A Skittle in Hand is Worth Two in the Bush
Ashley Bakken

"And this our life exempt from public haunt Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones and good in every thing. I would not change it."
- As You Like It by William Shakespeare

   Last year, many people asked me what my plans were for the summer of 2005. When I told them that I was going to be a camp counselor, I could always catch a glimmer of the "When are you going to grow up?" thought passing through their heads. Even though I know that I do not wish to be a camp counselor for the rest of my life, and even though it would probably be more beneficial for my career to take a high-paying job or internship, I believe that a summer job at camp is what will actually serve me the best in the future. As a counselor, I get to live, play and work outside; I go on adventures; I meet amazing people from all over the word; and, most importantly, I have the ability to impact the lives of children. As a youngster, camp gave me a love of learning, a desire to explore, and the power to think about my place in the world. As an adult, my experiences at camp helped me to solve real-world problems, develop a greater understanding of myself, and structure my sense of human ecology.

   When I was a younger camper, probably about nine years old, one of my cabin counselors was the ecology director. She took us on hikes to find wild strawberries, showed us the enormous nest of a bald eagle, and nursed an injured squirrel back to health; to my nine year-old self, she was a god. One rainy day, she told the girls in our activity period that we were going to be doing an indoor activity that related to the outdoors. Before beginning, she asked us if we all knew the definition of a generation. My friend Sarah, who is still a friend of mine today, and a self-admitted brown-noser, raised her hand. "It's everybody that's about the same age at the same time," she said. "My dad says that a generation is about thirty years long." The counselor smiled, and continued by splitting us all up into three generations. I was part of the second generation. To my chagrin, Sarah was placed into the first generation; I didn't know what the exercise would be yet, but in my nine year-old mind, first was always better than second. The counselor began the exercise by stating that each generation would receive a resource, and they could use that resource how they see fit. Each generation would get five minutes with the resource. She proceeded to pull a bag of Skittles from a box in the corner. I couldn't believe our luck; at camp we rarely got to eat candy. It was the first generation's turn with the resource, so the counselor handed the bag to one of the five girls in the group. The girls democratically decided to split the Skittles evenly between themselves. Shortly after breaking open the bag, divvying up the candy, and devouring it like jackals at the kill, their five minutes were up. I assumed it was just a matter of seconds before the counselor pulled out another bag of Skittles for the second generation, my generation. I was extremely disappointed when the counselor asked the first generation to hand what was left of their resource over to our generation; it was only the wrapper. We were all pretty shocked, but after a minute or so, decided that dividing what remained would be the best use of the resource. So, we tore the wrapper into five relatively equal pieces, and each sat despondently with our piece until our five minutes were up. At this point, I think that the third group was pretty sure of what they were going to receive as a "resource."

   Even before the counselor "debriefed" us on the exercise, I was able to grasp how the activity applied to the world, and the use of natural resources. It was the first time that I can remember thinking about how my, and others', actions can impact the environment and the availability of future resources. It was the earliest point in my life that I really thought of the relationship that exists between humans and our environment, both social and natural. In this sense, the generation activity was my first acknowledged experience with human ecology.

   Camp opened my eyes to the natural environment. Of course, I had taken field trips to arboretums and natural history museums, watched wildlife shows on PBS, and played in the small group of trees that we called "the woods" behind my house, but I had never really experienced the natural environment. Camp brought me directly in contact with the out-of-doors. Immediately, I loved it. From the lake that glis-8 tened and danced when the sun kicked the clouds out of the sky, the trees that rustled so loudly it sounded like they were sharing secrets, the magma-colored sunrise that was heralded by the call of a loon, and the flight of a majestic bald eagle overhead, I learned just how spectacular the world around me was. For four weeks of each year, the outdoors was my classroom. I went on hikes to explore the shoreline; I gazed up at the night sky like I never had at home; and I questioned everything. I wanted to know, really know, how the sky could get so blue, how loons could seemingly fly underwater, and how a compass could magically tell us which way we were going. Although I learned as a camper what it meant to explore my relationship to the environment, it was not until I returned as a counselor, after two years of COA, that I knew the term "human ecology."

   The camp counselor is one of the best ambassadors of human ecology. Just like human ecologists, counselors wear many hats, and use multiple pathways to solve problems. They also take an inter-disciplinary approach to everything that they endeavor. All at the same time, counselors are child psychologists, teachers, wilderness guides, chefs, doctors, and more. With nothing but a staff orientation and possibly a previous psychology course, a counselor is counted on to help children on their paths to social adjustment; with nothing but a map, a compass, and a Red Cross CPR certification, he is expected to know what to do in the event of an emergency in the woods; and in a pony-tail, worn-out flip-flops, jeans, and a sweatshirt that is two sizes too big, she is expected to be the model of adulthood for twenty young girls. A counselor uses the tools that he has to do his job. Similarly, COA gives students an intellectual framework: a set of tools to use in the real world. Undoubtedly, every College of the Atlantic graduate faces situations that he or she has not encountered before, situations that seem overwhelming. In these situations, one must utilize the tools that he or she has available; for college graduates, these are primarily academic tools. For a human ecologist, however, these academic tools must be complemented by personal experiences in order to be completely functional. From my perspective, human ecology is the utilization of our experiences, coupled with an intellectual framework, to solve problems and explore the environments around us.

   Camp is the first place where I can say I fulfilled my definition of human ecology. It helped me to explore my relationship to the natural world, to others, and to myself. Camp is a place where, as a child, I learned who I was and who I wanted to be. It is also the place where, as an adult, I remembered how to be me. Thinking back on it now, if I had ended up in the first generation of the skittle exercise, I might be in a different place today. That exercise awakened me to the importance of my world, and to what I would one day know as human ecology.