Welcome to the Florida Everglades.

The Everglades is an important home to many plants, animals, and people in south Florida.

Let's go learn all about it with my friends, Houston and Jean who are Everglades advocates.

This means they work hard to support and protect the Everglades.

Hi everybody.

I'm glad you made it to the Everglades.

We have a lot of things to share with you today, but before we go on the boat ride, I wanted to get to know you a little bit better.

So if you can shake the rattle and tell me your name, and then we'll go around the circle.

My name is Houston.

What's your name?

[inaudible 00:00:41].

Miss.Penny [inaudible 00:00:47] Jean [inaudible 00:00:49] Welcome, welcome guys.

So today we're going to take an awesome airboat trip through the river of grass.

Are you ready to go on an airboat ride?

[crosstalk 00:01:01] Yes.

Yeah, Let's go!

Woohoo!

Riding an airboat is one of the best ways to explore the Everglades.

We'll learn more about this special ecosystem and the people that live here as we make some more stops.

Here we go.

First Houston will teach us about some of the people who the Everglades is home to.

Houston is a member of the Miccosukee community that lives here.

The Miccosukee tribe of Indians of Florida is an indigenous community in South Florida.

The Miccosukee are deeply connected to the Everglades and have their own culture.

Indigenous people are the first people to be living in a place.

Each indigenous community has their own culture, languages, laws, and spiritual beliefs that are passed down through generations.

So I wanted to take you to different places in the Everglades to show you why it's so important to the Miccosukee.

My family, the Miccosukee community, we love the Everglades because this place provides us our food, the different plants and the different trees.

We can make our houses from it.

You know that there's some people that live in the city and then there's some people like me who live in the Everglades.

So I wanted to come and bring you to this tree island and show you some of the houses that the Miccosukee people live.

So what's a tree island?

Thank you for asking.

Here in the Everglades a tree island is basically a collection of trees and bushes and grass that rises up out of the water.

So it's a place that's dry that you can walk around because other areas in the Everglades are wet and muddy.

So these are the dry areas.

So you can take a look around and you see the little different houses here on the island.

They're called chickee, say chickees.

[crosstalk 00:03:00] Chickees.

That's the Miccosukee word for house, chickee.

[crosstalk 00:03:03] Cheeky.

All right.

So yeah, you can look around the island and see the different chickees.

And these are the kind of houses that the Miccosukee people live.

How many people are in the family?

Oh, wow.

Okay.

So we have big families that live on the island.

We have grandma and grandpa and then other children and other great grandchildren.

So you can have a lot of people living on the island.

We have a bigger idea of family.

When we think about family, it's not just mom and dad, it's mom and dad, aunties and uncles, grandma, and grandpa living together.

So when we think about family, it's a big family.

So I wanted to bring you here so that you can see what one of the tree islands looks like.

These tree islands are where the Miccosukee people have their villages and we live in little houses like these.

So some of the houses we use for cooking, others we use for getting together and eating like a dining area.

And then other ones, we put our blankets and our pillows and we go to sleep there at night.

So it's really nice to come camping here.

You can see the stars very clear at night.

Do you remember what the name of this house is?

[crosstalk 00:04:11] Chickee.

All right.

These are the kind of houses that Miccosukee people live in.

And do you know what this is?

A turtle shell.

A turtle shell Do you know who lives in here?

A turtle.

A turtle.

Nice.

Yeah.

So this is a different kind of house.

This is the kind of house that a turtle lives in.

So you can pass it around and take a look at it.

And so, it reminds me of these houses because these houses are where to Miccosukee people live and this chickee that we're in is actually, it's kind of like our kitchen area.

Nice.

This is where we cook our food over the fire.

And this is our beautiful kitchen.

I also want to show you how we turn some of these animals into musical instruments.

Do you thing it's a drum?

Yeah, it could be.

Yeah.

It could work.

It could also be.

So take good, look.

See, it's the same thing.

[inaudible 00:05:05] baby turtle.

Yeah, it's a baby turtle Yeah it's a baby turtle and it's a rattle at the same time.

What?

[inaudible 00:05:11] Yeah.

So we like to use these turtles.

Whenever we have special events, we like to have a big festival where we make some food for people to eat.

And sometimes at night we tell stories and at night, sometimes we also get together and do dances and sing songs.

So, that's when we use these beautiful rattles like that.

And all of these things are made possible because of the Everglades that we care for.

It gives back.

Yeah.

And so we're doing our best to protect the tree islands.

The tree islands are a place where all the birds and the animals and the people live.

So it's actually a place that does so much for all the animals and people that live in the Everglades.

I wanted to show you these houses, because that way you can see our connection with the Everglades, the roof, the legs of the chickee, and even the boardwalk are all made from trees that you can find here in Everglades.

So you see if the Everglades is healthy, that means that we can have a healthy way of life here in the Miccosukee world.

That's really interesting.

One of the unique things about the Everglades ecosystem is that everything is connected.

An ecosystem is an environment where living things like plants and animals interact with non-living things like water and soil.

Well remember children, some of the reasons that the Everglades is so important is that it's home to hundreds of plants and animals, as well as it provides all the drinking water for our cities and towns here in south Florida, that it keeps our drinking water fresh.

See, every time it rains, the water goes down into our aquifer, which is where we get our water from.

So it's important that the rains recharge the Everglades and recharge our drinking water supply.

I wanted to bring you to this special island.

So I can introduce you to some of our little friends that live here in the Everglades.

So let's go say hello.

So Gene, I wanted to know what's this animal that you're holding.

It looks so strange.

What is that?

Well, Houston, this is one of our little friends that live here in this island that live here in the Everglades.

This is a little baby American alligator.

Wow.

That's so beautiful.

Good to get this hand, hold them here.

And then just like that.

[crosstalk 00:07:50] Hold them.

She could hold him there.

So he won't wiggle a little [crosstalk 00:07:52] Oh you are eye to eye.

Yeah.

And look, he looks like he has a cute little smile.

Just like all of you, right?

Now your turn.

Give me one hand.

Okay.

Look, I can help him.

No mami.

Cody can do it.

Now with this other hand, there you go, Cody.

This is, these are one of our little friends and one of our south Florida species.

That is a good representation of our ecosystem of where we live.

And of course the Everglades.

There's no one interesting fact that in the Everglades is the only place in the world where alligators and crocodile actually live together.

[crosstalk 00:08:30] Remember guys, the Everglades is home to hundreds of animals and plant species.

Okay.

And it's important that we take care of them so that kids in the future will also have a chance to come and experience the Everglades and the animals that live in here as well.

This is why it's important to take care of our environment and the Everglades.

And remember, if we continue to take care of Mother Earth, Mother Earth will continue to take care of us.

That's right.

Thank you Houston and Jean for teaching us about the Everglades and the Miccosukee community, it has been amazing to learn about what Everglades advocates like you do!