A NATURAL SUMMER

By Sarah Gish

Sarah Gish is the author of The Summer Book®: A Guide to Houston Day Camps and Classes for Kids and Teens and the writer of GISH PICKS, a weekly guide to cultural activities for families published in Houston Community Newspaper publications.
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Summertime is a great time for kids, a nerve-wracking time for parents. It’s also a time for kids to explore their passions and to learn new things. And it’s a perfect time to reconnect with nature and escape from the metal, glass and wooden confines of the classroom. But exploring nature in Houston in the summertime sounds worse than visiting the dentist for a root canal!

Believe it or not, Houston offers several camps for kids that help them touch the earth – and not all of them are hot and sultry. However, since many of these camps do have a portion of their learning outdoors, slather on the sunscreen, hand the kids their hats, and make sure they bring bug spray and water. After all that, it’s time for fun in nature!

Here are some camps that I can recommend for nature lovers; further details about these and other camps are in my annual guide to summer day camps, The Summer Book® 2008: A Guide to Houston Day Camps and Classes for Kids and Teens. For more information on the book or to order a copy, please log onto http://www.thesummerbook.com.

The Armand Bayou Nature Center has an “EcoCamp” for 4 to 13 year olds that offers a variety of exciting activities and learning opportunities using the Nature Center as a living laboratory. Activities may include fishing, seining, canoe rides and pontoon boat rides for age and class-appropriate children. For more information, log onto the Center’s website.

Artist Boat offers “Eco-Art Summer Camp Adventures” on waterways near Houston for kids 10 years old and up. Artist Boat is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to promoting awareness and preservation of coastal margins and the marine environment through the disciplines of the sciences and the arts. The camps involve kayaking and vessel tours that combine art, science and personal encounters with nature, helping students interpret the current and historical significance and uses of Galveston Bay and Galveston Island through the use of watercolors. For more information, log onto http://www.artistboat.org.

The Downtown Aquarium offers a nice, indoor “Sea Safari Camp” every summer for kids 6-12 years old. In these camps, kids can explore different habitats on the planet and learn all about their animals in a hands-on, fun way. Kids can explore places presented in the Aquarium, including a Louisiana swamp, a rainforest, and the Gulf of Mexico. For more information, log onto the Aquarium’s website.

The Houston Arboretum & Nature Center has “Nature Trekkers” for kids 5-12 years old. They’ll tromp around in one of the coolest, covered natural habitats inside the city limits. This 155-acre nature sanctuary is used by staff naturalists as a “living laboratory” to lead children in hands-on outdoor experiences, including over 5 miles of nature trails that contain forest, pond, wetland and meadow habitats. For cooler learning, kids will go into The Discovery Room inside the main building. For more information, log onto the Arboretum’s website.

The Houston Museum of Natural Science offers “Xplorations Science Adventures” for kids 4-13 years old – and have now branched out beyond the Hermann Park location to include camps in the Woodlands and Sugar Land. Kids will enjoy a week of science adventure with over 60 different camp topics from dinosaurs to DaVinci, magic to malacology, or chemistry to catastrophes. For more information, log onto the Museum’s website.

The Houston Safe Boating Council offers “Camp W.A.D.E (Water Activity Day Events)” in Clear Lake Park. The camp provides hands-on instruction and safety skills for several different water sports, including sailing, kayaking, motorboating and PWC’s, in a day camp setting for persons aged 13 and up. For more information, log onto the Council’s website.

Jesse H. Jones Park and Nature Center offers “Summer Nature Camp”, held during summer break each year, which is a four-day (Tuesday through Friday) nature program for children between the ages of 5 and 12. Featuring a variety of themed nature subjects and held mostly outdoors, camp sessions include ranger talks, guided nature walks through the forest, and visits to the ponds, swamps, and Spring Creek. The games, activities, and crafts are suited for age brackets of 5 and 6, 7 through 9, and 10 through 12. Four-day sessions focus on each age bracket, and participants must be able to attend the full week of activities. For more information, log onto the Park’s website.

Moody Gardens in Galveston offers “Pyramid Kids Camps” for kids 3-13 years old in which children will explore the lush, tropical rainforest or discover what lurks beneath the ocean waves in these educational, interactive camps. Part of the fun will be learning what it’s like to be a keeper for the animals at Moody Gardens. Kids will explore animal training, enrichment, exhibit requirements, and help prepare food diets for the animals in the Rainforest and Aquarium pyramids. For more information, log onto Moody Garden’s website.

The Nature Discovery Center in Bellaire offers a “Summer Science Camp” for kids 5-10 years old. Their camps will actively engage kids in the study of habitats and humans as kids study “Amazing Anat-o-me”, “Oceans of the World”, “Superhero Science”, and “Desert Dwellers”. Like the Houston Arboretum, there is lots of indoor and outdoor fun to be had. For more information, log onto the Center’s website.

Saltgrass Science Programs offers year round hands-on nature education programs for children and libraries, schools, birthday parties, community parks and recreation as well as guided field tours of beach, marsh, and forest habitats for kids 3-18 years old and some years they offer summer camps. On the tours, a certified naturalist shows groups the safe way to search out the hidden homes of forest and pond creatures, tips on bird watching, soil and water testing and pond scooping. For more information, log onto http://www.saltgrassscience.org.

Texas A & M University at Galveston offers “Sea Camps”, which are week-long residential camps for kids 10-18 years old and “Sea Campus Kids” day camps for kids 6-11 years old. Here’s what one of the “Sea Camps” offers: a day’s activities might include touring a sea turtle head start facility and then trawling from the 42′ Research Vessel Earl L. Milan. Kids might then explore a salt marsh and have the opportunity to see numerous species of birds and fish, as well as shrimp and crabs. For more information, log onto the Sea Camp website.

The Weather Research Center in the Museum District at 5401 Caroline continues to offer their “Weather Camps” this summer for kids 5 years old and up. Meteorologists at the Weather Museum at the Weather Research Center have developed an exciting curriculum using computers, activities, games, demonstrations and experiments to fill the day. For more information, log onto the camp’s website.

For more information about Sarah Gish’s projects, see Sarah’s website.