Outdoors Maryland; 1006

Coming up kids take a hands on approach to learning about the day saving Marilyn's were a legacy for future generations. And see why it's easy to get hooked on fishing. Outdoors Maryland is produced in cooperation with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. DENR. Inspired by Nature. A brisk wind is blowing from the direction of the imagination.

All aboard. To explore bassed new lands and science to discover rich treasures of the Chesapeake Bay to grab hold of history and bring it alive. Where. The students are sailing to adventure on the lady Maryland a one of a kind replica 1880s punji schooner owned and operated by the Living Classrooms foundation. Based in Baltimore's Inner Harbor. The foundation offers 35 innovative education programs to more than 50000 students every year. The foundation's learning by doing field trips offer children across the state a chance to ride the waves of discovery. Second largest. Estuary. Have you guys heard that word before these sailors for a day hail from Georgian Forest Elementary School in Silver Spring

Maryland I'm in son fourth grade classroom teachers savers the learning opportunity really important for the elementary school age children because it really gives them that hands on experience where they can really see and feel and hear and even taste sometimes the experiences that we talk about in the classrooms and especially because we live right by the way and everything that we do affects the day the children really get a sense of that once we come out here on a ship and look at the life in the day and just all of our learning together you know and it gives a talk on the road. Say a lever is a machine that lets you lift something very heavy on the lady Maryland raising sales and steering the boat provide real world demonstrations of natural science. Well thank you very much. It was great. Are you ready on the beat. The oh look at your current world.

Or. Raising sale gives Monica a sense of accomplishment. You're assigned to see that. Sale because. It was a. Hard play with. You. It took. Only one person. To do it. As captain of the only existing punji schooner in the world. Rick true it has a remarkable job but he is inspired by the children. I personally like sailing vessel because she's got of an admirable. Purpose. What is I like to teach the kids. They're drilling retching having a bunch of kids get on board and some of them never been on the water before

and they get on board they raise the sails and they do all the activities and they get off and they have just a wonderful experience. It's just a really fun thing to do. John Lisa treasures her chance to play Captain. Staring at the whale. I am surprised to make it more real on the boat than in the classroom. I think. Once the sails are hoisted the kid cycled through a series of science stations that put claws on chemistry and fins on biology.

Look back here and see which of these animals you might find the level of salt that we have. The units that we study in fourth grade in sciences ecology and ecosystems and that works in wonderfully with the Marilyn that we study in social studies. It really meshes together both the land in the geography and the history of Maryland as well as the beauty and the resources of the bay really it brings those two things really to life for the children is going to open itself up like Maurice is intrigued by his encounter with famous Bay creatures. My favorite part was literally that's a light touch to pick up the crabs. The fish was hard and I was like sticky is. In the crab. Hearted and this fish and I thought I was going to get pinched his arms out like this. I noticed the back legs and I'm holding him from this one right here is different than the others. How is that like different. Feels right at the paddling. That's right that's right

that's exactly what you said to swim with blue crab is the only kind of crab in the Chesapeake Bay that has the ability to swim. Where did I think. Happy day couldn't be better. We focus on. The bay because obviously the bears are venue. So when we're doing our water quality station or our navigation station it's it's. To try to bring the best self to light that's what we were here for. Sara Lee here as an environmental organization more as an educational organization so these kids are out on out on the bay on the boat and that's why our bay studies are our focus. We're trying to enhance their experience to make. This. Experience on the lady Maryland on the Patapsco River is amazing. The children I can really see that they're there soaking all of it in and they're really

learning everything that we've discussed. And it brings everything together in their minds. And I would very much like to do this every year and bring children every year here so they can see the beauty of it and the needs of the day and just experience firsthand. The field trips that we take all the way around. We try to make them as hands on as possible. There was so much information over the course that it was so much activity that they'll never remember everything. But they can walk away having a memorable experience such as steering the boat raising the sail or throwing a fishing net and it's all worth it. That's that's our purpose. This is my second year on a lake in Maryland and I love it. Perhaps Mark a fourth grader sums up the bay adventure best. For you. I think it's a good week you feel a

girl. Suspended high above the fray it's easy to see the problem. Urban sprawl is eating away the rural landscape. Farms wooded tracts places of historical importance valuable natural resources are being gobbled up. What to do. Some like those living in the piney run area in Baltimore County near Hampstead believe they have found a solution. The rural legacy program. Sarah Tanner Rogers secretary of the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. It's a beautiful day for Smart Growth. The neighborhood conservation here in Baltimore County and across Maryland it is very hard to believe that in 1997 the rural legacy program was still only a concept when today just three short years

later it's a very tangible reality that's already made some very real progress. At Piney run one of the jewels of the rural legacy program the awardees of this year's grants are being announced. Governor Glendening is convinced this program will help preserve prime rural areas throughout the state. It's a partnership that is working in most parts of the state and I'm excited about it as I I told people. My reward I think is true for every citizen the state has to recognize that their grandchildren and great grandchildren are going to be able to see this all over the state. Instead of looking over and just seeing one more subdivision one more strip shopping center. Does the program really work. Wayne Armacost a seventh generation farmer looks at this program from the inside out. He and his family live in the piney run area. An area that has been awarded almost 7 million dollars by the program.

