Sierra announces $23 million in support for Military Family Outdoor (MFO) Initiative
SAN FRANCISCO – The Military Family Outdoor (MFO) Initiative, a joint project of the Sierra Club and The Sierra Club Foundation, today announced a three-year grant of up to $23 million, provided by generous donors to support three organizations that provide returning veterans and their families with healing, life-affirming outdoor experiences in the natural world.
“We are proud to serve military families thanks to the support of donors to The Sierra Club Foundation who are profoundly motivated to ensure that those protecting our country get to enjoy its natural wonders,” stated Carl Pope, Executive Director of the Sierra Club. “This project will connect a new generation of American servicemen and women and their children to the mental and physical benefits of our natural heritage.”
The Military Family Outdoor Initiative is building on the success of a partnership the Sierra Club began last year with support to the National Military Family Association (NMFA) to provide week-long summer camp experiences to military children. NMFA’s Operation Purple® Camps engage kids in outdoor experiences and activities while teaching coping skills to help them deal with the deployment of one or both of their parents.
“Together with the Sierra Club we can make a difference in the lives of our nation’s youngest heroes,” said Nancy Alsheimer, Chairman of the NMFA Board of Governors. “Drawing on the healing and connecting experiences of the outdoors, Operation Purple Camps empower military children and provide a much needed respite from worries about their deployed parents.”
The Sierra Club believes that every child has a right to have a special place in nature. In a 2005 study mandated by the California Legislature, the American Institute of Research found that children gain self-esteem and personal responsibility from outdoor experiences. In fact, students demonstrated a 27 percent increase in science test scores after a week-long outdoor experience. The Military Family Outdoor program will provide these experiences for military children during a crucial time in their lives.
This year, the Sierra Club has greatly expanded its work with NMFA and has added outdoor programs for returning veterans, as well as camping programs for the entire military family to experience together. Sierra Club’s Military Family Outdoor Initiative has partnered with the Armed Services YMCA to provide additional family camps near military installations across the country and joined with Outward Bound to sponsor returning veterans in outdoor wilderness adventure courses.
“Outward Bound is grateful to the Military Family Outdoor Initiative Project for its support serving America’s veterans through our proven outdoor wilderness adventure courses,” said John Read, Outward Bound’s President and Chief Executive Officer.
“The Sierra Club Foundation grant provides a rewarding outdoor camping experience for hundreds of military kids as well as military families. They’ll have an opportunity to learn more about nature and most importantly, take time away from the stress of deployment,” said Armed Services YMCA National Executive Director Frank Gallo, Rear Admiral, U.S. Navy (Ret). “The ASYMCA is proud to have the Sierra Club as a partner in our mission to support America’s military families.”
About Sierra Club
The Sierra Club's members and supporters are more than 1.3 million of your friends and neighbors. Inspired by nature, we work together to protect our
communities and the planet. The Club is America's oldest, largest and most
influential grassroots environmental organization. Our mission is to
explore, enjoy and protect the planet.
Websites: http://www.sierraclub.org/youth/events/operation_purple.asp
http://www.nmfa.org/
http://www.outwardboundwilderness.org/veterans.html
http://www.asymca.org/
QUEST series focuses on Nature Deficit Disorder
Denver Post Reports on Progress in Colorado Efforts
Denver Post – May 09, 2008
By Nancy Lofholm
"Dude, just look at this. How cool is this?"
Cameron Renteria, 9, is buzzing with excitement over a patch of sandy earth. It's shaded by a twisting juniper and ringed by rocks. It has just enough room for him and two friends to cram onto, unpack their peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches, and chatter with bravado about what they'll do if they encounter mountain lions and rattlesnakes.
From left, Zack Morgan, Devin Willingham and Devin Wagner from Overland Trail Middle School in Brighton identify tree species in Rocky Mountain National Park. (Helen H. Richardson, The Denver Post )
These boys and many of the 950 other schoolchildren who were bused up the monument recently to take part in Junior Ranger Day have had few, if any, opportunities to explore wild places. To them, nature is a little scary, quite foreign, but a very cool novelty.
A term has been coined for the outdoors disconnect suffered by such children: nature-deficit disorder. The phenomenon is epidemic in a generation that spends more time indoors than out and is more familiar with YouTube and "Guitar Hero" than with tadpoles and pine cones.
Studies show that American children now spend an average of 30 minutes of unstructured time outdoors weekly but watch as much as three hours of television daily.
Children playing unfettered in nature are considered to be an endangered species.
When today's youth do get outside, it's likely to be for a soccer game or to roar around on an ATV. Going for a hike or just lying around under a tree isn't something enough kids get to experience.
"They need a chance to get outside and dream," explained Kim Sikoryak, branch chief of interpretation and education for the intermountain region of the National Park Service.
The tipping point for government
Getting children outdoors has become a national mission. There is now a Take Your Child to Nature Day. Congress is considering A No Child Left Inside Act that would make federal funds available for environmental education.
The U.S. Forest Service has started a More Kids in the Woods initiative. A coalition called the Children & Nature Network has grown to more than 40 chapters that advocate for outdoor play and programs across the country.
"I think this has finally reached a point in our general consciousness," said Mark DeGregorio, education program manager at Rocky Mountain National Park.
"It's being looked at like global warming. It's not going to go away."
DeGregorio said that when he started working at the park in 1992, about a third of the kids coming to the park rarely got outdoors. Today he estimates the number at about 65 percent.
"I like it when we hike, but I've only been once," said Regina March, 8, as she scuffed down a park trail at Colorado National Monument under a silky pink backpack and a pink camouflage hat. "I'd like to live by a mountain so I could hike every morning."
