Bham Family April 2020 35
Gates says.
It’s a simple formula, really. “When families do
things together, they grow together,” Gates says.
in the current way that education is conducted,
through no fault of well-meaning teachers, and
identity for the kids: “Dr. Jason was telling me
she says. His mother pulled up to pick him up
and this kid was walking across the lawn with
a group of kids following him and his mother
all alone at school. “I’m hoping that this year in
school that kid knows that somewhere he is the
sustain a kid for a long time,” Gates remarks.
science education to children at the moment they
are interested. For instance, once when a young
man stuck his hand inside a pile of mulch on a
hike, they dropped the pre-planned curriculum
can teach kids what they are interested in—and
And you can do that when you have the kind of
instructors that Fresh Air Family has. They include
Ph.D. geologists, former UAB Medical School
in the southeast getting a PhD in wildlife molecular
With interactive instruction that sometimes
dispersed, and the children have to use what’s
given them to create a way for the seed to cross
the tissue paper to get to “the seed party.” Gates
reports that one child (who happened to come
“It looks like we have an engineer here, the child
stuff.” After learning that that was indeed what
engineers do, this young man’s eyes lit up as he
realized a goal he could work toward. “Design
thinking is really where we’ve gone,” Gates says.
Fresh Air Family makes sure that children
who need this most have the opportunity. With
to 213 kids in 2018, it’s clear that diversity is an
“how will the kids ever care to protect what they
haven’t seen?” Gates asks. An environmentalist,
“Because it was never glaciated, the plant and
the world,” Gates says. Fresh Air Family teaches
Fresh Air is funded through grants and
Wacky Tacky Holiday Light Tour. Last year they
the homeowners, so mark your calendars now.)
can join in weekend hikes, go on geology tours
camps, fossil hunts, and a host of other
activities. “We have had whole families show
up with four generations on our hikes,” Gates
www.freshairfamily.org.
/www.freshairfamily.org