When we were growing up we were always working on the farm. After school we'd help milk and before school we'd help milk and weekends and whenever. We shared. An. Equipment with neighbor farmers and we would bale hay with them and they would help us and Salo filling in those kinds of things. We got a kick out of going to talk to you on. The way. Do that. Three of us are going to. Do it. As we saw more development what we saw was more challenges in our farming operation. We had people that had no understanding of Agriculture. All of a sudden trying to put their inputs of what we should do what we shouldn't do. They were on the horn behind you if you're driving a piece of equipment up and down the road because they were upset because they had to get in their car because they want to be at their job at such and such time. Not just in the piney run area but around the state rural areas began to be

assailed by development pressures as the booming 60s turned into the go go 70s and the takeover 80s plunged into the hyperactive 90s. Rural land shrunk alarmingly. A devastating thought for farmers. From agriculture standpoint we need a critical mass of area. We need a critical mass of farms and land because if you lose that critical mass then you don't have people who want to service that you don't have the farm stores you don't have somebody who wants to sell you parts for you for your tractor. They don't swing. We just open up our lease build timothy hay. And one of the few. You could get a stage 10 billion if you talk about. Piecemeal programs we're not helping to conserve large blocks of land. Farmers were losing control of their destiny. The rural legacy program a cooperative program proactively initiated by the state of Maryland reached out to

counties and landowners offering money and help dealing with red tape. The legacy program has helped me to do that by and help us in this community do that by helping us to work in a way where we can preserve land. And and and and be able to preserve even some pieces that may not have been preserved through ag land preservation or through Maryland Environmental Trust. Additional lands to keep that core base that core critical mass as I call it you know here intact and functional for agriculture. Armacost experience is not unique. Down the road apiece. Galen saw her and her brother and sister inherited the farm that their father worked until he died in 1993. Does it make a difference if your neighbors are also preserving their life. Oh definitely. When you have a contiguous areas.

After my father and mother's passing there were a lot of inquiries from developers saying do you want to sell it to make a lovely development. Selling out to developers was not an option and so I wanted to contemplate. But the financial pressures were there. Because we've been here for some time. Most of the neighbors know me by sight or personally and they've asked continually What are you going to do with the phone and what are you going to do with them. And many would express the opinion that I hope you don't sell it. I hope you don't develop it. And so reluctantly dug into pension funds until the rover legacy program came along. Then the people from the rural legacy program helped answer fill out the necessary forms and your family farm became a part of the program. But with the legacy program that's it's fantastic because it enables it to stay in

repulsion. They're not making any. People always need to eat. So that's very important. But then financially able sauce to pass it on to the next generation and generations and more for operating to maintain it and keep it to preserve it so there's not erosion for. The DNR in cooperation with other state and county agencies is dedicated to preserving the best of the best rural land in the state of Maryland. Currently there are 25 rural legacy areas throughout the state. 20 of our 23 Maryland counties participate in this program. In the three years the program has been open requests for nearly three hundred four million dollars have been received. Eighty two million dollars have been awarded. And if the plan is continued for 15 years it is projected that 500 million

dollars will have been spent to protect deserving rural areas. Fall harvest begins in the piney run area. Bringing to mind time and its changing seasons. Will the rural legacy program accomplish its goal. Will it preserve the rural character of designated areas for future generations to enjoy. Grant a hard administrator of the rover legacy program. We're hoping that those best of the resources in Maryland can be preserved over this. 15 year period with the funds that are brought to bear. Now we can't necessarily predict that each and every one of these will be filled out with fully protected lands over the period of time but the more the state expresses its interest in the area for

total preservation then it's more likely that other programs private landowners will be giving easements to the Maryland environmental trust because they know it's going to be secure they won't be tempted to wait and see if development occurs around them before they decide whether or not they're going to continue farming or to give that farm to their children. They will know that it's going to be a long term future for farming or forestry or for natural resource use. You're. Gone fishing. These two little words conjure up behind a rama of pastoral images then real through the heart of America. Fishing gives us the freedom to cast wide our private musing and personal folklore.

