By Emery Tumbleston, Spring 2022 Academics Afield Intern

Growing up in an outdoor household on a farm in Ravenel, SC, I made my playground the venturous Lowcountry marshes and maritime forests. I thought that going out to explore the woods, shoot bottles with a BB gun, and hunt and fish was what every early 2000’s kid did, or at least had the opportunity to do. It wasn’t until I got older, that while I had the time of my life learning about the outdoors, little did I know that I was one of the lucky ones that didn’t grow up concealed from nature by concrete walls and urban sprawl.

My time at Clemson has also showed me just how much of a disconnect has arisen between young people and the natural world. I am a Wildlife and Fisheries Biology major in the Department of Forestry and Environmental Conservation, within the College of Agriculture, Forestry, and Life Sciences… but that doesn’t mean all these students enjoy the outdoors on a regular basis or grew up in an outdoor-centered household like I did. When the SCWF wanted to implement a peer-led hunting program for Clemson students, I leapt at the opportunity to become the Clemson University intern for Academics Afield.

While I worked with students, most of whom had never even held a firearm or been hunting before, I saw a change in the eyes of many of the participants. Fear and uncertainty transformed into eagerness and confidence over the course of two semesters. The look of accomplishment swelled over many students’ faces when they broke a clay for the first time at the shotgun range or harvested their first animal on a WMA. I felt those same feelings many years ago, but seeing them manifest in those students took me back to the simple, wonderful time when I was feeling those senses of confidence and accomplishment for the first time.

Conservation may be a subject which is starving for advocacy of young people today. This is the fault of none other than the disconnect from the outdoors that kids have been experiencing for decades now. Although I say this, I am confident that programs like Academics Afield will help build bridges over the disconnect from wildlife and the outdoors that our society experiences. One may still express degrees of skepticism on the efficacy of programs like Academics Afield, but I can personally attest that the changes I saw in the eyes of students that participated in this program gives me hope that a little more advocacy for conservation will live on in the hearts of the inaugural class of Clemson Academics Afield students. I am thankful that I was blessed with the opportunity to work as the Clemson Academics Afield intern with SCWF and I am excited to see what the future has in store for this amazing program across our great state.