Through the "Voices of Local Leaders" interview series, the Science Yourself Initiative supports community members in the Greater New Haven area and across Connecticut that value science literacy and critical thinking, including researchers, formal and non-formal educators, students, parents, citizen scientists, journalists, and artists.

Early this year, Science Yourself interviewed Gammy Moses, an environmental educator currently working at the Elm City Montessori school. Gammy has been connecting young students and their parents with accessible, open green spaces around New Haven for the last 16 years. Through references to his childhood in the island of Dominica, spending as much time outdoors as possible and following the musical steps of his father, we can easily understand and admire his passion for environmental and outdoor education. Using captivating lessons that combine arts, rhythm, and movements with nature exploration, Gammy engages our youth in learning about science and taking action to protect our environment. There is absolutely no doubt that Gammy is an inspiration to how we should work together and teach our children!

(This interview, including a video with Gammy Moses, was originally posted at https://www.scienceyourself.org/en/blog/2021/interview-with-gammy-moses)

“My name is Gamaliel Moses. They call me Gammy for short. I’m originally from a small Eastern Caribbean island called Dominica, in the West Indies. I moved to the U.S. in 2005, so that’s about 16 years ago. And shortly after I moved here I got involved with Public Allies and got placed at Solar Youth. That was my introduction to environmental education and youth development work. I became an educator there for a couple of years and then, eventually, I transitioned into being the Program Coordinator & Camp Director over there. I was at Solar Youth for about 12 years, and during that time, being a musician and drumming, I developed a lot of curriculum around songs, using rhythm and chants to teach about the environment and science. And I found a nice niche of being a teacher using rhythm, movements and songs. After that, I was connected to the New Haven Land Trust [now part of the merged organization ‘Gather New Haven’]. I started as a Community Organizer because I was very involved in doing a lot of community work. I worked with the [New Haven] Land Trust a bit connecting people to the community gardens and doing programs with kids within the community gardens. Shortly after that, I transitioned to doing environmental education work. We would bus kids from different schools, and I would do environmental education lessons within the nature preserve, [such as] the Quinnipiac [Meadows Eugene B. Fargeorge] Nature Preserve and the Long Wharf Nature Preserve. I transitioned out of the role to Wexler Grant [Community School], where I did some mentorship work and, after two years, I ended up at the Elm City Montessori. Here I started doing after-school programs and then transitioned to working during the day doing in-school programming. And then, what happened was that the pandemic led to a niche created where I was able to focus more on doing outdoor programming.”

Science Yourself: Why is it important to you to be a facilitator that brings kids outside and in contact with nature?

Gammy: I grew up on an island. Imagine, before I went to school, I was on the beach swimming. I would take a shower, then go to school, do homework, and back to the beach again. I would climb mountains with my father, go up in the mountains and in the hills to find logs for drums. Sometimes I wouldn’t even go home for lunch, I would just go up in the woods to pick mangos. All in that to say that I grew up being outside and spending time outside. I’m glad to bring that joy to young people and to spread that to them. Because I think that, having that experience and knowing how valuable it was to me. That motivates who I am and I would like to bring that to them. We know that the challenges that we have today with a lot of young people not spending enough time outside is because we have all the technology and videogames and so on. Also, there are safety concerns around violence. So I feel it is a privilege to be able to facilitate taking kids outside!

Science Yourself: How has the COVID-19 pandemic impacted your outdoor lessons?

Gammy: [At the Elm City Montessori school], we were one of the schools open at the end of September [2020]. Before Thanksgiving break, we decided to close because we knew what was coming ahead and numbers [of COVID-19 cases] were going up. So we closed and, from one week to another, we basically designed this new program that would allow kids to come back to school for three hours each session doing outdoor education. What I did was: I took an environmental education piece and I combined it with free play, being outside, spending a lot of time in the woods. And also hiking, playing outside, movement, and spending time in West Rock park.

Science Yourself: What kind of changes have you noticed on the kids coming back after lockdown to be outside at school?

