Posted by admin | 02.27.2018 | Sea Turtle Camp News

Teaching Conservation at Summer Camp

Kids spend most of their time in their seats during the school year. According to Peg Smith, CEO of the American Camp Association, “camp gives children the opportunity to actively engage with things. It’s not just about passing a test; it’s about exploring their world.”

At Sea Turtle Camp, we explore our coastal environment through hands on learning and outreach. We believe this methodology helps cultivate a love and respect for the ocean by building confidence and developing character, while inspiring coastal conservation through fun hands on, feet wet learning.  Each day at Sea Turtle Camp, our campers will be exploring different coastal habitats.  Learning and understanding the different ecosystems helps our campers to grasp how all the different ecosystems are intertwined and how the health of one affecting the health of the other.  We are all part of the planet’s ecosystems, and as human beings we have a responsibility to know we don’t have limited resources and to teach our youth care for our environment.

Our campers at Sea Turtle Camp have a very unique experience that helps to teach them to be stewards of our coastal environment.  They get to actually work with Sea Turtles at the Karen Beasley Sea Turtle Hospital & Rehabilitation Center.  The emotional lessons taught while caring for the sea turtles, and seeing first hand how they are being affected by things such as pollution, habitat destruction, accidental capture in fishing gear, and humans really shapes their hearts and attitudes to the overall health of our environment.

Sea Turtles are a way we can connect both the land and the sea.  Of the seven different species of sea turtles, most are on the endangered species list.  Through our work on at the Sea Turtle Hospital, our campers get to play a small role in nursing turtles back to health so they can go home to the ocean, and in turn help the numbers of sea turtles in the ocean.  Doing this with like minded teens in a safe summer camp environment only helps our campers to establish the foundation of living a conservation filled life.  Come change the world with us at Sea Turtle Camp.  www.seaturtlecamp.com