Unplugging electronic nannies
But March lives in a subdivision apartment, well away from any mountains, and said she spends most of her spare time watching TV.
Around Colorado, there is a flurry of efforts to turn this trend back.
Junior Ranger programs in the state's national parks have kids searching for fireweed and red-tailed hawks and pledging never to disturb wildlife or leave trash.
More than 8,000 kids come to Rocky Mountain National Park in spring and fall to participate in one of the largest outdoor youth education programs in the state. That program is being bolstered by a park nonprofit effort to amass $10 million for the Next Generation Fund, an endowment that would fund youth activities.
Children & Nature Network Northern Colorado has a squadron of volunteer naturalists that lets kids experience wetlands, rivers, wildlife and bugs. At the Bluff Lake Nature Center, on prairie that used to be part of the old Stapleton airport, underprivileged kids go on 3-mile hikes where their activities include pondering anthills and spotting coyotes.
Colorado National Monument will host about 4,000 kids this year in a growing program designed to familiarize children with a wild place that is in Grand Junction's backyard. About 400 of the most nature-deprived youth will attend a camp there this summer.
A Teacher to Ranger to Teacher program that began in Colorado and surrounding states five years ago has classroom teachers on loan to national parks as rangers in the summers. The teachers take their ranger skills back to classroom ecology lessons and, in summers, guide their kids through the parks. The intermountain region had 40 of these teacher/rangers last year and has a goal of 80 this year. That program is now spreading to the park system nationwide.
A deficit of dirt in their lives
The nature-deficit trend has been noted by those working in national parks and other nature settings for well over a decade, but it earned a name and a groundswell of support in 2005 when author Richard Louv wrote the best-selling "Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder."
"We were very pleased that Louv put down in a concrete way what a lot of us were feeling — that kids were losing their connection to the outdoors," said Sikoryak, who has worked in parks for 30 years.
Louv said the trend came into focus for him in the late 1980s while he researched a book about childhood issues. He sat down at kitchen tables to find out what parents were concerned about.
He discovered that "people were uneasy about the fact that their kids were not going outside very much."
Statistics soon started showing up: Visits to national parks were on the decline. Hunting and fishing licenses for kids were dropping. Backpacking and camping permits were down.
And studies showed that symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder improved with exposure to natural settings.
One study linked weakened immune systems to the fact that some kids no longer are getting dirty: They are not getting their natural inoculation from the earth.
Another found a resurgence of the 19th-century bone-softening disease, rickets, was linked in part to kids failing to get enough sunshine and outdoor exercise.
Louv and other experts associated with outdoor programs stress that unstructured time should be a key component of attempts to treat nature-deficit disorder.
"Their whole life is structured. Everything they do is structured. When you can get them outside to play on their own, they just love it," said Susan Schafer, education and volunteer coordinator for the Fort Collins Natural Areas Program.
Training the next generation
There is another self-preservation element to the Leave No Child Inside movement. Besides the immediate goal of making kids healthy, happy and whole, tomorrow's politically connected nature lovers need to be groomed.
"We need to grow some new stewards. We need to introduce them to the ethics of taking care of public lands while they're young," said Colorado National Monument Superintendent Joan Anselmo.
All those combating the house-bound-child issue say the movement must act quickly — before a generation of nature lovers is lost.
The kids spilling off of buses across Colorado this spring in natural areas show something is happening.
The youngsters usually huddle close to guides and teachers initially. They ask fearfully about bears and mountain lions. But with their iPods and cellphones left behind, they start looking around.
They dart to trees and touch gnarled trunks. They scramble around on rocks. Their eyes grow big over sandstone cliffs. They zero in on water bugs and lizards.
"This is cool," they say, again and again.
Independent Film to Examine Nature-Deficit Disorder
The Oregonian – May 08, 2008
By Rebecca Koffman
Do your children play outside? Do they know where to watch ants on the march or find a good climbing tree? Or are they inside, parked in front of a screen? Most important, what's in store for kids -- and society -- when children are cut off from nature?
These are urgent questions for two Portland moms, Tonje Hessen Schei of Sunnyside and Meg Merrill of Multnomah Village, who are making a documentary, "Play Again," that explores a culture in which the average child recognizes more than 100 corporate logos but can't name 10 plants.
Their efforts join a groundswell of concern prompted by the 2005 book "Last Child in the Woods," in which author Richard Louv describes a "nature-deficit disorder."
Norway native Hessen Schei, 37 and married with two children, traces "Play Again" to the startling realization that many American children are awash in media and that her two daughters were much more removed from nature than she was as a child. She began devouring books on the subject.
"When I realized just how much we were up against, I decided to make a film about it," says Hessen Schei, the director. Merrill, 40 and also married with two children, quickly signed on as producer.
So far, they're about halfway through filming, with plans to release the film in fall 2009. "Our first priority is to get it onto television," says Hessen Schei.
They've interviewed dozens of experts, including Louv, who spoke in Portland in March on the importance of parks, and in Sherwood in April for the dedication of a new wildlife center; and economist Juliet Schor, whose book "Born to Buy: The Commercialized Child and the New Consumer Culture" shows how corporations target young children.
The experts blame increasing screen time for rising rates of childhood obesity, depression and attention disorders. The film also poses a broader question, says Hessen Schei: "Who will look after the Earth if our kids are disconnected from the natural world?"
Merrill adds: "I'll never forget what Charles Jordan said when we interviewed him," referring to the Conservation Fund chairman and former Portland city commissioner and Parks Bureau director. " 'What you don't value you will not protect, and what you don't protect you will lose.' "
The women, who met in 2000 when they were neighbors in Southeast, lead an 11-member film crew. Hessen Schei has worked in documentaries since 1996 and made the award-winning "Independent Intervention" in 2006 about U.S. media coverage of the Iraq war. Merrill, new to film work, is an administrative social worker.