Gammy: Some of the parents have expressed that they feel like their children are now themselves because they are in the program. They come home happy and full of joy. Because they were at home for a while, just staring at the screen and being on their computers. And then we offered them this opportunity, and they came, and their parents say: “You know, they seem like they are right back to themselves now, because they are more expressive, full of joy.” And that just goes to show the value that not just outdoor programming, but programs in itself, where kids get to be around each other, have. For example, if a kid comes to my program and he has a good time. That energy is going to transcend when he goes back home. If they have homework or anything else to do, they are in [a good] mood for that. And they have something to look forward the next day. Whether you’re doing after school programs or in-school programs, the experience that it gives to kids, something to look forward to, something to be joyous about. That, in itself, affects the whole mood.

Science Yourself: What is a common myth or misconception about outdoor education that you had come across in your work? And how do you work around this challenge?

Gammy: We have a concept that the woods is a very dangerous place to be. And there are wild animals in there that could hurt you. That is true, but it’s more exaggerated. So, there are a lot of people that might not want to send their kids to the woods because there are those dangers out there. The way that I work around challenges like this is relationship building with the parents, letting them know that their child is safe. I remember one time, people were seeing foxes, but they thought they were coyotes, until I saw it for myself. There were foxes roaming around and not coyotes. And I had to explain that to some parents “I’m not saying there aren’t coyotes out there, but what we’ve been seeing are foxes!” So, that’s one misconception. Another misconception, as you mentioned, is the cold. You don’t want to be outside in the cold because you don’t want to get sick. “You’re gonna get sick because you’re outside playing in cold weather.” You have to reason and educate people and let them know that outside is actually better because you have fresh air and you’ve been active. The main thing about being outside is dressing appropriately: having the right gear, having the right layers, making sure you have a good hat to keep your heat (because we lose a lot of heat from our head), making sure you have mittens instead of regular gloves (because the body heat is better [conserved] in mittens and it’s easier for kids to put on), making sure that your jacket is all zipped up (because you have to warm the chest, so [the heat] spreads for the rest of the body). I teach that to kids, and I teach that to parents. How I have taught that to kids before is I made songs about it: “This is the What’s on Song, what’s on my head? What’s on my chest? What’s on my back?” Teach them how to dress and make sure they have the right gear!

Science Yourself: You mentioned how you use rhythm, movements and songs in your lessons. Why is that important to you?

Gammy: My father was a cultural activist; he was a drummer. So, I grew up drumming, I used to climb mountains with him to get logs to build drums and stuff. What I find is that musical intelligence is so huge, even from the time you are born. When they teach us all the ABCs, they don’t say it to us, we sing it. They say: “Put everything in a song, and you’ll learn.” So, musical intelligence was always big, but then you put in the rhythm and you add movements to it, and that’s just huge! I have songs to do with very little topics, songs with big topics… we are talking about stuff like biomagnification, I have songs around that. It’s a powerful tool because it hooks the kids in. They hear it, and they get to move about. So, they are doing the actions and so forth.

Science Yourself: What would be your advice to someone who is connected with nature, and is seriously thinking about becoming an environmental educator?

Gammy: My advice would be to try to be as consistent as possible in the work. That’s the only way you can see change is with consistency. Try to be open-minded, flexible, and adaptable. Because, like anything else, if you’re teaching about the environment, the environment changes a lot, people’s attitudes towards the environment changes a lot. So be flexible and adaptable. And connect with other people, with other groups to learn from. Personally, coming from a Tropical island, I had to learn the flora and fauna from here because I didn’t know it! Connect and know what is around you, and use your available resources. In terms of relationships among organizations, we have to strive for symbiosis, where everybody benefits from it. A lot of times, organizations might not want to get involved [with each other] because it is not as beneficial to them than for the other organization. We all know that unity is strength. We know that, but in practice everybody is in their own world because a lot of times people are competing for different funds. But there’s been some beautiful examples of collaborations in New Haven around that. You have Rock-To-Rock. There are other examples, but I think that the challenge is that, rather than seeing people as competition, that we see each other as allies and work together!