At Southern Utah University we have some great faculty and staff who enjoy the outdoors and like getting others out there as well.
SUU's faculty and staff not only enjoy the outdoors, but try to instill a strong outdoor ethic of responsible recreation in the students.
Here are a few photos and insights from some of the faculty and staff at SUU:
Briget Eastep, director of Outdoor Engagement Center
My name is Briget Eastep and you could say I am obsessed with the outdoors. I love to ski, hike, backpack, canyoneer, and have adventures in the outdoors with my family, friends, and students. The natural environment gives me opportunities to be healthy through physical activity and rejuvenating my mind and spirit.. I like to practice leave no trace principles because it takes skill and care - from planning ahead to leaving what I find. It seems with each step I can make a choice to protect the integrity of the environment - do I step on the trail or trample the vegetation? Do I minimize my impact by walking in a wash or do I try to hop on rocks to avoid cryptobiotic soil. It is a joy to have wild lands. I hope my grand children get to know them as well.
Jake Manning, interim coordinator for Outdoor Recreation in Parks and Tourism program
Over the last year I've started a collection of unfortunate photos focused on one thing. My intention in taking these pictures has been to share the unfortunate news with enough people that they may finally get the point and change their behavior. The photos consist of something I refer to as Tissue Flowers; essentially they're piles and fragments of used toilet paper left in place or buried (later to be uncovered by animals, wind, other people, etc...) in beautiful natural areas. These pictures are from pristine (or nearly pristine) areas near trail heads and parking lots as well as remote wilderness areas. So what is the message you may ask? It is simply that what you think may have a negligible impact may in fact have a major impact. In the case of used toilet paper it could mean spreading disease, creating an eye-sore for other visitors, and changing animal behavior toward humans. It's simplest impact may be that the person planting these Tissue Flowers has exposed themselves as being unscrupulous and inconsiderate, in spite of what it may say for their having a brown thumb. So for those of you who are conscious enough to recognize a need for toilet paper in the back-country, I plead with you to see things one step further and also see the need for a Ziploc bag. Please RecreateResponsibly.
Anne Smith, Outdoor Education Series coordinator
Being outdoors has always been in my blood - ever since I hung out of trees as a tomboy growing up. When I was younger, we could go out into the woods, build fires, lash trees together to make furniture, play cowboys and indians, and pretty much run wild. I decided to take my love of that natural world to a different level by picking up a Master's Degree in Recreation Management and jumped into what has become my real passion - helping others to love everything outdoors. Like everything in life though, I began to realize that I needed to change - change the way I viewed the world around me. The natural world I grew up in was fast disappearing, and so I began to change and adapt the way I interacted with it, and to help others do the same. I'm also concerned with the trends we all see that the next generations aren't as interested in spending time outside and really love to find ways to help everyone, whether they think they're the outdoor type or not, discover something inside them that relates to our natural world and show them how to do it sustainably.
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