Their next step is to raise money to finish it. They recently won a $5,000 grant from Keen Footwear and have other grant applications in the works. Then they'll film middle and high school kids, recruited with help from schools, for whom the battle between the natural and virtual worlds rages at a fever pitch.
"It's critical to hear the voices of the kids themselves," says Hessen Schei, "to allow them to teach us what media mean in their lives."
"We also want to give them time in nature," says Merrill. "Not nature education, but nature experience; the chance to experience that sense of wonder."
Why Do Child-Care Centers Keep Kids Inside?
ScienceDaily – May 05, 2008
At a time when over half of US children (aged 3-6) are in child care centers, and growing concern over childhood obesity has led physicians to focus on whether children are getting enough physical activity, a new study of outdoor physical activity at child care centers, conducted by researchers at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, has identified some surprising reasons why the kids may be staying inside. The study, will be presented May 5 at the annual meeting of the Pediatric Academic Societies in Honolulu, Hawaii.
"It's things we never expected, from flip flops, mulch near the playground, children who come to child care without a coat on chilly days, to teachers talking or texting on cell phones while they were supposed to be supervising the children," according to Kristen Copeland, M.D., lead author of the study which was funded by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. She noted that because there are so many benefits of physical activity for children -- from prevention of obesity, to better concentration and development of gross motor skills -- it's important to know what barriers to physical activity may exist at child-care centers.
"With so many American preschool-aged children in child care centers, and previous reports that the amount of physical activity children get varies widely across different centers, we wanted to explore what some of the barriers to physical activity at these centers might be," said Dr. Copeland, a physician scientist and Assistant Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of General and Community Pediatrics at Cincinnati Children's. According to the most recent statistics 74% of US children aged 3-6 years are in some form of non-parental child care. 56% percent of 3-6 year old children spend time in centers, including child care centers and preschools. Her team began by exploring child-care center staff members' perceptions of barriers to children's physical activity. They conducted focus groups with 49 staff members from 34 child-care centers in the Cincinnati area (including Montessori, Head Start and centers in the inner city and suburban areas) as the first of several studies on this subject.
"We found several previously unreported barriers that meant kids had to stay inside, including inappropriate footwear such as flip flops and inappropriate clothing for the weather," said Dr. Copeland. In some child care centers, if one child in the group shows up without a coat on a chilly day, she noted, that means the whole group has to stay inside. Even more surprising to the researchers was the fact that the child-care staff members said some parents appear to intentionally keep their children's coats (or send children without coats) so they'd have to stay inside, which staff attributed to parents' concerns about the child getting injured or dirty, or a having a cold that may be exacerbated by cold weather.
Teachers said they also felt pressure from some parents who were more concerned with children spending time on cognitive skills, such as reading and writing, than on the gross motor and socio-emotional skills (such as kicking a ball or negotiating with another child for a turn on the slide) that are best learned on the playground.
Then there was the mulch factor. "The staff members who participated in the groups were really concerned about mulch in the play area," said Dr. Copeland. "Many said that the kids eat the mulch, or use it as weapons, or it gets caught in their shoes. It also requires constant upkeep. It's certainly not something that we had anticipated as an issue, but judging by the amount of and intensity of the discussions among child care teachers, it really is."
Dr. Copeland said the child-care center staff recognized that they themselves could sometimes serve as a barrier to children's physical activity. "We heard reports of teachers talking or texting on cell phones instead of interacting with the children while on the playground," said Dr. Copeland. She continued, "We found that a staff member who doesn't like going outside--maybe she's not a cold-weather person, or she thinks it's too much work to bundle up and unbundle the children on a cold day -- could act as a gatekeeper to the playground." In some cases, staff reported that their own issues with being overweight prevented them from encouraging children's physical activity.
"This initial qualitative research has identified a number of issues that we will be exploring in subsequent studies," noted Dr. Copeland. "Clearly this is a complex issue --But finding out what the barriers are is the first step in addressing the problem and getting more kids involved in more much-needed physical activity."
No Child Left Inside Debuts in South Carolina
Daniel Island News – April 17, 2008
By Tom Ratzloff
Does your child commune with Mr. Nintendo rather than Mother Nature?
When he takes the garbage out, does that qualify as a wilderness excursion?
If so, your little one may have NDD – nature deficit disorder, according to Richard Louv, author of "The Last Child in the Woods."
"Nature-deficit disorder is not an official diagnosis but a way of viewing the problem, and describes
the human costs of alienation from nature, among them: diminished use of the senses, attention difficulties, and higher rates of physical and emotional illnesses. The disorder can be detected in individuals, families, and communities," Louv wrote.
Because children’s play activities have changed significantly over the past three decades, many American youngsters have lost touch with the great outdoors, he said. Earlier generations of children usually played outside with friends until the church bell tolled or the sun went down. In fact, staying indoors was considered abnormal in many families.
Not today.
Because of fears about child abduction or crime, many children and their parents have been "scared inside," according to a Hofstra University study of 800 mothers. It found that 82 percent of the mothers wouldn’t let their children play outside more often because of crime or safety concerns.
However, the Duke University Child and Well-Being Index of 2007 noted that "(our) most disturbing finding is not violence or abductions, but that children’s health has sunk to the lowest point in 30 years due largely to obesity."
Another lure to stay indoors is the overwhelming popularity of video games, TV and computers, according to Columbia, S.C. resident Diana Bristow.
