational programs here for a long time. When I came on board, I really took it to the next level. We have a robust virtual program that we do in the evening and during the day, a series of lectures. We also have in-person field trips and events that we conduct here to get people out into nature, experiencing it, developing that love for it.
Renee Boronka:So that's kind of what I love to do with people. I like to take them outside and here at the Land Conservancy we've protected over 75,000 acres of land in Northeast Ohio, so I have a playground of places where I can take people outside to appreciate nature. I really like to take people to experience unique things. So you know, maybe it's the first time they've ever seen a woodcock dance or? Um, you know, woodcock dance, or you know A woodcock dance?
Diane Bickett:Yes, can you take me on that?
Renee Boronka:I don't know what that even means. Or, you know, going to see waterfowl, like lots of different waterfowl, or have sandhill cranes fly over when they're hiking on a preserve. Hold a dragonfly in your hand and realize that it's not going to bite you or harm you in any way, and love doing that, with kids as well as adults.
Diane Bickett:How does a land conservancy bring the kids to those types of experiences? Sure.
Renee Boronka:We have programs that are called nature quests and we offer those multiple times during the year. You can sign up for those anytime. We also have a robust field trip program, so every month we have hikes and excursions throughout Northeast Ohio. We kick it off every year with Groundhog Day.
Diane Bickett:Okay, perfect. Well, I will look for those and we will just ignore the lawnmower going by. These things happen. So, in your view, what's the importance of nature-based education?
Renee Boronka:I feel like nature-based education is so important because it helps children understand that importance and where they fit in the world from a young age and they learn to appreciate the natural world at a younger age, respect it and want to take care of it. We have a lot of adults that fill that void and fill that role right now, but they grew up in a different world than our youth are growing up in right now. I grew up where, yes, I had a television set and I looked at TV, but I also spent almost all my time outside, playing outside with neighborhood kids and being outside, going to the park, going to the lake, going to the local rec center to swim in the pool. Children are spending so much time looking at devices and computers and phones and iPads now and they're really not spending quality time outside. I like to tell folks a statistic that I just learned about last December, where there's a 25% increase in myopia in the youth today Wow.
Renee Boronka:So these are children that are not exercising.
Renee Boronka:From staring at screens. From staring at screens, they're not exercising their vision on looking at things far away and focusing on things like when they're out in nature, when you're looking far and you're observing and you're building those skills. So I feel like that is just imperative that we start addressing that with young kids and letting them have experiences outside. And kids in the city are at the most risk in this in that they really don't have some neighborhoods, don't have quality green spaces for them to go to that they feel safe in. And as much as I love the idea of taking children out to go to camp and to have those day experiences out in the rural parts of Ohio, we need to recognize that they need good quality green spaces that are close to home for them.
Renee Boronka:That they can still go and have fun in nature, absolutely.
Diane Bickett:And the more they can experience that in their own neighborhood will take away some of that fear of these spaces.
Renee Boronka:I can remember when I was at the Natural History Museum, we had a group of students that we took on a nature hike along a river and it started to drizzle while we were on the river and these were inner city kids and they were really afraid. They needed to go back to the bus. They didn't want to know what they were just like, but they were afraid of of just being outside during the inclement weather. You know, and and I I would have never thought even if I hadn't experienced it.
Diane Bickett:Yeah, but going back to nature everywhere, how are we making Cleveland more nature friendly?
Renee Boronka:Well. Nature Everywhere is designed to address, like longstanding disparities around access to safe outdoor spaces and nature experiences. It also is challenging issues like the rise in rates of obesity, mental illness and chronic diseases in children.
Renee Boronka:So, Nature Everywhere, is aiming to establish more green space trees in Cleveland and, in addition to aiming to establish more green space trees in Cleveland and, in addition to that, activate those spaces, that's why the nature-based education is so important and Mayor Bibb has really adopted this Back whenever we were doing Cities Connecting Children to Nature. I actually had the opportunity to meet with Mayor Bibb and his Chief of Youth and Family Services, chief Pryor-Jones, sonia Pryor-Jones, and they both were very much so enthusiastic and they've adopted the principles of having a Children's Outdoor Bill of Rights. It really dovetails with Mayor Bibb's prenatal to three agenda. It establishes environments where children and families can freely play, feeling safe and secure outside. Okay, and so this dovetails into that. It sounds like it.
Diane Bickett:Very much so. Yeah, well, plus the the, is it a division of Western Reserve Land Conservancy? The Urban Land Institute?
