While I was unfortunately unable to attend the Central Park Bio Blitz, I have had other experiences with nature that have provided me with a fresh appreciation of the world around me.  A couple years ago, I spent six weeks of my summer backpacking and touring Israel on a program with a bunch of my friends.  While I had visited Israel many times before, I did not expect how vastly different my experiences – separated by only a year – would be.

As a group of twenty or so, we spent a month and half driving Israel literally from top to bottom.  We stopped and hiked different mountains and trails in environments ranging from the leafy mountains of the north to the miles of desert eight hours south.  Much like New York City, Israel is a place that I have grown up with and feels familiar to me – and much like the Bio Blitz, my tour allowed me to take a closer look at a landscape that I thought I already knew so well.

The highlight of the trip was a four-day camping expedition from coast to coast that really allowed me to go over the place that I love inch by inch and gain a new understanding of what really makes up a place.  My trip through the wildlife of Israel taught me that there are many layers at any given site.  There is the constructed – what we humans have built – there is the historical, there is the personal, but beneath it all there is the environmental and geographical, what has been there for thousands of years and what will continue to be there for many more.  The memory of running into the Mediterranean Sea at the end of our journey will stay with me no matter what happens to the specific beach I was at.  While not as hard to do in the still-growing Israel as it might have been in New York City for those at the Bio Blitz, in order to fully appreciate the land I needed to forget my previous knowledge of all the things I knew in order to see the things that I didn’t know.  For example, in my opinion it is much more difficult to appreciate mountains as landmarks than after having hiked over one to see the sun set at the top.

Having walked through the land gave me a sense of ownership and personal connection on a level that I didn’t get even after living there for the summer before.  Experiencing a place through its nature and natural environment lets you connect with a place in a deeper way that lasts longer because your connection is not bound to any one thing – it’s to the place itself and it will always be there.  I wish I could have used the opportunity given by the Bio Blitz to deconstruct New York City in the same manner, but I hope for and expect us to do much of that in our class.