"Children now are held to tight schedules with sports, after-school programs, and a whole host of other tightly structured activities," she said. "Oftentimes if they aren’t at one of these programs they are glued to the Xbox, computer, or TV. While these are great to keep children occupied, it is creating a void in which children don’t get to use their own imaginations to explore the environment around them."
Bristow works with No Child Left Inside (NCLI), a new local initiative spearheaded by the Lowcountry Experiential Education Program (LEEP). It strives to help children reconnect with the outdoors.
"We are so excited to be able to get No Child Left Inside started in South Carolina," Bristow said. "Even though this is starting as a local program, we hope that soon it will spread throughout the state."
No Child Left Inside’s principles are based on Louv’s book and there are similar programs throughout the United States. The author also helped found the Children & Nature Network (C&NN), which provides access to the latest news and research in the field and a peer-to-peer network of researchers and individuals, educators and organizations dedicated to children’s health and well-being.
"No Child Left Inside’s main objective is to educate children and parents about the advantages of playing outside and experiencing their surrounding environment," said Bristow. "We also facilitate loosely structured programs which foster children’s curiosity and builds confidence about being in the outdoors."
No Child Left Inside has the following goals:
• To create and develop a movement of children to the outdoors;
• To encourage the use of existing local green spaces;
• To educate about the benefits of being outside through media, role models, and public interaction;
• To facilitate the sharing of experiences, places and activities related to nature;
• To create and provide loosely structured activities that foster education and respect for the outdoors;
• To promote community events that support NCLI’s mission.
Bristow said NCLI will use a combination of Web-based communications, direct contact, and word of mouth to create a movement of children to reconnect with nature. Its Web site will allow people to share about their outdoor experiences and to share fun nature hot spots with others.
"Using new and existing LEEP contacts, we will speak with students, teachers, and all interested about the fun and benefits of enjoying nature," Bristow said. "No Child Left Inside will also host and attend local events in which we can reach out to a variety of people."
No Child Left Inside will be visiting with schools and PTA associations in the Charleston area, but will be making its initial debut at an Earth Day event hosted by Earth Fare on April 22. It is also launching a new Web site – www.scnaturekids.com – where people can share their experiences in the outdoors. The Web site will also be a resource for outdoor activities that families can participate in, locations that they can enjoy in the area, and other news about No Child Left Inside.
For more information, call Bristow at 1-800-732-9625 or visit www.scnaturekids.com.
The Scotsman: Are Children Too Clean?
The Scotsman – April 29, 2008
There was a time, in the days before anti-bacterial wipes, sprays and ointments, when children and nature were at one, not separated by the substantial layers of cotton wool that parents are so often accused of swaddling them in today.
This was a golden age when children could pick up unidentified objects in the street and shove them in their mouths largely unnoticed; when bathing involved the occasional scrub behind the ears whenever you were too slow to wriggle free of your mothADVERTISEMENTer's grip; and where snotty-nosed urchins mixed freely, coated in a paste of outside dirt and body fluids (not all their own).
Today, anyone would think that children are supposed to be clean. Terrified yummy mummies and faddy daddies spend their days wiping down their pristine infants with chemicals and keeping them indoors lest they are seen as bad parents for allowing their children to come in contact with a germ-ridden world. Well, such harassed parents may now be able to put down the wetwipes with a sigh of relief as two separate studies reveal that grimy youngsters might not be such a bad thing.
Research by the University of California has shown that children who interact with other youngsters early in life by attending playgroups or nursery have about a 30 per cent lower chance of developing leukaemia than those who don't, while German scientists announced yesterday that a six-year study had found having a dog in the house substantially reduces the risk that young children will develop allergic responses such as asthma, eczema and hay fever.
"This falls in line with the hygiene hypothesis," says Lindsay McManus of Allergy UK. "There's strong evidence to suggest that now that we live much more sterile lives than we did 30 years ago, and aren't exposed to the same microbes we once were, our bodies are more likely to look for allergies that are otherwise harmless.
"There's evidence that children who grow up on farms are less likely to develop allergies. When the Berlin Wall came down, allergies were pretty much non-existent in less-developed East Germany but, as the area adopted Western hygiene practices, allergies began to appear. This theory could extend to owning a pet in early childhood or interacting with other children at a pre-school age."
While it's nice to think the findings might prompt a little parental relaxation and allow more children to explore the world around them without the interference of dirt-paranoid adults, it may well take a long time for the message to filter through. "Parents have certainly become more concerned regarding exposure to germs in recent years, and this is evident from the questions parents will ask when visiting the nursery," says Karen Murray, the area manager at Cranley Nursery in Edinburgh. "One of the most common questions is on our policy on children attending when unwell, and while a child with a contagious infection cannot attend, we consider each case individually.
"Children frequently have common colds and viral infections and, if the child was excluded each time they had one, it would be a very difficult situation for a working parent. It is actually beneficial for children to attend nursery and mix with other children. Exposure to germs helps to strengthen and build their immune system. The key to a healthy child is getting the balance right between taking adequate precautions and 'germ-proofing' your child."
It's little wonder that some parents resort to the germ-proofing approach. Health scares and superbugs make for eye-catching headlines. A lucrative market in hygiene products is promoted by television adverts showing malevolent bacteria marching their way across a child's highchair. Industry reports state the global anti-infective market is currently valued at $66.5 billion (£34 billion) with antibacterial agents accounting for over 50 per cent of sales. The antibacterial market is set to grow to more than $45.0 billion(£22.5 billion) by 2012.
"Parents are just bombarded with scary advertising about making their children and their homes germ free these days. They want to do the best for their child, so often they'll buy into it," says clinical child psychologist Joyce Davies from Lerwick Health Centre.
However, the risk is that paranoia about hygiene leads to a childhood devoid of the same freedom and levels of interaction that previous generations have enjoyed.
