April 2012 - Parks & Recreation - 44

every year. Its park offerings range from the new
Rocky Fork Metro Park, preserving the headwaters
of Rocky Fork from development, to Scioto Audubon
Park in downtown Columbus, a restored brownfield
offering both nature and recreation activities geared
toward to urban young professionals.
Although founded as a regional land conservation
agency, Metro Parks hosts almost 7 million visitors
per year, providing a huge opportunity for public education. O'Meara says that Metro Parks takes a strategic targeted approach to education, focusing on
school-age children and seniors in particular.
Every fifth grader in the Columbus city school system participates in the Students Exploring Ecosystem
Dynamics (SEED) program. The nine-week SEED life
sciences program was carefully crafted to fit into the
curriculum requirements of the school system-in
fact, O'Meara says that students who participated in
SEED pilot programs performed better on their academic assessment tests than those who did not.
Seniors, meanwhile, can reconnect with nature
(and perhaps their childhoods) through senior summer camp, where they enjoy fishing, crafts, games, nature walks, and live animal programs. Throughout the
year, the Metro Parks Five-O program takes a new approach to senior programming, with staff specifically
programming activities with seniors in mind. Heavily
used by senior groups, the park system's trams allow people even with
more limited mobility to get out into
the parks.
" We always need to do more, "

O'Meara says. " I think that parks in general, and particularly conservation-based parks, absolutely have
to be leaders in the community. The community looks
to us to have the experts and know what's best from a
conservation perspective-and we have to fulfill that
role and we have to be proactive in that role. We can't
just do that passively. "

" Science determines the best and
highest use for the land "
Twenty years ago, the Mecklenburg County Park and
Recreation Department partnered with the North Carolina Natural Heritage Program to conduct the county's first formal inventory of its natural areas. The
resulting survey documented the presence of a stunning diversity of natural communities and brought to
public attention a number of rare and endangered
species native to the area-including a vibrant yellow
sunflower-Shweinitz's Sunflower-that would became a conservation rallying point in the community.
The survey's impact transcended the protection of
any one species, though. At a time when Charlotte
and its suburbs were undergoing rapid development,
Mecklenburg's park department adopted a new vision. " Ours became a broader view than the preservation of open spaces, " parks director Jim Garges
recounts. " [one of] protecting the biodiversity we
have...and managing resources. " Out of that commitment, a Nature Preserve plan was incorporated
into the county's broader master plan-and the park
department's Natural Resources Division was born.
Natural Resource Manager Chris Matthews

" It's not a political conclusion- it's about
how the land can serve us best. And what
other alternatives are available. "

Mecklenburg County's
controlled burning program
enriches soil for wildflower fields

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April 2012 - Parks & Recreation

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