Congratulations to Karen Jimenez, 18, winner of the 2025 Craig Tufts Educational Scholarship!

This scholarship pays for a nature-loving young person and adult family member to attend the Family Nature Summit, a weeklong outdoor education camp. And this one unfolded at the country’s newest national park: New River Gorge in West Virginia.

Karen has long loved the natural world—especially watching and feeding her backyard birds. She enjoys sharing her love for nature, too. As a volunteer for a local group called Little Tree Huggers, Karen saw the deep connection kids have with the natural world. She hopes those kids hold on to that as they grow up—just as she plans to do. Karen has lately been volunteering at the Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy.

Her duties there include monitoring (keeping track of) the health of local streams in Virginia, which birds—and other creatures, including people—depend on. It probably goes without saying that this Summit site provided Karen an especially grand waterway to scope out! She was able to sit atop the gorge (above) to watch the New River calmly wind its way through the valley, more than a quarter mile below.

In other spots, Karen saw and heard plunging waterfalls and investigated shallow streams. She also went whitewater rafting through some rough rapids. Turns out, that was one of her favorite Summit activities. Another was the overnight campout, “especially when I woke up to the sound of the birds’ dawn songs,” she says. She also caught the early birds through her camera lens.

Once she graduates from high school, Karen plans to study environmental science in college, leading to a career in wildlife conservation. Her week in the mountains and valleys of West Virginia helped confirm this goal. She sums up the Summit this way: “It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience!”

BE THE NEXT ADVENTURE WINNER!

Craig Tufts was the chief naturalist at the National Wildlife Federation, the group that publishes Ranger Rick. Learn more about Craig.