Nature's sanctuary

As hundreds of cars clog the Montlake Overpass on State Route 520, 18 children discover what a water scavenger beetle is in the wetlands a stone's throw away. The fourth- and fifth-grade students are enrolled in Summer Day Camp at the Washington Park Arboretum, a week-long program that encourages children to get "down and dirty" in the 230-acre arboretum.

The two-year-old program is a joint effort between the arboretum and the UW's extension and outreach department. Four groups of students between second and fifth grades spend five days exploring what the arboretum has to offer and learning about nature.

The brains and the brawn behind the program is Shawna Zuege, the arboretum's education naturalist and camp instructor. Zuege is the organizational power behind what the kids do each day as well as their leader in the field.

"I want to immerse myself in environmental education," said Zuege.

Zuege came to Seattle from Wisconsin with the intention of doing graduate studies at the UW's School of Social Work; however, when she found out about an opening for an educational naturalist at the arboretum, she jumped at the opportunity.

Since then, after hours behind books, binders and a computer, Zuege invented the Summer Day Camp curriculum, a program of study that educates and entertains.

Supporting Zuege in the day camp program is Chris Moreland, the camp's counselor. Moreland's job, besides taking kids back to the visitor center when they have to go to the bathroom, is to support Zuege and supervise the children.

"I try to get the kids to run around," said Moreland. "It also helps to keep me young. It's a chance for me to find out what they kids are into."

Moreland also helps the parents by wearing down some of the kids' energy during the day so they're not as restless in the evening.

"I've had really good feedback from the parents in the first two weeks [of this program this year]," said Zuege.

Many of the parents drop their kids off at the camp before they go to work and leave them there all day.

Tuleia Thurman, a student in the day camp, has participated in quite a few camps this summer, including drama and art camp.

"Parents want the kids to get different camp experiences," said Zuege.

Moreland recognized that the parents have a need to have somebody take care of their children while they're at work or running errands during the week.

"Some of the parents kind of think of [the camp] as daycare," said Moreland.

Zuege taught the nature day camp last year, but only two sessions out of four ran because of low interest. The sessions that did run had a different atmosphere.

Last year, more kids thought of the camp as a sort of daycare, but this year more kids really want to experience nature, Zuege observed.

"Some of these kids have animals at home and they want to learn about what's out here," said Zuege, who wants to open her own environmental youth camp someday.

"It's hard to get the three entities that run the arboretum -- the University, the city and the arboretum itself -- working together [toward better educational programs]," said Zuege.

Zuege dreams that her center will be like the Puget Sound Environmental Learning Center on Bainbridge Island, a camp that she says has exceptional facilities and has the sole purpose of teaching about the environment.

The arboretum's educational programs include field trips for local elementary schools. Zuege and others in the arboretum's educational department organize programs that fit into classroom science units, the most popular of which is the "life cycle of a plant." The arboretum boasts five such programs.

Zuege hopes the arboretum's day camp and educational programs in general will expand beyond what they currently are, but for now, she has her 18 students to educate.

"The more quiet you are, the more birds you're going to see," Zuege recommends to the 18 students equipped with cardboard binoculars as they approach an area where they will bird-watch. "We're entering somebody else's habitat right now."