Raising Kids with Nature

We hike the Munson Sandhills in late March, finding early spring wildflowers in bloom, including two lupine species and new green blueberries.

Our family hikes the Garden of Eden Trail through steephead ravines, a recently burned longleaf forest, and up to Florida’s highest river bluff.

Two families visit dried out ephemeral wetlands in the Munson Sandhills. Even without water, they find gopher frogs and visit rare butterfly habitat.

Kids play in muck, meet frogs and newts, and bond with ephemeral wetlands in the Apalachicola National Forest as parents collect data on wetland wildlife.

We head deep into the Apalachicola National Forest in search of the most remote spot in Florida’s Big Bend. It’s part of one family’s years long mission.

In a two-minute video, watch monarch caterpillars grow, metamorphose, and emerge as butterflies. Kids help raise monarchs and we learn about milkweed.

To bring the striped newt back to the Apalachicola National Forest, the Coastal Plains Institute is working with partners, volunteers, and local children.

On a sandbar in the Apalachicola National Forest, children immerse themselves in turtles, frogs, fish, butterflies and more on the Ochlockonee River.

A WFSU producer takes his 4-year-old son kayaking and camping for two days of Apalachicola RiverTrek. A companion cycle trip tours forests along the river.

Thieving raccoons, high water on the Apalachicola, and learning to follow trail blazes make for a memorable camping trip for a WFSU producer and his son.