Forgot Password?
Written by Natalya Stanko   
Share |
Thursday, 31 March 2011

Nature For kids
Children are suffering from nature-deficit disorder. “I like to play indoors better, 'cause that's where all the electrical outlets are,” a fourth grader in San Diego once told Richard Louv, author of The Last Child in the Woods.1 Instead of playing in the sun, children are exploring virtual worlds—television, computers, and mobile phones, just for starters. Children are developing these habits at a very early age—on average, preschoolers are exposed to four hours of screen time each weekday.2 Just think, many kids never get to climb a tree, build a secret fort in the forest, or tell stories around a campfire.

According to recent studies, playing in nature improves balance and fitness,3 reasoning and observation skills,4 and collaborative skills.5 It also reduces bullying,6 sickness,7 and Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms.8 And it inspires children to protect nature9! Richard Louv eloquently describes nature's benefits for children:
For children, nature comes in many forms. A newborn calf; a pet that lives and dies; a worn path through the woods; a fort nested in stinging nettles; a damp, mysterious edge of a vacant lot—whatever shape nature takes, it offers each child an older, larger world separate from parents. Unlike television, nature does not steal time; it amplifies it. Nature offers healing for a child living in a destructive family or neighborhood. It serves as a blank slate upon which a child draws and reinterprets the culture's fantasies. Nature inspires creativity in a child by demanding visualization and the full use of the senses. Given a chance, a child will bring the confusion of the world to the woods, wash it in the creek, turn it over to see what lives on the unseen side of that confusion. Nature can frighten a child, too, and this fright serves a purpose. In nature, a child finds freedom, fantasy, and privacy: a place distant from the adult world, a separate peace.10
The “No Child Left Inside” movement began in the United States in response to Louv's 2005 book. Out of that sprung two Federal bills, the No Child Left Inside Acts of 2008 and of 2009, that aimed to improve outdoor education. Unfortunately, neither bill was enacted into law.11 Today, the No Child Left Inside Coalition is a national group of more than 1,900 organizations that advocates for legislation that ensures basic environmental literacy for every child.12

Organizations Getting Kids Outside! Fortunately, many nonprofit organizations have been helping kids discover the wonders of nature long before “No Child Left Inside” entered our lingo. What's most inspiring about these programs is that they are accessible to all children, no mater where they live:

Sierra Club's Inner City Outings (ICO) has been leading wilderness adventures since 1971. Participants include low-income city youth and the physically challenged. Each year, the organization gives about 11,000 young people an opportunity to explore the great outdoors. About 400 volunteers and three part-time staff members keep the program running.13

Outward Bound is comprised of about 40 schools around the world and has about 200,000 participants each year, including at-risk youth. The first school, which opened in Wales in 1941, only loosely resembled today's Outward Bound program. Back then, the program's mission was to give young seamen the confidence and perseverance to survive harsh conditions at sea. Today, the organization teaches wilderness survival, leadership, and interpersonal skills through activities such as backpacking, dog sledding, and rock climbing.14

The YMCA offers numerous day and overnight youth outdoor camps to its 45 million members worldwide. The Young Men's Christian Association began in 1844 with a mission to put Christian values into practice. Today, membership is open to everyone. The outdoor programs vary among local YMCA chapters. To find your local Y camp: ymca.net/find-a-y-camp.

The Appalachian Mountain Club was founded in 1876 by an MIT professor. The first members explored the Appalachian Mountains and built alpine shelters. Now the club is comprised of a dozen chapters, with 450 staff members, 16,000 volunteers, and 100,000 members. AMC maintains over 1,500 miles of trail in the Northeastern United States and leads about 8,000 trips each year. So go hiking, climbing, paddling, you name it!15

These are just a few of the many noteworthy programs running to get children outside exploring nature. There are also many state and local organizations doing good outdoors. Most of these programs are run by volunteers, and they could use your help! Interested in inspiring youth outdoors? Check out these volunteer and paid programs:
  • Sierra Club
  • Outward Bound
  • YMCA
  • Appalachian Mountain Club


Of course, you don't have to hit the backcountry to show children the wonder of nature. Try these activities with your favorite little ones:
  • Schedule screen-free time. That means no computers, no internet, no phones.
  • Watch the sunrise and/or the sunset.
  • Have a picnic.
  • Lay back and look up at the sky.
  • Plant an organic garden. It doesn't have to be big, a container garden will do. If you are willing to go a little bigger, try building your own greenhouse!
  • Go on a hike. The local park is fine. Talk about what you see, hear, smell, touch, maybe even taste.
  • If you have access to a backyard with a nice tree, build a treehouse.
  • Climb a tree.
  • Go on a bike ride!
  • Create a fairy village. For inspiration, check out the book Fairy Houses and Beyond! by Barry and Tracy Kane.
  • Designate a nature shelf in your home to display your favorite leaves, rocks, and twigs.
  • Go birdwatching, and/or put out a bird feeder.
  • If your children express interest in exploring nature, encourage them!
For more ideas on how to get kids interested in nature, ask your librarian for the book I love dirt!: 52 Activities to Help You and Your Kids Discover the Wonders of Nature by Jennifer Ward.

