Leave No Child Inside Summit ’08 Notes: Social Networks for Nature

Finding Places to Play with Web 2.0

Group members: Jody Dzuranin
Steve McCaw
Michael Costlow
Leslie Strader
Amanda McEldowney
Preethi Mony
Sue Wintering

Essences/Main ideas:

Use Web 2.0 tools (Stuff on the Web that is conversational, such as blogs, social networks, etc) to inform, engage and excite people about opportunities to enjoy nature

Share Best Practices – Twitter, blogs, bright kite, utterli, Flickr

Create wide scale city scavenger hunts (geocaching). Use city-specific “bugs” to create buzz and engagement. Each school creates its own mini map with areas of interest, nearby nature & historical info.

Next steps for this small group:
Raise awareness of resources like greatercolumbusgreenmap.org; centralohiogreenways.com; Dublin Riverboxes; camps available for groups; Backyard field trips on school grounds

Recommendations to Steering Committee:

Compile and organize information about locations, activities, events and groups in a user-friendlt way online
Have each school designate interesting spots within a 10 minutes walk = sense of place.