Second grader Owen Strollo felt most connected to nature the day he found a stick bug.

The Corbett Prep elementary student said he was camping with a friend when the duo found the lanky, twiggy insect. They put it in a tank for a few minutes, watched in awe as it crawled around, then released it back into the wilderness.

“I’d like to see more people helping animals,” Strollo said. Watching bugs and birds and lizards gives him hope, and if he could make one law, it would be to require humans to release the animals they catch.

For Earth Day, the Tampa Bay Times sat down with students ranging from elementary school to high school to discuss the state of Tampa Bay’s environmental issues, including what gives them hope, what they’d like to see changed and their favorite outdoor places they’d like to see protected.

Strollo joined students Thursday from the Indi-ED school in St. Petersburg and Seminole, Strawberry Crest and King high schools for the hourlong conversation. The Times also spoke with representatives from four environmental organizations for a temperature check on how local conservation initiatives are progressing.

The event brought together local conservation decision-makers and the region’s children they are hoping will inherit a better, cleaner and more sustainable Tampa Bay.

A key takeaway? The more time children like Strollo spend outside in nature, the more they’ll want to protect it.

“They’re the ones that are going to grow up to be voting adults in the future,” said Peter Clark, president and founder of the nonprofit Tampa Bay Watch. “We want them to love Tampa Bay like we did — but how can they love it if they don’t get out on the boats or if they aren’t physically able to get out in the woods and appreciate the environment?”

Joining Clark on the expert panel were Pat DePlasco, executive director of Keep Pinellas Beautiful; Debi Luke, senior vice president of conservation at the Florida Aquarium; and Bonnie Eaton, the Tampa Bay basecamp coordinator for Jane Goodall’s Roots & Shoots USA.

The four organizations underscored that the key ingredient to successful conservation initiatives — whether it’s building oyster reefs, cleaning up trash or planting native species — is collaboration.

For example: Roots & Shoots joined with Keep Pinellas Beautiful on Saturday for a shoreline restoration event, where volunteers planted native sea oats on Treasure Island Beach to help curb erosion and build habitat for Florida wildlife.

“We’re often all talking to each other,” Eaton said. “Because we’re all in it to win it.”

Caymus Maxson, a freshman at Seminole High School, finds she can relax the most when she’s at the beach.

“Especially as a young kid in the mornings, because it’s just the waves and you,” she said. “You can think about your thoughts.”

If there was one place she’d like to see protected in the future, it’s the shoreline of her hometown on Madeira Beach.

That’s why, at age 10, Maxson founded “Trash Turtles,” an environmental nonprofit that encourages removing litter from Florida’s coastlines. The nonprofit’s tagline is #LeaveWith3, urging beachgoers to leave with three pieces of trash after every visit.

Maxson said it was the youth on the panel next to her that gave her hope for Florida’s future fending off climate change and curbing environmental issues like habitat loss or pollution. Also on the panel were Sama Fattah, a senior at King High School, Victor Loerincs, a junior at Strawberry Crest High School, Eva Spytek, a seventh grader at Indi-ED and Adina Fisher, a third grader at Corbett Prep in Tampa.

Fattah said she finds hope in innovation. It’s exciting to think that some of the tools we need to help save our planet, like methods for capturing carbon emissions before they enter the atmosphere, will be invented by humans, she said.

“These technologies are amazing, and we should use them to our fullest,” Fattah said. “Our generation is very aware of what we have to face, because ultimately, we are going to inherit the consequences of climate change.”

For more information on Earth Month events and ways to get involved, visit rootsandshoots.org.