Burns Bog summer camps get the kids into the great outdoors

By Meg Olson

This summer the Burns Bog Conservation Society is offering kids a chance to learn more about “the lungs of the Lower Mainland,” spend time outside and reconnect with nature.

The society, formed in 1988 to protect the bog and teach people its value and unique role, offers week-long day camps every summer at the Delta Nature Reserve. Over 200 spots are available for children ages 6 to 12 to learn and have fun in the outdoors. At Burns Bog Summer Day Camps, kids learn about peatlands and the environment through hands-on outdoor learning. The camps include activities that engage the imagination and build curiosity for the natural world through crafts, experiments, demonstrations, games and guest presentations.

Burns Bog is the largest undeveloped urban wilderness in North America. It was officially designated as an Ecological Conservancy Area in 2005 because of the many benefits it offers to both animals and people.

Peatlands such as Burns Bog are largely made up of a type of moss called sphagnum. This special moss creates a wet, mildly acidic environment that keeps plant materials from truly breaking down once they die. Why is this important? Peatlands cover only 3 percent of the earth, but contain 10 times more carbon than the world’s tropical rain forests. We all know that plants “breathe in” carbon dioxide, but all of those greenhouse gases are released back into our atmosphere once they break down and decompose. Since the plants in the bog don’t break down, Burns Bog stores the same amount of carbon as you would create by driving your car around the world three times.

Nicknamed “the lungs of the Lower Mainland,” Burns Bog keeps our air clean, and helps to prevent global climate change. As a protected natural wilderness, it offers critical habitat for several rare and endangered species.

Burns Bog Summer Day Camps run weekly from July 4 to August 25, from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., at the Delta

Nature Reserve.

Register online by visiting burnsbog.org and clicking on “Education.”