Way to Go! Elwood student is a natural trailblazer in Huntington
Madison Slesinski, a senior at Elwood-John H. Glenn High School, recently mapped and marked a series of trails at Berkeley-Jackson County Park. Credit: Slesinski Family
An Elwood student is blazing her own trails.
Madison Slesinski, a senior at Elwood-John H. Glenn High School, has been mapping and marking a series of nature trails at Berkeley-Jackson County Park, a 130-acre park in Huntington. The project consists of recording her routes using a hiking app, putting up dozens of trail markers and creating a digital map that is accessible to visitors through QR codes posted at the park's three entrances.
Slesinski, a Girl Scout, tackled the project as part of her Gold Award, the highest achievement within the Girl Scouts of the USA. She expects to complete the project by late September.
"I know the park very well; we would go hiking there with our dog and always get lost because none of it was marked," Slesinski said. "It's so beautiful and serene inside, so it was really important to make it more accessible to people."
Slesinski, 17, paid for the materials with $750 that she raised through a yard sale and got approval for the project from Suffolk County. In total, she marked six different trails within the park — the longest of which is a mile, she said.
Slesinski's other activities include being a member of her school's equestrian and varsity tennis teams as well as her school's newspaper, International Club and National Honor Society.
— MICHAEL R. EBERT
Michael R. Ebert is an education researcher and has worked for Newsday in various capacities since 2003. He was part of an 11-person team named as 2008 Pulitzer Prize finalists for investigative coverage of the LIRR's platform safety issues.
