This interview was conducted by Carly Schmidt on July 18, 2024. Press play to listen, or find the full audio transcript below the audio player.

Transcript

Carly Schmidt: Okay, well, thank you so much for being here and chatting. Really appreciate your time. I wonder if you could just start us off by introducing yourself. What you do and what is keeping you fired up in this work these days?

Saraly Gonzalez: Yeah. Well, thanks for having me. My name is Saraly Gonzalez. My role right now is the Environmental Education program director at UrbanPromise in Camden, New Jersey. I work in an Office of Experiential Learning. And my last job, I was working with the USGS as a hydrologic technician, taking water quality samples in South Central Pennsylvania. And I think that position really opened my world up to the world of water. Those moments when I was out there taking water quality samples in the river were really special. And so I kind of get to carry that same magic into my role now with kids. I guess what keeps me fired about this work is having the opportunity to connect youth to natural environment both through on the water recreation and through science.

Carly Schmidt: Awesome. Thank you so much for that. I’m having another question come up which is, are we still using the term environmental education to describe this work? Because you’re talking about working in the Office of Experiential Learning, which immediately kind of flagged, you know, that is so much broader than what I would think of as environmental education. So I’m curious what kind of terminology you’re using to describe your work?

Saraly Gonzalez:Yeah, I mean, I love the word education. I think it gives more meat to the idea of directly connecting with nature. But as an office, we do so much more beyond what I do specifically within environmental education. We have an Urban Trekkers program, taking kids on 3-to-5-day expeditions all across the East Coast, from Maine to the Pinelands and Assateague Island. A lot of learning happens on those trips, even if it’s not framed explicitly as environmental education, because we’re still actively engaging with nature. We also have a boat-building program where students apply science, math, and physics to construct wooden boats. It’s quite amazing, and we use those boats to go out on the river in the summertime. So, yeah, while each dimension of our office incorporates elements of environmental education, I believe experiential learning goes way beyond just what I do.

Carly Schmidt: Yes, for sure. So I understand that you’re directing two programs at UrbanPromise: River Guides and the STAR Student Employees. I’d just love to learn more about these programs and what you’re hoping to achieve with these student groups.

Saraly Gonzalez: Yeah, so the River Guide program runs in the summertime. We hire 8 high school students from in and around Camden to lead public tours on the Cooper River and the Cooper River Lake, engaging in telling the stories of the river, sharing their work as they do water quality testing, and spreading knowledge, like just doing bird identification. So that group of students, they’re way more sporty. They’re good with roughing it, even in this heat wave. Then there are the STAR Student Employees, which runs during the academic school year. STAR stands for science, technology, advocacy, and research, and these students focus primarily on forwarding sustainability efforts around campus. That’s both advocacy and making their campus more sustainable, and also doing water quality testing at the same three sites that we do in and around Camden, with the additional GIS component to it. So they are learning the simple mechanisms, not simple mechanisms, but the intro to GIS and data visualization. And, you know, I said earlier that I have the privilege of showing these students or teaching these students more about the environment, both through science and recreation. But the main connection between these two programs is the combined sewage overflows issue in Camden. The outdated infrastructure is pouring raw sewage into our waterways, and we are just doing a small part in tracking that and to ensure that, hopefully, in the next 5 to 10 years, that can drastically, drastically be reduced to support just better ecology and just better public health for people who engage with the waterway.

Carly Schmidt: I’m curious how you’re bringing policy into this kind of environmental education work and these 2 programs, I mean, they seem so different. People are different. Kids are different. There seems to be something for everyone which is awesome. But I have this, maybe misconception, that you start talking to kids about policy and their eyes glaze over. How do you kind of go about introducing, introducing the kind of policy aspect to these kids and the kind of civic engagement piece?