"It is possible to over-protect your children which can be harmful," explains Davies. "They won't learn appropriate levels of independence and they could worry more than other children. It's likely that, as they grow up, they won't take risks, which, of course, is one of the ways they develop and learn."
Certainly it's easy to get nostalgic about the "good old days" and some dangers are very real. Dr Sally Bloomfield, the chairman of the International Forum on Home Hygiene, says: "While these studies show that exposure to microbes and dirt may be a good thing for children, it's important to remember that infection is not a good thing, and good hygiene is important for fighting off infection.
"We've got cleanliness and hygiene confused; It's not about sterilising your home, but it's about things such as washing your hands properly and handling food carefully. If you can wash your hands with soap and rinse them with water, that's all you need. If you're out and about and can't rinse your hands, then these antibacterial hand cleaners can be useful."
The key, according to parenting experts, is getting the balance right. Linda Russell, the director of the Parent Coaching Studio, says that obsessing about cleanliness is counterproductive. "Parents are faced with TV adverts about disinfecting every element of their lives, but building up a bit of immunity is a good thing. I advise parents to be sensible, not anxious. "
Elaine Griffiths, the editor of Prima Baby magazine, agrees. "We're constantly wiping our children down and swabbing them with all sorts of chemicals when we should actually be just letting them be children. You do have to take hygiene seriously, but there's lots of evidence to suggest that grubby is good for children. I think that both of these studies are great news for parents. It takes a bit of the strain off my shoulders, and, frankly, knowing that my children don't have to be squeaky-clean all the time is a bit of a relief!"
So, might we see a return to the halcyon days when children were free to play in filth and return caked in mud in time for dinner? With other external concerns facing parents today, from strangers to traffic, the answer is probably no. However, overall, it's probably good news for children across the land who may finally manage to dodge that daily scrub behind the ears.
'Mud, glorious mud – and corned beef with a live bluebottle as vitamin supplement'
Jim Gilchrist
I'M AS old as the National Health Service. I grew up dosed with the proverbial cod liver oil and orange juice, but also with my immune system liberally boosted by regular and vigorous contact with dirt, with other grubby kids and with assorted livestock, furry or otherwise.
We're told that children who interact with other youngsters early in life are at lower risk of contracting various malaises, that living with a dog reduces the risk of allergies. Well what's new? Growing up in a small west-of-Scotland town, in a neighbourly terrace largely populated by two-boy-one-dog families, we industriously rendered ourselves immune to the worst that the microbial world could throw at us.
We interacted all right – with each other, often quite messily and sometimes bloodily, with our pets, and particularly with the burn at the foot of the brae. This may sound like some pastoral idyll, but the burn was a slurry-coloured Styx, into which the local paper mill discharged obscure toxins that created glooping mats of Guinness-like froth, into which we frequently tumbled. Captain Ahab sighting the White Whale would be as nothing to our frenzy if we saw a fish – even if it was, inevitably, belly up.
We established a gang hut in a disused henhouse, papering its interior with centre-fold cutaways of trains, planes and spaceships from the Eagle. This didn't quite eliminate the overall patina of chicken excrement, but it helped. Budding David Attenboroughs to a man, we were all closely – sometimes extremely closely – acquainted with the natural world. I recall visiting one friend, laid up with mumps or some such viral rite of passage, and, as we chatted, a lively infestation of pet white mice suddenly erupted from the depths of his pyjamas, to skitter about the bed – immune system enhancement as you've never seen it.
The interaction continued apace, with hijacked soup pots, noisesome with stagnating tadpoles, and old sinks full of captured newts and toads – Jurassic Park with added mud. There was the nettle-rich, grassy brae at the end of the street down which we rolled, in fun or internecine conflict, sometimes through inconveniently placed dog turds and, on one notable occasion, through some dumped axle grease, which required my mother to use Oxydol or some such decidedly non-biological laundry powder to scrub the stuff out of my hair.
And that's before we even mention Scout camp, and the delights of ash-encrusted damper-on-a-stick, or corned beef with live bluebottle as added vitamin supplement… but that's another story, and, one supposes, another biohazard. An alarming number of decades on, I'm still here, hale and sometimes even hearty. Although I do have very little hair: maybe it was the Oxydol.
Travelocity to Promote Children and Nature Connection
Business Wire – April 28, 2008
Obesity, attention deficit disorder and impaired social skills are just a few of the ways children are being impacted by what author Richard Louv has dubbed “Nature Deficit Disorder.” According to a recent family travel poll conducted by Travelocity, families with children today are visiting national parks and other nature sites much less frequently than previous generations. Twenty-five percent of the Silent Generation (born between 1925-1945) report that all of their childhood family vacations included some interaction with nature compared to only 15 percent of families traveling with kids today.
Today’s families take less time to participate in outdoor activities. Instead of hiking, biking and camping, more than twice as many families today focus on activities like shopping than did earlier generations (now 20 percent of family vacations – up from 8 percent during the Silent Generation’s childhood years).
To address what’s being called a nature deficit epidemic, Travelocity launched a “micro-site” offering tips and advice to parents on getting their kids back into nature through travel. The micro-site can be accessed at www.travelocity.com/nature and provides itineraries for nature-oriented family vacations, tips on getting kids excited about nature, and vacation activities for parents and children. The site even features a special tips section from best-selling author Richard Louv (Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder).
“The bad news is our interaction with nature is on the decline and that has serious implications for children, but the good news is there are easy things parents can do to get nature back into their vacations and ultimately their families’ lives,” according to Amy Ziff, Travelocity editor-at-large. “That’s why Travelocity launched the Children In Nature micro-site.”
