Let the Story be Your Guide

Families excitedly heading to the trailhead. Exuberant children running ahead, then waiting for parents and grandparents to catch up. Parents confidently navigating the trails. Joyful kids asking, “when can we come back?” of relaxed parents, who are happy to plan another trip to Beaver Brook Association. This was the scene many days during the summer and fall of 2020 as families explored StoryWalk®* Hikes at Beaver Brook, a year-round environmental education center in southern New Hampshire.

In the summer of 2020, in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, nature centers were authorized to begin slowly opening their trails. Those of us in the education department at Beaver Brook knew we needed to provide opportunities for families to safely get out into nature. Families were being particularly hard-hit by pandemic-related changes; we knew that nature could provide numerous mental, social, physical and family-bonding benefits. 

The previous fall, we’d conducted surveys on several of our most popular trails. The graph below shows that families were not visiting our trails in the same numbers or frequency as were adults without children.

Results of Beaver Brook trail surveys conducted by Lindsey Shaklee as part of her studies at Miami University.

Mental health and fitness were important motivators to go hiking for both groups, but social interaction was the strongest motivator for families. Eighty-three percent of families said spending time socially was “very much” a motivation for going hiking. Only 59% of adult groups said the same thing. 

Time was by far the biggest obstacle for families. Sixty-five percent of families reported that adult schedules kept them from hiking and for 79% percent of families, kids’ schedules were a factor. In contrast, schedules were an obstacle for 54% of adults hiking without children. Fear of getting lost on the trails was a concern for 17% of families but only 5% of adults without children shared that concern.

With this research in mind, we knew that we would need to be creative and dedicated. We needed to offer something that wasn’t time-consuming, that didn’t require a lot of stress or preparation on the part of parents, and that helped families feel confident in the woods. And, because parents were looking for a social activity, we wanted something that was a “special event”.

StoryWalks, featuring picture books spaced out along a path, turned out to be the perfect fit. The design for our StoryWalk was very simple. We repurposed political signs by painting them white and adding Velcro dots and strips. For each story we needed two copies of a picture book, many of which were donated. The picture books were deconstructed, the individual pages put on cardstock, laminated for protection from the elements and then mounted to the signboards with Velcro so they could easily be changed. By placing the story pages about every 50 yards, children could spot the next page ahead and were motivated to continue the hike. Parents felt confident that they were on the right path and comfortable enough to let the kids run ahead, allowing the children to gain a sense of independence.

Beaver Brook has campuses in two towns, so we chose a trail on our main campus in Hollis, New Hampshire, and one in an adjacent town for two separate installations. We changed our StoryWalk every two weeks, rotating stories between the two locations, to keep families coming back. In the summer, we used Facebook to launch a social media campaign to promote our StoryWalks, allowing us to let people know when the stories were changed and also to monitor how frequently families were coming (and returning again and again!). Between June 27, 2020 and July 27, 2020 we received 24 Facebook comments or photos from families who had enjoyed the StoryWalks, and our Facebook posts about the StoryWalks received 1,752 engagements (Facebook defines this as likes, shares, or comments). In many cases it was clear that families visited multiple times. The program was so successful that we continued the program into the fall and early winter! 

By the end of our first season, we had shared more than two dozen stories. Eventually, the heavy winter snow and wind forced us to take the StoryWalks down, but we looked forward to bringing them back and expanding our project the following spring with sturdier display boards that can be relocated as needed!

*StoryWalk® was created by Anne Ferguson of Montpelier, VT and was developed with the help of Rachel Senechal, Kellogg-Hubbard Library.

Lindsey Shaklee is an Environmental Educator at Beaver Brook. She has a BS in psychology and is a graduate student in Miami University’s Project Dragonfly Program where her work has focused on the role of parents and families in nature connectedness and conservation. Lindsey writes about parenting and nature connection at https://wordpress.com/view/earthseasky.blog.

Gail Basiliere is the Summer Camp Coordinator at Beaver Brook. She previously taught elementary school for 23 years. She is the lead teacher for preschool outreach programs and the Natural Wonders preschool class. Gail has a BA in Psychology and English and a MEd from Antioch New England. She has created and implemented a school gardening program in several area schools

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