Saraly Gonzalez: Yeah, you’re not wrong. They’re like, oh, policy sounds so scary. But I think one of the most amazing parts about our programming is that we add a story to what the Clean Water Act really is—we get to tell them and show them. For example, we go along the river, and it’s a very industrial waterfront. The city’s very industrial, and they have Campbell’s Soup. Their headquarters is right along the river. And we tell the story, although it’s not confirmed, that they used to dump tomato soup in the water just because there were no policies or regulations stopping them. The water was bright red, and the fish died. So we add that to the story and say, ‘This is the benefit of having the Clean Water Act protecting us and protecting our animals, so that doesn’t happen.’ That’s one way we connect policy to on-the-water recreation, so all our students and participants can put a story to it. Back in 2019 and 2020, past students actually engaged in testifying in front of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection for the reclassification of the Cooper River into a Category One. The River Guides were able to step in front of state officials and tell them the stories of what they see on the waterway. The person who founded all of my programming likes to put our story into “adventure to advocacy” because a lot of our work did start from recreation and turned into this advocacy to fight for cleaner waterways. This came into play with the reclassification, and it was actually the first waterway in all of New Jersey to be classified this way. So that was pretty amazing that they were able to share their experiences. ‘I see great blue heron. I see the eagles returning. There was an Atlantic sturgeon that was found—they found the carcass along the Delaware River, when they were previously thought of as extinct.’ So that is one way the adventure and the science that they engage with in our work can turn into advocacy, whether it’s just a person on your boat that you’re canoeing with for two hours or a state official.

Carly Schmidt: Nice. Yeah, speaking of this adventure-to-advocacy piece, you’re talking a lot about recreation, especially for the River Guides program, as a mechanism for experiential learning. I’m curious about the connection between recreation and environmental education for you. And how does something like water quality sampling broaden students’ connection to where they live?

Saraly Gonzalez: Yeah, I think when it comes down to it, many people don’t engage with the river around Camden. They don’t really see it as a welcoming space; the waterfronts aren’t welcoming. There aren’t docks or beaches, though they’re slowly increasing. Two of our three sampling locations are in Camden: one just below a dam and the other at the mouth of the Cooper River and the Delaware River. The other one is in Collingswood, just upstream of Camden, a neighboring town. But there are very different, very vast differences in diversity and income. When we’re sampling in Collingswood, the students notice how people are engaging with the water. We see rowboats, sailboats, a beautiful dock, a beautiful beach, and it’s a lot easier to sample there. It’s being used way more. But then, when we go into Camden, there’s a difference in the amount of engagement. The beauty’s still there, it’s just that we’re still bringing people there and bringing the infrastructure to support having more people there. So that’s one way that we open discussions toward environmental justice: why this difference exists and what the students can do, and what, as a community, we can do to bring more people to the waterfront and to support more on-the-water recreation.

Carly Schmidt: Are you collaborating with other local groups or organizations to get students involved in this kind of work?

Saraly Gonzalez: We are collaborating with five other organizations as a part of the Riverways Coalition. We have four organizations in Philadelphia and two in Camden that are directly engaged with this youth programming, specifically targeting urban youth who don’t typically engage with water or pursue these kinds of career tracks. We all do recreation, too, like kayaking and canoeing, all in different areas. And we’re pretty much all working together, sharing data, and coordinating sampling efforts to create fishable, swimmable rivers in and around Camden and Philadelphia. We’re just small nonprofits trying to do a big thing, and it’s really nice when we get to collaborate and continue to improve our sampling efforts and expand our reach of recreation.

Carly Schmidt: I’m also wondering if you have any examples of how being in this coalition of local groups has benefited your programming or specific way this coalition has amped up your impact?