Travelocity’s poll also found that instead of camping trips, the largest group of respondents (families with kids), frequent major cities (19 percent) and amusement parks (13 percent) as destinations. In contrast, as children the Silent Generation visited major cities 8 percent of the time and amusement parks only 6 percent.
The means by which families travel also has changed dramatically across generations. Not surprisingly, car travel has diminished while air travel has increased with families going much greater distances. This means families today have fewer opportunities to stop along the way to admire scenic overlooks, explore local hiking trails, or just watch the scenery outside as it changes. Data findings include:
Air
- As children, the Silent Generation traveled by plane 4 percent of the time
- Generation X took planes 14 percent of the time.
- Today’s families travel by air for 63 percent of their vacations.
Car
- Today’s families traveling with children take road trips 34 percent of the time
- Generation X children traveled by car for 79 percent of their vacations
- Silent Generation children traveled by car 90 percent of the time.
Additional poll findings include:
- Visits to the countryside are down across generations. Families traveling with kids today visit the countryside only 4 percent of the time (down 6 percentage points (or 60%) when compared to the silent generation).
- Beaches also gained share - garnering 29 percent of destinations visited by families traveling with children today up most strikingly by 9 percentage points from when Generation X were children when it was just 20 percent of all vacations.
The Travelocity poll conducted from Feb 8 - 25, 2008 consists of responses from approximately 853 Travelocity members. The survey was conducted to obtain information from travelers who have booked at least one travel component in the last 12 months. For complete survey details, visit http://www.travelocity.com/familypoll or contact Vollmer Public Relations at 972-488-4790 / ashley@vollmerpr.com.
About Travelocity Global
Travelocity® is committed to being the traveler's champion – before, during and after the trip – and provides the most comprehensive and proactive guarantee in the industry (www.travelocity.com/guarantee). This customer-driven focus, backed by 24/7 live phone support, competitive prices and powerful shopping technology has made Travelocity one of the largest travel companies in the world with gross bookings of more than U.S. $10 billion in 2007. Travelocity also owns and operates: Travelocity Business® for corporate travel; igougo.com, a leading online travel community; lastminute.com, a leader in European online travel; and ZUJI, a leader in Asia-Pacific online travel. Travelocity is owned by Sabre Holdings Corporation, a world leader in travel marketing and distribution.
Iowa’s Taproot Program a Source of Inspiration
Daily Iowan – April 22, 2008
By Kelsey Beltramea
The shin-deep flood waters pooling above the riverbank at Lower City Park served as the perfect playground for 10-year-old Theo Van Meter and his fellow Taproot adventurers. With their eyes fixed on the water's quivering surface, Theo and the other children didn't seem to notice the rain ricocheting onto their faces and seeping through their long-drenched jackets and sweats.
Instead, they watched the water, waiting for creatures to stir below.
"There's one over there," Theo shouted, leading the group toward a johnboat-sized wake streaming farther into the field. But his 31-year-old leader Zac Wedemeyer got there first, scooping up the 25-pound bigmouth buffalo barehanded.
As the children giggly passed the flopping fish nearly twice their sizes, Wedemeyer described what the fish ate. He explained how largemouth bass breathed and how it was different from the carp swimming afoot. He then returned the fish to the river, and Theo began another adventure belly deep in the cool water, army crawling his way toward an unsuspecting mallard.
Just another lesson. Just another afternoon in the Taproot Nature Experience.
'A strong anchor in nature'
Last September, Wedemeyer and wife Elesa Wedemeyer began the Taproot Nature Experience nonprofit organization, seeking to help strengthen children's and adults' inherent bond with nature.
"Our overarching goal is to improve the situation of the Earth, but the way we plan to do that is by helping people reconnect or strengthen their connections to the natural world by giving them more contact with the natural world," Zac Wedemeyer said.
Taproot offers an after-school enrichment program that begins a few afternoons each week, when he picks up around six children from different elementary schools in his biodeisel-powered Dodge Sprinter.
The Sprinter, whose license plate bears the name "Lorax" after Dr. Seuss' tree-minded, mustached, man-like being, takes children to the day's special destination. Wilson's Apple Orchard, the South Sycamore Wetlands, and Hickory Hill park have all been "Loraxed."
In snow, sleet, and rain the children bundle, piling into the van, envisioning an unscripted afternoon in the outdoors. For Wedemeyer's group, there is no such thing as curriculum.
"It always works out that nature comes up with something," he said, detailing a hike-turned-deer carcass examination. "Nature and the kids, I've seen over and over, have just a very easy partnership. Something will come up. They'll find something to do, to explore."
The former Willowwind elementary teacher traded the confines of the classroom for the expanse of the environment in the spring of 2007. Always an outdoorsman, he said there were times during his teaching career when, like the children, he, too, looked out the window and longed for the fresh air.
Moving around a lot as a kid maybe made him that way, he said. Journeying from Iowa to Pennsylvania to Missouri to Kansas to West Virginia allowed the UI graduate to learn where to plant his roots the deepest: in the soil.
It is that lesson, combined with the example of an oak tree, that inspired the name of his newly founded organization, he said.
"One of the first things oak trees start doing right out of the acorn is send a strong root, before making leaves or anything," Wedemeyer said. "It's one of the things that allow the tree to be completely burned off but to grow back or to survive a drought by digging deep into water …
"I think sinking your own metaphorical root into the Earth and into nature when you're young, if you have this strong anchor, it will give you the strength and sustenance to carry you through your whole life. My hope is that I'm helping these kids to grow a strong anchor in nature."
'How much screen time is too much?'
The nationwide push to re-evaluate children's experiences with the outdoors was largely catalyzed by the publishing of Richard Louv's 2005 novel, Last Child in the Woods.
