Environmentalists are joining with educators to recognize and promote the value of children having time to play outdoors. The Natural Learning Initiative promotes “the importance of the natural environment in the daily experience of children and families.” The No Child Left Inside law was passed by Congress in 2007, providing funding “to provide outdoor education for grades K-12.”

In North Carolina, the No Child Left Inside initiative is implemented mainly by the Office of Environmental Education, whose existence is being threatened by the current budget plans. A public/private coalition continues to support the main tenets of the bill, which was amended in 2008. Schools are developing ways for kids to interact with nature; we need to make sure summer vacations are at least as fulfilling in this regard.

Boys examining a creek in Raleigh. Photo by John Dancy-Jones.

Raleigh is full of parks and greenways, but some are more kid friendly than others.  Pullen Park is a perennial favorite with a wide range of play options, but be sure to make time for a walk around the lake or maybe even a peek at the railroad line that edges the richly wooded slopes. 

Blue Jay Point is a fantastic place to explore nature, and the center with its model garden is educational as well.  My personal recommendation for a non-structured nature outing is NCSU’s Raulston Arboretum, a real win-win for parents and their children of any age.  There are koi ponds, bridges, and lots of intriguing corners to disappear around, and the grown-ups will revel in the spectacular displays of native and well naturalized plant species.

If your kids are very young, then the All Children Playground at Laurel Hills Community Center can combine with a walk or stroller push down a short greenway and right out over a small pond lush with plants and wildlife.  If they are older, well then head over to the Museum Park surrounding the art museum.  Its unique blend of art and nature was recently featured in the NY Times, and includes Cloud Chamber, a stone structure that acts as a sit-in pinhole camera.

Perhaps you are lucky enough to be able to just kick your kids outside into a nice yard for a while every day.  If your backyard isn’t the haven for wildlife and naturing you might wish, more structured options are available.  The city of Raleigh just published a guide to nature activities for children this summer. Several of the programs take place at Durant Nature Park, another great city venue.

If you would like to make your own backyard more inviting to wildlife (and thus more interesting to your kids), then consider working with them to make your backyard a Certified Backyard Habitat.  The current issue of Carolina Parent has a nice feature on the activity.  Simply commit to provide water, food and shelter areas for local species, then enjoy the wildlife when it appears.

Nature will appear, given half a chance.  Raleigh boasts a rich diversity of geological and botanical wonders, often literally under our feet.  Animals sometimes co-exist uneasily, especially with our automobiles, but there is still a rich and instructive spectrum of native wildlife in easy access of all citizens.  The wonders of nature yet persist in our urban landscape.  Make sure the kids in your life get a chance to discover them.

The Walnut Street Greenway. Photo by John Dancy-Jones.

As a premier amenity and as a pioneering national model in urban landscapes, the greenway system provides Raleigh with a highly visible symbol of the city’s character. It may yet prove to be an essential component of our 21st century vision of transportation for our city. My favorite aspects remain the pure naturalism available to greenway users, and the strong contributions these green ribbons make to our unique relationship with the natural landscape in which our metropolis is ensconced.

The Neuse River Trail, recently approved for construction as reported here at RPR, will follow the riverside from Falls Lake Dam southward to Anderson Point, where Crabtree Creek intersects with the Neuse. The new Neuse trail is getting a little help, about half of the construction costs, from federal stimulus money to get the project underway.

This long corridor will provide the city system with a direct connection at Fall Lake to the Mountains-to-Sea Trail, which is gradually making its way across the state from Jockey’s Ridge to Clingman’s Dome. Four miles of unpaved pathway now exist at the southern end, starting at Anderson Point. This same basic stretch of river is also a canoe trail and is currently one of the most wilderness-like stretches of trail in the city. But the developments nearby are popping up fast.

The Longstreet Greenway off Six Forks Road. Photo by John Dancy-Jones.

Smack dab in the middle of central Raleigh is the Middle Crabtree Greenway. Its eastern component, Buckeye Trail, begins at Milburnie Road, and is scheduled to extend down to Anderson Point in the future. Reaching northwest, this oldest trail in the system borders a wide range of residential and industrial sectors, crossing Raleigh Boulevard and ending in what neighbors call Raleigh Swamp – 25 acres of heron, beaver and turtle heaven inside the Beltline. Middle Crabtree proper begins here, diving under Capital Boulevard and passing through intense (and impervious) areas of commercial development before finding Kiwanis Park and then Lassiter Mill. Above the dam is a heavily wooded stretch that skirts Crabtree Valley Mall and climbs up to Oakview.