Saraly Gonzalez: Just off the top of my head, like being able to get certifications in canoeing and just being safer on the water. And also the camaraderie that comes from it. Like, for example, we’re doing a dragon boat race in August, and I think that’s like one of those life-changing memories for our students that they’re going to tell for years and years: that we were on a dragon boat, we were part of a dragon boat race. And I think it’s essential to be able to develop our water sampling efforts so that they’re, you know, I guess, more legit. We’re all doing kind of the sort of citizen science, community science. A lot of us, I mean, aren’t really trained, and we’re not doing the highest-level of science. But we’re still doing the science. And in order to get these certifications or classifications, or even improve the methods of the way we collect our water samples, as a collective, you know, we’re trying to increase them so that they can be accepted by our state officials. Because in a lot of the areas that we are sampling or that we engage with, there is a gap in data for what we are trying to fight for. So I think that’s probably one of the most beneficial ways that we are able to work together.

Carly Schmidt: It’s fantastic to hear about all the groups collaborating to improve data collection and streamline methods. But, as you mentioned, student transformation is a core element of your programs. I’m curious how you effectively communicate that transformation to funders and supporters who might not have the chance to see it firsthand. How do you showcase the impact these programs have on the students involved?

Saraly Gonzalez: I think one of the main points we try to communicate with our funders is the change in attitude before and after our students and participants engage in our programming. We do a pre- and post-survey to see how their attitudes shift. We want to assess how they feel about the waterway: Is it clean? Is it dirty? Is it safe? And also, you know, what’s an indicator species? So that’s one way we gauge how the participants are learning through us. For the students, it’s more anecdotal. It’s about the great memories they have, the skills they learn, and how they choose to move forward with those skills or return to our programming.

Carly Schmidt: Awesome. And those positive experiences shouldn’t be overlooked either. Sure, they learn about native species, but it’s more than that. They have this transformative experience on the river, and that might inspire them to go back out there on their own time.

Saraly Gonzalez: Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Carly Schmidt: Okay, so thinking about your work in the broader context of the water and climate movement, what positive impact do you hope to have through this work in the coming years?

Saraly Gonzalez: I mean, I hope that the water quality samples we are collecting now can be mobilized to guide better decision-making for infrastructure and policy in and around Camden, to help them build a healthier and more resilient future. But I also think that through the stories and experiences that people get when they are a part of our programming, it creates a community that feels connected to the waterway, where they feel a sense of belonging. They can say, “Oh, I’ve been in a canoe before, and I thought it was beautiful. And I wish we could do that more often. I wish it was more widespread.” And I hope our students feel that same sense of belonging in this space of science, policy, advocacy, or recreation. When I was first going into this field as a Latina, my classes weren’t really diverse, and I wasn’t feeling this sense of welcoming and belonging in environmental science or anything water-related. I really struggled in my undergrad to find my place and what path I wanted to take. I’m thankful that I’m able to open a space for students to explore this career path and these sports and be able to tell people in the future, “Yeah, I did that, and I want to keep doing it. I want to be a scientist. I want to be a politician.” Just changing what it means to be in this field. I hope that can carry on to future generations, and people carry on with making decisions that benefit the future and better water quality.

Carly Schmidt:That’s awesome. And I also want to say, I’ve been doing these interviews for a while now, since 2018, and not always talking with environmental educators, but always with folks who work on water in many different capacities. There’s always this through-line. I used to ask this question pretty routinely, and I should probably get back into it because it always yielded interesting answers, but they all ended up being really repetitive, which was so many folks talking about this one program from middle school or high school. And these are folks who maybe weren’t necessarily introduced to outdoor recreation through their families, but they’re talking about this one program that introduced them to this work and really introduced them to the idea that, ‘Oh, this is a career path for me! This is something that I could do for my entire career and make, you know, either conservation or environmental justice work a real pillar of their career.’ So I don’t think there’s any discounting environmental education. It’s not even just a powerful tool, but an absolutely essential tool for building a movement. So, if you don’t mind, I’d love to go back to something you said earlier before this interview. I was asking if you get a break anytime soon, or if summer programs kind of feed right into the school year, and you were saying that things calm down around September, but otherwise you’re kind of just charging forward. And I’m curious what you do to rest, to get the rest that you need, or how do you find these spaces where you can restore your own energy when this work is really year-round?

