VIDEO: Ranger Summer Program

NATCHEZ TRACE, Miss. (WCBI)- It was a walk in the park, but this park was the Natchez Trace National Parkway, and park ranger Kristin Schwarz gave visitors a special tour.

It was part of the monthly Read with a Ranger program, held every second Saturday of the month, designed to educate the public, particularly children about the natural wonder of the area.

The program started inside as Schwarz read, “Under One Rock.”

“And it’s about all the insects that you can find just under one rock. And so it’s all about communities. And communities. Communities can be very small. They can be found under one rock or they can be very large in maybe a prairie habitat, a woodland habitat, so you can look all around and find all these different communities,” says Schwarz.

And Schwarz says it is important for young children to understand how important the insect community is to the rest of us.

“We all rely on each other. Animals rely on each other. We rely on animals. And so this kind of introduces this concept that everything’s connected, that everything is part of a community. They all need to help each other and so insects have a very important role in the ecosystem. And without them we have big differences or drastic changes in the environment,”  says Schwarz.

Schwarz discussed the important role of pollinators.

“And pollinators are actually struggling right now. Without pollinators we don’t get flowers and without flowers we don’t get the beautiful grasslands and the beautiful prairie that we have here. We have butterflies and bees those are the big ones. A lot of people don’t like bees because sometimes they might sting. But Honey Bees don’t sting and they’re big pollinators. Bees are struggling right now so the more honey we want to make the more demand there is, hopefully the bees will be protected,”  says Schwarz.

Schwarz says there is one major enemy to the insect community.

“Problems that pollinators are facing are chemicals, herbicides and pesticides when they come out they either kill the plants that they’re going for or they actually kill the insects and it’s a big problem and the insects communities have been suffering from that,”   says Schwarz.

Immediately after she finished reading, before their hike in the woods, Schwarz gave the children a chance to plant their own native plant seeds, and take them home. She says the plants will encourage pollination in their own back yards.