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      Girls from New York City experience the outdoors in the U.P.

      A group of girls from New York City is spending four weeks in the Upper Peninsula to learn about nature.

      With their back packs, clipboards, and binoculars these girls are bird watching in the little garlic area.

      They are all from New York City, and it's their first time in Upper Michigan.

      "Mosquitoes, my experience with mosquitoes is very bad. In New York City you don't feel them biting you, out here you feel when they land on you," said Dzyre Chambers.

      The adventure they are on is called the LEAF program. It stands for leaders in environmental action for the future, and it's a paid internship program.

      It's sponsored by the Nature Conservancy as a way to teach youth about the environment and its conservation.

      In the last two weeks they have spent time in the eastern U.P. on Drummond Island, they've done trail maintenance along the Fox river, and learned the different types of ecosystems in our area.

      "So, far my experience has been really good. This is the type of work I'm really into. So, it's been great hard work. And, the people here are just great," said Rachel Anderson.

      Through the program, the girls do hands on work collecting data and samples from the water, bird watching, plus examining soil texture with local conservationists.

      "You take pieces of it, roll it in your hands. Try to make a bow tie and see if it will come off the edge. By checking the characteristics, of the soil you will be able to what exactly the texture is," said Tajeira Bonner.

      They all plan to continue exploring the fields of environmental conservation.

      "These people really care about where they live at. They want to protect it. So, we as young people, they want to teach us as well. So, when we grow up this won't become like dead and we can't use it anymore. People depend on this and we might become dependent on it so we need to work on this as well," Chambers said.