Saraly Gonzalez: Yeah, you know, before this job I wasn’t as outdoorsy as you’d think. My first time camping was actually with our Urban Trekkers program! Now, it’s become a big part of who I am. My favorite way to relax is camping – just unplugging and refocusing on why I do this work. It’s amazing that I’m able to go hiking, kayaking, and just be active in nature. That’s what re-energizes me, spending time with the trees.

Carly Schmidt: And then just not having access to a phone is lovely as well. That is one of my favorite parts, for sure.

Saraly Gonzalez: Yeah. And also the humbling experiences you have out there. It’s a great way to recharge and refocus.

Carly Schmidt: You mean like the humbling experience of, “Oh, I didn’t bring enough water,” and you’re just out there?

Saraly Gonzalez: Yeah, yeah, I feel that. Basically, it really reminds you of your basic needs. I think a lot of our students had that same realization when they went on their first camping trip for their orientation this past June. Yeah, it feels like so long ago.

Carly Schmidt: It does, but it was last month. I think you’re talking about the River Guides? You were saying that these kids are more outdoorsy, less into the classroom stuff, and you’re actually out on the river. But they still have a journey, a learning moment. What does their arc look like over the course of their summer program?

Saraly Gonzalez: Yeah, I think, like, you know, a lot of them might not consider themselves outdoorsy when they first get into this job. For many of them, they’ve probably only been canoeing once or twice. But it’s out of their comfort zone, and I think we kind of break them down with their orientation. It’s a harsh reality. We just came back from the Poconos, and we paddled 30 miles in 3 days. Straight canoe camping. And they really grew into this sense of, “Okay, I can do this. Okay, this is the beauty of our rivers.” While we were up there, we saw most likely about 30 bald eagles. And we were on the same river that we are on every day, the Delaware River, we’re just way upstream of it. And I think they’re growing into becoming a group together throughout that experience. And then when they come back from that trip, we start our paddling season the next week, and they are leading these educational talks around the river, doing a lot of public speaking. And I’ve heard many stories of how people came in, not thinking they were a leader or embodied any sort of leadership qualities, and then leaving realizing that they can be a leader, that they’re a strong paddler, a strong public speaker, that they can do conflict resolution. These are things that you wouldn’t really get out of your first, or any typical first job—the experiences, the adventures, and I guess the change of identity that you get from this.

Carly Schmidt: Oh, that’s incredible. I think the thing, too, the difference-maker, is probably that you pay them. This is actually their summer job. So you get kids who are really just looking for a summer job, they end up on the river, and then at the end of the summer, they’re like, ‘Oh, I love this!’ They’re seeing so many more facets of themselves than they’ve seen before. I skipped a question, and I’d love to go back to it because you started alluding to it a little bit. I was asking about environmental education being so much more than just a single event. It’s really about going out there every day and introducing kids to new experiences, but also providing specific skills training for the kids who are in the classroom, too. It’s so important to have this moment to recognize how far you’ve come in any given program. So how do you give the kids opportunities to do this and recognize their own growth at the end of these programs?

Saraly Gonzalez: At the end of the year, our STAR Student Employees, after a full school year of taking water samples, learning about the watershed, and plotting those data points onto a map, were invited to an annual fundraiser event at UrbanPromise. This experience turned into a science fair for them, where they had stations to showcase their work. There was one explaining what a watershed is, another on the importance of water quality and the parameters we track, and my favorite – the GIS table, which demonstrated how GIS is a tool for advocacy. Throughout that experience, our STARs were able to present their work in front of a group. By the end of the night, they had presented their findings about five times to a group of 100 individuals. These were freshmen and sophomores talking about their experience and findings, and how they’re going to mobilize their findings moving forward. It was amazing to see how much they grew into this role. The hiring process for this job mentions public speaking, and a lot of them were probably like, “No, I can’t.” They’d never had an opportunity to do this, but when you give them the opportunity and the tools, they really flourish. I just hope they carry that same pride and confidence they had that night into any future endeavors, during school or after.