Lessons of Life just beneath the placid surface. And there's always tomorrow another chance to catch the one that got away. This pond at the Harford Glen Elementary Education Center in Hartford County is fishing friendly. The biggest fish have nicknames and kids are almost guaranteed a catch. It's a perfect site for a Department of Natural Resources summer fishing clinics for young people aged seven through 16. The program called hooked on fishing not on drugs strives to capture the special lure of fishing. When a rod and reel replaces time on their hands. Children are engaged in satisfying and fun recreation and hopefully reducing the lure of more dangerous influences.

Mark Lewandowski is with the DNR as aquatic resources education department. Has a program that's designed to teach kids the proper way to catch and release a fish set up their rods to go fishing on their own. And also more importantly to encourage them to use fishing as an alternative to other behaviors that could wind up getting them in trouble. Garrett relishes the outdoors adventure. I. Like to hang. Around there and I have a great great actually. But I'm pulling in a fish I feel this adrenaline this morning.

I think fishing is pretty good to get out and then outside in which we know most kids don't get to do concerts and such playing video games and computer things and stuff like that. It's good to get outside me. So you don't become a couch potato. Head and. The program teaches much more than fishing technique. Clinic is built around a wide spectrum of subject matter. It's pretty much your progression from the beginning of the week they learn about the day the watershed solution how children have a role and making the bay a healthier place. Fish habitat South fish live fish adaptations different types of fish where you might find habits as they live in and then build out to other activities such as not tying practice casting and then through the end of the week. It's pretty much all fish.

The judge and I speak again right there just like that. Right. OK there you go. Nice healthy fish. I want them to come away with an experience where they can go out get some equipment and set up their fishing rod on their own and go out fishing. So you. Try to instill in them some angler ethics. As far as respecting property owners rights following fishing boating regulations and proper catch and release technique. Crow can be seen let me go let me go down underneath. Put him back you. Have a lot of parents who come back and make an effort to call and say thanks for giving their kids an opportunity to learn something that they may or may not be capable of teaching them. You got it. Yes.

A lot of parents come out and learned themselves is a great way for parents to come out and get their hands dirty and spend some quality time with the kids. And watch what your bobber. Gary Dixon wrote his son Tyler in the hooked on fishing camp. Today. How bad at the fishing camp with my son. Because I think it's a really great opportunity for the children in. An urban environment to come out here in nature learn fish learn the proper way to fish learn the rules of fishing nation nice day. Yeah that's a good thing to be out of here with the kids and have some fun. We get too hung up on all the time. Usually in our past world we take for granted a lot of the simple pleasures in life anymore and this can be one of them and you're. Going to interview a man. Right. My dad and I used to go out driving on the piers down the Turner

station. Yeah you'll never see. That. Stuff where you can get it. It was as I remember here. Oh yeah yeah. You take time Father and Son you kind of enjoy that time together. Lo and behold you start talking to each other then you let him back in the water. Yeah. It's. The bass and bunch bass club based in Aberdeen Maryland presents a casting clinic as part of the hooked on fishing program. Coral bunch heads up the bass and bunch bass club a Maryland federation with activities well beyond tournaments fishing. It's a multi-purpose club and we try to do a youth project every year. And this is our big youth project this year. We also try to do a conservation

project each year. That way we're putting back into the sport as much as what we're taking out. You know we want to do something to help teach the kids to respect in and care about the environment rather than become adults and be told to care about it. They're going to care more if they learn to care that they're told. We teach one of three basic math has been pitching them overhead pass. If they learned those three basic them they can go out when they're patient and they can try in the morning projects and get a burger yeah. Being able to present the lure of the bait the better fresher monogamy and they're less prone to get frustrated. And you're well. Mollie enjoyed honing or casting spells. I've never been fly high school before because my dad said it's too dangerous. But now since I know how to do it I think my dad's going to do it.

You had to work a lot but it was fun because I like to fish a lot and and if I fly cast then you can get farther out into the lake or stream whatever you're fishing and. I could tell when I was getting in near the target because the end of the fishing rod points to your target. So if you get it there you know you have a more likely chance to get it really close. I think I'll keep fishing now because it's a whole lot of fun. And if you're stressed you can go out fishing and your stress goes away for sure having fun and relaxing. The program that has been in place for about nine years. We have five sites now held in the Frederick Baltimore she sold my comic CO and Harper counties. It's a great program. Kids can come away with a good sense of accomplishment.

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