The Rev. Joe Recasner's memory of his childhood in the Lower 9th Ward is a bit fuzzy -- he has a hard time remembering exactly when his family moved to the area or how long it was before a wall separating his neighborhood from the adjacent Bayou Bienvenue was built.
But the years in between the move and the wall's construction are vivid for the 58-year-old teacher at Martin Luther King Charter School. Recasner easily recalls exploring the swampy marshland with wild abandon, eating mulberries picked straight from the trees and the sense of freedom that came from interacting directly with nature.
"All the neighborhood children would spend their whole days outside just playing in the bayou," Recasner said. "Of course, that was before kids had all these channels on their televisions, so they had the opportunity to be more creative."
The Sierra Club and America's Wetland Foundation hope to stir that sense of adventure in local children with a evening of storytelling today at 5 p.m. at Martin Luther King Charter, as Recasner and five other 9th Ward natives describe living in the area before a 10-foot wall constructed shortly after Hurricane Betsy transformed the neighborhood.
Emily Snyder of America's Wetland Foundation hopes that dredging up memories will increase awareness of the Bayou Bienvenue's existence and restoration, as well as highlight the importance of teaching children at a young age about the environment.
"There's such a contrast because it was so natural for kids back then to play in the bayou, and now their grandchildren don't even know what's behind that wall," Snyder said.
Snyder said when children receive comprehensive environmental education, their grades and behavior improve, doctor visits decrease and they begin to "feel more connected to their surroundings." She remembers bringing a class from the now-closed Thurgood Marshall Middle School to the bayou during an educational field trip.
"This was a school known for having students with behavior problems," Snyder said. "But I brought them out there and they were rock stars."
They planted more than 1,000 plants and still had time to play in the area.
Recasner said his afternoons spent wandering the marshy woods taught him about native plants and animals and increased his interest in science, which he now passes on to his students.
Although Martin Luther King Charter School, which strongly focuses its curriculum on restoring wetlands, is located just minutes from Bayou Bienvenue, Recasner has to bring his students to Bayou Barataria, near Lafitte, to learn about Louisiana's shrinking coast.
Hilary Collis of America's Wetland Conservation Corps. said many coastal wetland education programs focus on children to "build the next generation" of advocates for Louisiana's disappearing marshes.
What lies behind the storm surge wall in the 9th Ward is a far cry from the bayou of Recasner's childhood. The construction of the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet in the 1960s introduced saltwater to Bayou Bienvenue, and 27,000 acres of the valuable foliage died as a result.
But awareness of the area is increasing thanks to a viewing platfrom built in the spring of 2008 by a partnership of the Sierra Club, Holy Cross Neighborhood Association and the University of Colorado at Denver.
Located near Caffin Street on Florida Avenue, the platform features a set of stairs that takes visitors to a deck overlooking the remnants of the once-thriving swamp and includes aerial pictures of the bayou dating from the time period of 1933 to 1988.
Sierra Club leaders said getting to the area before the platform was built required trudging through 10-foot weeds.