My Dad - Amanda Capper

 My dad is a landscape architect. This means he gets to design park architecture like playgrounds! Making sure everything is ADA safe, that the design works functionally well, and that the design looks nice and fun of course! A part of his job is knowing different types of plants and trees. It is because of him that I know about bald cypresses, sycamores, and what poison ivy looks like! So whenever we are on a walk outside together, I always ask him about the types of trees I don't know, or I ask if a particular tree is the kind I am thinking of. You would think that this would make me more focused on the knowledge of nature isntead of nature itself, but the opposite is true. I think this has connected me more to nature actually. Because now I can actually see the different kinds of plants and name and identify them. It is through giving a name to them that I know them. Its similar to human names. You only know someone if you know their name. Without a name, they are just a stranger. With knowing what kind of tree something is, you don't just know the name, but where they grow, how tall they are, how to identify their leaves and bark from other trees, etc. 

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