About 4 years ago, we decided to start a hiking club.\u00a0 We have an autistic son and before we knew about all the family-oriented activities out there for autistic kids, we didn\u2019t know what we could do.\u00a0 We wanted something that would involve the whole family \u2013 parents, autistic kids, and their typically developing siblings \u2013 in an environment where everyone could relax and not worry about being judged by others.\u00a0 Thus was born the Trophies Hike Club.\u00a0 Every Sunday at 10 a.m., we meet in the parking lot or visitor center of one of many parks in the area.<\/p>\n
We now have a group of 5-6 families (and 5-6 dogs!) that venture out every weekend — rain or shine — and it\u2019s been a fabulous tradition that has grown with us.\u00a0 Hike club has been a perfect venue to teach the kids some important things\u2026respect wildlife, be fascinated by the impact of the changing seasons and the changing courses of the waterways and trails, not littering, and generally respecting each other and the folks, plants and animals we encounter on our walks.<\/p>\n
We are planning to order water quality sampling kits (because what kid wouldn\u2019t want to step into a muddy stream, plant a mesh leaf bag in order to later retrieve it and inspect the creepy crawlers that may be found within).\u00a0 We also pick up litter as we go.\u00a0 Are we environmentalists?\u00a0 Maybe.\u00a0 But let\u2019s step this up a notch: what if we had a way to share our activities with others \u2013 inspire others with the idea of our hiking club?\u00a0 And also give the kids kudos by announcing their forays into the forest on the World Wide Web.<\/p>\n
Well, now we do have a way \u2013 environmental shout outs in EPA\u2019s MyEnvironment<\/a>.\u00a0 A couple of weeks ago, we added the capability for the public to report their \u201cgood-for-the-environment\u201d activities within the context of MyEnvironment.\u00a0 We hear about folks buying their first composter, local all-green salons, Boy Scout river cleanups, and much more.\u00a0 MyEnvironment was a way for the public to find environmental information about their neighborhood.\u00a0 Now they will find out not just what the EPA is doing in their community, but also what the community is doing in their community.\u00a0 That\u2019s open government.<\/p>\n About the author: Kim Balassiano has worked in EPA\u2019s Office of Environmental Information since 2007. Before that, she was an EPA contractor for 12 years, doing mapping and spatial analysis.\u00a0 This blog is part of an ongoing series about the EPA\u2019s efforts<\/a> toward the Open Government Directive that lays out the Obama Administration\u2019s commitment to Open Government and the principles of transparency, participation and collaboration.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" About 4 years ago, we decided to start a hiking club.\u00a0 We have an autistic son and before we knew about all the family-oriented activities out there for autistic kids, we didn\u2019t know what we could do.\u00a0 We wanted something that would involve the whole family \u2013 parents, autistic kids, and their typically developing siblings […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6469,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-434884","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434884","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6469"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=434884"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434884\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=434884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=434884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=434884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}