West end of the greenway deck at Capital Boulevard. Photo by John Dancy-Jones.

Part of the initial impetus for Raleigh’s greenway program was the “strategic use of part of the city’s floodplain for an open space corridor between adjoining land uses.” The quote is from Bill Flournoy, a landscape architect out of NCSU who is called the father of North Carolina’s greenway movement in the “Greenway History” by Charles A. Flink. Northwest Raleigh has generous stretches of greenway aligned with the flood control lakes – Lynn, Shelley and others – built to protect Crabtree Valley. Almost all of the greenways follow waterways – and thus many of them literally track the sewer systems as well. But the occasional outgassing pipe is well worth the rich array of birds, diverse plants, and the occasional mammal you will see.

Beech trees on the Buckeye Trail. Photo by John Dancy-Jones.

The ambitious outdoor campus of the NC Museum of Art features a prominent connection to the Raleigh greenway system. The beautiful pedestrian bridge over the Beltline straddles a long stretch of greenway that connects Meredith (and soon NC State) to Umstead Park, where long bridle trails and five thousand acres of classic Piedmont ecosystems constitute the crown jewel of local natural areas.

The State Street Greenway. Photo by John Dancy-Jones.

South Raleigh’s Walnut Creek initiative offers an example of synergistic cooperation between a social cause, NCSU and the city. Partners for Environmental Justice teamed with NCSU on the wetland restoration, and Raleigh is capping off its greenway accomplishments in the area with an environmental center that will serve the community and make use of the latest architectural techniques for minimizing its ecological footprint.

The Wake County section of the American Tobacco Trail is not a part of the city system but gives Raleigh a pedestrian/bicycling connection with downtown Durham. The Tobacco Trail also links Raleigh with the East Coast Greenway, another major statewide hiking venue. Raleigh’s flagship greenway system is starting to integrate with other local systems and provide some truly exciting prospects for bikers, hikers, and conservationists. Preservation of significant, if narrow, strips of natural areas will be a legacy to future Raleigh citizens as well as a highly valuable amenity now.

Download the city’s greenway map here.

North Raleigh is set to get a new farmer’s market May 2.  The N & O reported March 18th that the private group putting it together decided on Falls River Center on Durant Road as the location.  At least seven farmers will participate in the initial offerings.  The Midtown Farmers’ Market at North Hills will operate Saturday mornings from April 11 til November 14.  South Raleigh is blessed with the State Farmers’ Market, a huge enterprise which is now open every day of the year.  Downtown, the City Market vegetable vendors keep on keeping on after more than fifty years – but just Thursday-Saturday.  On Wednesdays, starting April 15, shoppers can also check out the Moore Square Farmer’s Market, which takes place under tents and features a variable selection of local produce, meats and finished baked and prepared foods from local farms.

Community supported farms, or CSAs, are a popular way of distributing food in many parts of the country, and Raleigh is coming into the fold.  The Carolina Farm Stewardship‘s Farm Tour, which takes place April 25-26, 1-6 PM, is a great way to see the farms and set up your subscription for a set amount of harvested food over a season.  The Cooperative Extension‘s list of CSA farms includes over 50 listings for the Piedmont area, but when I explored the Tour last fall, its list of a dozen or so was far more than I could handle in a weekend.  Most of the CSA farms have websites, and many sell at other venues.  Check out one of those markets and ask around!

The grocery store can be a great source of high quality local fresh food.  Whole Foods is a leader in buying local organic produce, but most stores feature seasonal local offerings and are beginning to recognize and market the organic aspect of much locally produced food.  One real advantage of an organic grocery store like Whole Foods is that you can trust you are getting certified organically grown food.  Don’t get me wrong – I think buying from local farmers is a good thing, whether or not they qualify as organic.  I stop at roadside stands, and have fond memories of the vegetable truck making its way through east Raleigh, selling the housewives good old Southern truck produce, which is anything but organic.  But as we all shift our sights toward a better relationship with the planet, grocery stores that seek out local organic produce are doing a favor for the entire food system.

Surely the most admirable venue for local food is the community garden.  Many are church-run, and have the additional goal of feeding those in need.  Community gardens can be therapy for just about any age or demographic, and can be operated at a wide range of sizes and locations.  In our area, the Covenant Community Garden at Fuquay-Varina United Methodist Church is a nationally known model of a faith-based, action-centered agricultural project.  We can renew our own lives and literally rejuvenate the planet by making not only healthy but ecologically sound decisions when we choose how to obtain our food.