Catch up on what you missed with our Education newsletter, sent weekly.PHILADELPHIA — Seven-year-old Khalib Townsend hikes in the rain along the Audubon Discovery Center's nature trail.He's all suited up in a bright blue waterproof jacket, holding in his small hands a pair of binoculars that hang around his neck.Because today, he's going on a bird walk."I just really got interested in birds because I thought they were really cool and I wanted to study all types of animals," Khalib says with a big smile with his front teeth missing.Khalib says he loves nature.
He wants to study biology and learn about different plants and animals.This precocious first grader really wants to be a conservation scientist, "because I care for the Earth," he says.Kids get asked all the time: What do you want to be when you grow up? But research shows that most of them have no idea.
Even when they find a passion for something, like Khalib, it's hard for them to know what that "dream job" would be like or how to make it happen.And many kids lose that spark over time, because they don't know anyone, an adult, who can show them the ropes.All this made me wonder: What would it take for Khalib to hold onto his dream?With the support of his mom Danielle Townsend, who I met while producing a different story, I introduced Khalib to someone who shares his idea of a dream job: Keith Russell, a conservation scientist at the Audubon Discovery Center in Philadelphia.Russell says he's well aware of the hurdles for getting into the natural sciences."When you're growing up, there's a lot of pressure to fit in," he says.
Russell says he was once in Khalib's shoes: a young bird lover in Philadelphia — who could've used a mentor."There are expectations that Black folks do this and Black folks don't do that, and that's been a real barrier for Black folks to get into birding," he says."So it's really important to have support and be with people that understand your interest."So I asked Keith Russell if...