Renee Boronka:Yeah, our Thriving Communities Office yeah that.
Diane Bickett:Matt's own is involved with.
Renee Boronka:Thriving.
Diane Bickett:Communities Institute. Yes, exactly, so that has some Jurisdiction over some of those vacant lots and stuff in the city right, absolutely.
Renee Boronka:We're working through our side lot program, our green spaces program, to develop green spaces for the community. In addition to that, our Reforest, our City program is in its 10th year this year, planting trees, not only on tree lawns but doing our tree steward program, where we train people that live in the city to care for trees. We also have a tree distribution program so people can pick out a tree that they want to put on their property and take care of it on their property. So a wonderful initiative to re-green Cleveland and develop useful green spaces, develop useful green spaces.
Diane Bickett:Wow, it's just. I love there are so many organizations like the Western Reserve Land Conservancy and those that you mentioned earlier that are working with children, like Organic Connects and such that are working to lift the children up and lift the city up you know, for the future? Absolutely, it's great. It makes me feel good. What? What can you leave us with in terms of events that you're offering coming up this spring that people might want to tap into, and how can they learn more?
Renee Boronka:Sure thing. So on the Land Conservancy's website we have an events tab. We have lots of opportunities for folks to get involved with tree plantings and litter pickups and cleanups. We have some garlic mustard pools. We also have walks and hikes on both sides of town east side, west side, south side of Cleveland that you can register for. Those are our vibrant places and they are free of charge. We do field explorations as well, where we dive a little deeper into topics like a dragonfly walk or mushroom walks. Um, there's a very nominal fee for those and you can register for all of our events on our website under the events tab. Everything is in one okay one stop and they're free.
Renee Boronka:Most of them are free.
Diane Bickett:A handful of them are about ten dollars a person great, yeah, and then what was the one you said is coming up in june you wanted to talk about? Yes.
Renee Boronka:In June we are featuring the author, sharon Dewar. She wrote 50 hikes for kids in Illinois, indiana and Ohio and we're doing a Saturday morning event on June 14th with her as well as Judy Semrock from Nature Spark. She does a lot of fun nature programs with kids. We're going to be offering hikes and a journaling activity for kids at the Land Conservancy's Blue Heron Preserve. It's in Burton, ohio. It's got a lovely pavilion that we can meet under and we can take nature walks with the kids through the property and the author will be there. Um, if folks want to pick up her book, we'll have the ability to do that. Loganberry books is joining us and they'll have her book so she'll sign them and give them to folks and just introducing kids to hiking and being outside, we'll have a handful of little hikes that we're going to take with the children throughout the day.
Renee Boronka:That sounds fun, that's free, open to everyone, and registration for that is open right now on our website.
Diane Bickett:Okay, how many people work at the Land Conservancy? We have about 50 folks that work here. Do you, is that?
Renee Boronka:big. Yeah, we have 50 folks About 35 here at our Moreland Hills office, where you're at right now, and the rest of us. I Moreland Hills office, where you're at right now and the rest of us. I actually work out of thriving community office in downtown Cleveland.
Diane Bickett:Okay, with my colleagues from Reforestar City and our urban team started this whole initiative within with the Cleveland focus, but are there plans to expand outside of Cleveland?
Renee Boronka:yes, as a matter of fact, we started this initiative in Cleveland and we also worked with the city of Euclid on adopting a children's outdoor bill of rights within Euclid, and I hope to get back on track and work with them to pass a resolution in Euclid and other cities can use this as a framework to help their children connect better to nature, and I'd be happy to meet and talk with anyone about getting an initiative like this started within their community.
Diane Bickett:Okay, well, I'm sure there's lots of educators and PTO members and parents that would like to get on board with that, so we'll have your contact information in the show notes. Thank you so much. Thanks, diane. I really enjoyed learning about this. It's really super cool.
Renee Boronka:Yeah, happy Earth Day.
Students:Happy Earth Day. Happy Earth Day, Happy Earth Month. We hope you've enjoyed this episode of EcoSpeak CLE. You can find our full catalog of episodes on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes are available the first and third Tuesday of each month. Please follow EcoSpeak CLE on Facebook and Instagram and become part of the conversation. If you would like to send us feedback and suggestions, or if you'd like to become a sponsor of EcoSpeak CLE, you can email us at hello at EcoSpeakCLEcom. Stay tuned for more important and inspiring stories to come.
