Our guest author for this article is Casey Serrano, bilingual educator at the Menomonee Valley Branch of the Urban Ecology Center, a proud supporter of Radio Milwaukee. All content was reviewed and edited by Radio Milwaukee staff to ensure its resonance with our audience and mission.
Earlier this year, I worked with one of our partner schools to curate an art gallery of student photos and collages titled “UEC Through My Eyes,” which gave some of our elementary school students a chance to show us what they think the Urban Ecology Center (UEC) is.
If you ask a kid for their favorite thing about UEC, they almost always say, “The slide!!!” But when we had students make art about their experience, we didn’t get a single piece of art about that particular feature.
Instead, I got hundreds of photos of the Menomonee River, the Sumac and milkweed that define our prairies, and the forts and swings students built for themselves. I got drawings of students working together to climb a tree. I got a collage from the Outdoor Leaders showing off all the up close and personal moments students enjoy with tiny plants and bugs.
Yes, the slide is pretty amazing. But, as an educator, this art showed me that students see the same things that I do on a UEC field trip. We all see a bus full of students start to learn what the plants and animals around them are called and how to recognize them. How to be able to see acres of prairie and a teeny-tiny milkweed beetle at the same time. How to find their place in this park — and this world.
Maybe most of all, the students don’t see this as an individual process. Every class showed me that, in their eyes, this is about community and connecting. They climb and build and explore with their peers and with the adults in their class. When kids come on a field trip with us, they don’t just learn how they fit into a park setting; they also learn how they fit into a group.
These moments throughout the school year really drove home what the UEC is to me and to so many kids and adults across Milwaukee. It’s somewhere to go that invites you to find your place in nature. A place where you’re invited to come in, connect with your peers and the wider world, and find your place.
Students love the slide, but they aren’t making art about it. When we give them a chance to show us what the UEC is in their eyes, they show us that this place is a prairie and a river and a wooly bear caterpillar and a sumac berry and a school bus and a black capped chickadee and so much more — all waiting to be discovered together.
Students, teachers, volunteers, Outdoor Leaders and other members of our community are able to find their place at the UEC because of the support the organization receives from people who believe in its mission to connect people in Milwaukee to nature and each other. You can learn more about the UEC and how to help them fulfill their mission by visiting the center’s website.