The San Diego Union-Tribune columnist detailed the detriments of the current generation of media-consuming children who experience a "nature-deficit disorder."
Since Louv's book hit the shelves, back-to-nature campaigns around the country have spawned to reconnect children with the outdoors.
The U.S. Forest Service has launched More Kids in the Woods to fund local efforts to get children outdoors. The National Wildlife Federation initiated a "Green Hour" campaign, encouraging parents to have their children spend one hour each day in nature. And a "Leave no Child Inside Act" for federal funding in environmental education under a new Office of Environmental Education in the U.S. Department of Education was proposed, but not passed, in both the House and Senate.
Wedemeyer said the growing attention paid to children's mobility show steps in the right direction.
But researchers say it still may not be enough.
A new study soon-to-be-published in the Journal of Pediatrics found that fewer than 20 percent of Iowa and Minnesota children from public elementary schools met daily guidelines from the American Academy of Pediatrics for limiting screen time and taking a minimum number of steps.
In attempts to help parents promote childhood health and fitness, the academy has recommended boys take at least 11,000 steps per day, girls 13,000 steps per day, and their total screen time should not exceed two hours each day.
But the 709 children studied by Iowa State University and the National Institute on Media and the Family are failing horribly: The girls had a mean screen time of 31?2 hours, the boys had 41?2.
"I hope this puts things into perspective a little bit about how much is too much," said Kelly Laurson, an Iowa State kinesiology doctoral candidate who led the study. "Parents often hear their child should be physically active, but how much physical activity is enough? They hear their child shouldn't watch too much TV, but how much screen time is too much? Maybe now they'll pay more attention."
'Keep the environment in mind'
Barb Canin is. Her daughters, 8-year-old Ayla and 11-year-old Amiela, have participated in several Taproot programs.
"Even though [Wedemeyer]'s an adult responsible for them, he's not really controlling them," Canin said, taking a bite of her natural syrup-soaked pancake on Taproot Family Day a few weeks ago. "He's going with them, seeing what they explore, what they discover."
Canin's daughters huddled with a crowd of children around a smoldering fire pit where Wedemeyer cooked pancakes and boiled fresh maple sap from a nearby tree.
Ayla, a Taproot regular, later discussed catching and eating blue gills and mushroom hunting, saying: "I don't think I've ever had a day when it's not fun."
Wedemeyer agreed.
He has big plans for Taproot and his new sustainable home sprouting up on 80 acres of land near North English.
The 3,500-square-foot renovated barn - with straw-baled walls, flooring from the demolished St. Patrick's Catholic Church, masonry heating, and solar-electric generation - will one day be a regional center for environmental education for adults and children, he said.
Wedemeyer dreams of holding sustainability conferences and environmental seminars along with the existing children's programs and family camping workshops that teach metropolitan-minded parents the ways of the wild - such as the one next August.
But he's starting with the kids.
"I'm trying to think locally and act locally and do what my strengths are," he said. "I think having a bond with nature will help them be peaceful and help them keep the environment in mind when they're making decisions for the rest of their lives."
Governor Testifies in Support of No Child Left Inside Act
Baltimore Sun – April 23, 2008
By Laura Smitherman and Matthew Hay Brown
The environmental movement faces a conundrum: While scientists say the need for solutions and action to combat global warming will only become greater, the children who would be the next generation of activists are less likely to spend time playing outdoors becoming connected with nature.
At an Earth Day hearing of a House of Representatives subcommittee in the Patuxent Wildlife Refuge, Gov. Martin O'Malley and Rep. John Sarbanes promoted plans to address the situation by improving the environmental literacy of schoolchildren.
O'Malley announced that he signed an executive order to create a coalition of public, private and nonprofit groups to develop outdoor learning experiences, and Sarbanes pushed for his No Child Left Inside Act that would direct $500 million in federal funding over five years for environmental education.
"You're inheriting one big mess," O'Malley told a group of high school students at a news conference during the event. "Our individual actions really do have a global impact."
The rare open-air hearing of the House Education and Labor subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary and Secondary Education, held on the banks of Cash Lake, focused on the House bill introduced by Sarbanes, a Baltimore County Democrat. Similar legislation has been introduced in the Senate.
With schools under pressure to focus on math and reading to meet testing requirements, Sarbanes said additional funding for environmental education would help diversify what is taught. He said it would not force requirements on schools -- a common criticism of No Child Left Behind, under which schools must show student improvement in reading and math or face sanctions.
O'Malley noted that his administration has dedicated funding to build state parks into "learning laboratories," and state schools Superintendent Nancy S. Grasmick, who also testified at the hearing, said 45 percent of students participate in outdoor environmental learning experiences each year.
Robert S. Lawrence, a professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, testified that because of parental safety concerns and the fact that half of the world's population lives in urban settings, children predominantly play at home and spend much of their time watching TV and playing video games. Lawrence is director of the Center for a Livable Future, which promotes policies that "protect health, the global environment and the ability to sustain life for future generations."
"Nothing is more critical to achieving this mission than the education of our children to become stewards of the environment, to develop a healthy relationship with the natural world, to stimulate their minds and bodies through physical activity," Lawrence said.
Students demonstrated some of the environmental teaching opportunities at the Patuxent refuge for the officials. Children collected bugs to determine the waterway's health; damselflies, for instance, are very sensitive to pollution. They played with terrapins, and they used high-tech equipment to determine the nutrient level of the water.
Wali Jackson Jr., a 17-year-old junior at Baltimore's Digital Harbor High School, wielded the equipment as if he had trudged the waters for years. "It's interesting, a good hands-on experience," Jackson said.
"You gotta love being out of the classroom," he added.