No Grown-up Left Inside: Nature is good for adults too of course! It reduces stress and improves your sense of well being. So get out there, and bring the little ones along ☺
Browse all Greeniacs Articles Browse all Greeniacs Guides        Browse all Greeniacs Articles

_______________________________________________________________________________

1 Richard Louv, Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder, Algonquin Books, 2008 [hereinafter “Last Child”]: http://www.amazon.com/Last-Child-Woods-Children-Nature-Deficit/
dp/product-description/1565123913
2 http://health.usnews.com/health-news/family-health/brain-and-behavior/
articles/2010/10/28/us-preschoolers-getting-too-much-screen-time-study
3 Fjortoft, I. and Sageie, J., The Natural Environment as a Playground for Children: Landscape Description and Analysis of a Natural Landscape, Landscape and Urban Planning, 48(1/2), 83-97 (2000) [hereinafter “Environment as a Playground”].
4 Pyle, Robert, Eden in a Vacant Lot: Special Places, Species and Kids in Community of Life, Children and Nature: Psychological, Sociocultural and Evolutionary Investigations. Kahn, P.H. and Kellert, S.R., Eds., MIT Press (2002)
5 Fjortoft, Ingunn, The Natural Environment as a Playground for Children: The Impact of Outdoor Play Activities in Pre-Primary School Children, Early Childhood Education Journal, 29(2), 111-117 (2001).
6 Malone, Karen and Tranter, Paul, Children's Environmental Learning and the Use, Design and Management of Schoolgrounds, Children, Youth and Environments, 13(2) (2003).
7 Environment as a Playground
8 Taylor, A.F., Kuo, F.E., and Sullivan, W.C., Coping with ADD: The surprising connection to green play settings, Environment and Behavior, 33(1), 54-77 (2001).
9 Schultz, P. W., Shriver, C., Tabanico, J. J., and Khazian, A. M., Implicit connections with nature, Journal of Environmental Psychology, 24(1), 31-42 (2004).
10 Last Child, p. 7
11 http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s111-866
12 http://www.cbf.org/Page.aspx?pid=895
13 http://www.sierraclub.org/ico/
14 http://www.outwardbound.org/index.cfm/do/ind.about_history
15 http://www.outdoors.org/




Add your comment
RSS comments

Only registered users can write comments.
Please login or register.

Click here to Register.  Click here to login.
Last Updated ( Tuesday, 31 May 2011 )

SEARCH GREENIACS.COM

Green Facts

  • The World Health Organization estimates that 2 million people die prematurely worldwide every year due to air pollution.

  • Less than 1% of electricity in the United States is generated from solar power.

  • Recycling 1 million laptop computers can save the amount of energy used by 3,657 homes in the U.S. over the course of a year.

  • American workers spend an average of 47 hours per year commuting through rush hour traffic. This adds up to 23 billion gallons of gas wasted in traffic each year.

  • Recycling aluminum saves 95% of the energy used to make the material from scratch.

  • A tree that provides a home with shade from the sun can reduce the energy required to run the air conditioner and save an additional 200 to 2,000 pounds of carbon over its lifetime.

  • 77% of people who commute to work by car drive alone.

  • Current sea ice levels are at least 47% lower than they were in 1979.

  • Glass can be recycled over and over again without ever wearing down.

  • States with bottle deposit laws have 35-40% less litter by volume.

  • In California homes, about 10% of energy usage is related to TVs, DVRs, cable and satellite boxes, and DVD players.

  • Shaving 10 miles off of your weekly driving pattern can eliminate about 500 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions a year.

  • It takes 6,000,000 trees to make 1 year's worth of tissues for the world.

  • Rainforests are being cut down at the rate of 100 acres per minute.

  • Refrigerators built in 1975 used 4 times more energy than current models.

  • Bamboo absorbs 35% more carbon dioxide than equivalent stands of trees.

  • For every 38,000 bills consumers pay online instead of by mail, 5,058 pounds of greenhouse gases are avoided and two tons of trees are preserved.

  • You’ll save two pounds of carbon for every 20 glass bottles that you recycle.

  • An aluminum can that is thrown away instead of recycled will still be a can 500 years from now!

  • Recycling 100 million cell phones can save enough energy to power 18,500 homes in the U.S. for a year.

  • Every week about 20 species of plants and animals become extinct.

  • You will save 300 pounds of carbon dioxide for every 10,000 miles you drive if you always keep your car’s tires fully inflated.

  • A laptop consumes five times less electricity than a desktop computer.

  • In the United States, automobiles produce over 20 percent of total carbon emissions. Walk or bike and you'll save one pound of carbon for every mile you travel.

  • Plastic bags and other plastic garbage thrown into the ocean kill as many as 1,000,000 sea creatures every year.

  • A steel mill using recycled scrap reduces related water pollution, air pollution, and mining wastes by about 70%.

  • One recycled aluminum can will save enough energy to run a 100-watt bulb for 20 hours, a computer for 3 hours, or a TV for 2 hours.

  • Washing your clothes in cold or warm instead of hot water saves 500 pounds of carbon dioxide a year, and drying your clothes on a clothesline six months out of the year would save another 700 pounds.

  • Americans throw away more than 120 million cell phones each year, which contribute 60,000 tons of waste to landfills annually.

  • Recycling for one year at Stanford University saved the equivalent of 33,913 trees and the need for 636 tons of iron ore, coal, and limestone.

  • Americans throw away enough aluminum to rebuild our entire commercial fleet of airplanes every 3 months

  • Nudge your thermostat up two degrees in the summer and down two degrees in the winter to prevent 2,000 pounds of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere.

  • A single quart of motor oil, if disposed of improperly, can contaminate up to 2,000,000 gallons of fresh water.

  • If every U.S. household turned the thermostat down by 10 degrees for seven hours each night during the cold months, and seven hours each weekday, it would prevent nearly gas emissions.

  • You will save 100 pounds of carbon for each incandescent bulb that you replace with a compact fluorescent bulb (CFL), over the life of the bulb.

  • Due to tiger poaching, habitat destruction, and other human-tiger conflicts, tigers now number around 3,200—a decrease in population by about 70% from 100 years ago.

  • Turning off the tap when brushing your teeth can save as much as 10 gallons a day per person.

  • 82 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. come from burning fossil fuels.

  • Americans use 100 million tin and steel cans every day.