Explore the Outdoors Update

Alice Hohl from The Leave No Child Inside Central Ohio Collaborative attended the Explore the Outdoors Planning Meeting Jan. 27.

There was discussion about the second year of this great program. If you are not familiar with it, ODNR distributes Activity Guides (small, green frog on the front – have you seen them?) to elementary school students. They contain several activities (camping, fishing, hiking, wilderness clean-up, birdwatching, etc.) and children get a secret code for completing them. They log onto a Website to enter their codes and get a prize. The program is primarily to increase traffic to state parks, but ODNR has been extremely generous in reaching out to county and municipal parks and including them on the Web site where kids can go to find out where they can complete the activities.

New this year:

Physical fitness component. (Alice commented during the meeting that we want to make sure we don’t imply you need to do ADDITIONAL activity to make it “healthy” to complete the activities. We want to emphasize that these activities are good for you, without doing jumping jacks next to your tent.)
A teacher/youth leader resource guide will help leading groups and classes in completing the activities.
City parks and youth camps and events will be included. (IMPORTANT FOR LNCI MEMBERS: This is an opportunity to co-brand your event. Westerville, for example, is doing an Explore the Outdoors youth camp where they complete the activities. You can use the name and get the brand recognition, and help everyone make the message stronger.)
Parent section in the activity guide
Different levels of completion (Not all-or-nothing)
Tracking statistics on where kids are going to complete activities
New activities (Plant a garden, for example)
Space to journal or add drawings/photos to the Activity Guide
Better use of events to promote the program
Better distribution of the guide.

There will also be an opportunity to advertise in the Activity Guide. Email Cristie Wilt if you are interested.

LNCI Central Ohio will be helping with press releases, information links on our Web site, and whatever else we can do.

We have also been asked to help (Along with LNCI Cincinnati) to craft wording for a Family Pledge where families pledge to do a certain amount of outdoor activity together each week or month. We would like to link to Green Hour and Family Nature Clubs among other things.