OUR STORY

The PROBLEM I had as a pediatrician...

I started my residency in pediatrics in the spring of 2020, in the beginning of the COVID pandemic. The children's hospital was eerily quiet while the pandemic raged through the elderly population and everyone sheltered at home. It wasn't coughs and colds that brought kids to the emergency room. Instead, patients were coming in for mental health crises. Even as families started to return to school and work, up to 25% of the patients in our children's hospital emergency room were there for mental health issues on any night of the week.

It was a stressful time. I worried about a lot of things, from my patients on the ground all the way up to climate change in the atmosphere. On my way home from the hospital in the evenings, I started to stop in a local park to plant trees as a way to cope. That's how I stumbled on something called ecosystem restoration. Ecosystem restoration is a powerful climate change solution that allows people to plant native plants and restore biodiversity in their local communities. Doing restoration work, I began to feel my stressors slip away as I watched a new forest grow under my care. I began to wonder, what if my patients could benefit from ecosystem restoration?

The SOLUTION I dreamed up...

The more time I spent as an ecosystem restorer, the more I believed in the words of Robin Wall Kimmerer, As we work to heal the earth, the earth heals us. I realized that my patients could solve the problem of biodiversity loss and combat mental health challenges, including eco-anxiety, by combining social-emotional learning with ecosystem restoration. The idea for the EarthWilders program was born.

I spent countless hours building community partnerships and developing the EarthWilders curriculum. It strengthens in students a powerful, healing relationship that has been lost in modern times: that between people and the land. Through removing noxious weeds and planting native plants, students learning lessons of resilience, empathy, and community while watching their own forest grow.

EarthWilders is piloting in 2024 in Burien, Washington, in partnership with the New Futures afterschool program for middle school students. Sessions take place at a local park, where students will perform an ecosystem restoration project. Throughout the program, students will learn about emotions and the ways they impact our lives and relationships. They will gain important skills in recognizing emotions in ourselves and in others, and how to cope with difficult circumstances in healthy, productive ways. The program also addresses eco-anxiety, or the fears many people have of the future in a rapidly changing climate, through reconnecting students to the land and engaging them in a tangible climate solution.

If you are interested in this project, don't hesitate to reach out! Contact us at EarthWilders@gmail.com.

Action on behalf of life transforms. Because the relationship between self and the world is reciprocal, it is not a question of first getting enlightened or saved and then acting. As we work to heal the earth, the earth heals us.-Robin Wall Kimmerer