Utah Parks Reaching Out to Kids
Salt Lake Tribune – April 17, 2008
By Tom Wharton and Brett Prettyman
When Richard Louv wrote Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder, he hoped it would spawn a national movement. Even the author is amazed at the response that has unfolded since the book was released in 2005.
"Perhaps on this issue, it's a matter of if you build it, they really will come," said Louv, who has updated research and an expanded action plan in a new edition, which comes out Tuesday, Earth Day. "There is something about these issues that transcends politics and religion."
Louv's new edition of the New York Times best-seller includes a field guide with 100 ideas to get more kids outdoors; 35 discussion points to help community members talk about the importance of nature in their lives; and new research and a progress report on his "Leave No Child Inside" movement.
It also has goals and guidelines for U.S. recreation directors to better connect with youth.
Utah State Parks director Mary Tullius said Louv's work has certainly helped the agency with the ongoing challenge of getting more families outdoors. The topic was a major part of a joint meeting last fall with the National Association of State Park Directors and National Park Service managers.
"We focused on how we could act nationally and locally to make some significant changes," Tullius said. "We live in a state so rich in natural resources and it is so important to make people aware of the opportunities to get outside with their families and friends."
Tullius returned from the meetings determined to expand the role of State Parks in helping Utahns understand the intrinsic value of the outdoors.
To that end, Utah State Parks has developed its ROCKIN' (Reaching Out Connecting Kids In Nature) Utah initiative. The program is designed to help families explore the outdoors - with an emphasis on safely doing so - through Utah's 32 state park venues.
State Park naturalists have been reaching out to the youth and families of Utah through educational and fun activities for years, but the programs have been generated by the staff of individual parks. Showing her commitment to the initiative, Tullius created a leadership position in the Salt Lake office and formed a working group to come up with events and educational plans.
"We will work to expand the initiative based on the success of the program this year," Tullius said.
For Louv, the movement has turned into much more than a book. He now chairs the Children & Nature Network, a nonprofit group with more than 5,000 volunteers dedicated to getting kids outside.
The group proclaimed April as Children and Nature Awareness Month and its Web site - www.cnaturenet.org - lists dozens of activities across the U.S., including some in Utah.
Sheree Denetsosie, a 17-year-old student at the Flagstaff, Ariz., Art and Leadership Academy who has participated in a number of outdoor activities including river trips sponsored by Grand Canyon Youth, said getting outdoors has become an important part of her life.
"The first time I went on the river, it was just so amazing being away from every day life being surrounded by the media and being away from my iPod and cell phone and anything like that," she said. "It was so nice being in a natural state."
Denetsosie, who grew up enjoying her grandparents' ranch, where there was no electricity and running water, worries when she sees her sister always connected to an iPod or texting when the two are trying to have a conversation.
"Youth need to get out into nature to find that human connection," she said. "Being away from electricity gets your imagination to work a lot better than being fed all the information. You share with people who are actually listening to you rather than listening to your iPod."
Cheryl Charles, president of the Children & Nature Network, said providing balance in children's everyday lives is important.
"Children who play outdoors in natural areas on a regular basis are happier, healthier, smarter, more cooperative and more self-confident," she said. "This issue is touching a chord of common sense and a movement to reconnect children and nature is burgeoning globally."
Louv has advice for parents who want to get this kids outside in an age where safety concerns, coupled with the availability of all kinds of virtual gadgets and electronic toys, conspire to keep youngsters indoors.
- Parents need to learn how outdoor experiences influence healthy child development and an ability to learn.
- Parents should explore nature with their kids and focus on the experience, not on information.
- All citizens need to give more support to institutions and organizations such as Boys and Girls Scouts, nature centers and outdoor classrooms.
Then there is the role of communities.
"Communities must not think about this only in terms of programs but must create region-wide campaigns to bring all kinds of people to the battle," he said. "It can't be just conservationists and educators and businesses but all of the above and more."
North Carolina Governor proclaims April Children and Nature Awareness Month.
Earth Day April 22nd, 2008 -- The North Carolina Zoo and the North Carolina Zoological Society and members of the NC children and nature coalition announced that Governor Mike Easely has proclaimed April Children and Nature Awareness Month.
North Carolina Zoo Conference Urges Kids to Get Outside
News 14 Carolina – March 06, 2008
By Ed Scannell
ASHEBORO -- The North Carolina Zoo was the site of a conference, Thursday, aimed at promoting outdoor play and reconnecting the state's children with nature.
Organizers say the gathering came on the heels of recent studies showing the benefits of the outdoors to children, especially those dealing with depression, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and obesity.
Kids, the outdoors, and nature seem like the perfect match, but conference organizers say America's children spend less time outdoors these days.
They brought together teachers, health professionals and people from private industry and government; people they believe can help reverse the trend in North Carolina.
"The results from this will be children who are healthier, children who can learn better and children who have a much [greater] sense of belonging in the world," said Kathy Bull of the N.C. Zoological Society.
Bull and others stopped short of saying a child's disconnection from the outdoors guarantees depression, obesity and developmental disorders, but they believe immersing a child in nature has clear physical, mental and emotional benefits, particularly among children with Attention Deficit Disorder.
"They're finding that when they allow them to go out in green space and they have contact with nature and they play, that those symptoms are greatly reduced," said Avery Cleary of Hooked On Nature.
Many children spend hours with their video game systems, on the computer or watching television, which some experts say interrupt a child's connection with nature.
"The imagination is tied to the senses and the computer is really not a high-resolution environment. The [outdoors are]," said Elizabeth Goodenough of the University of Michigan
Cleary said electronic games, computers and television are not the biggest reasons so many children spend so much of their free time indoors.
"It's mainly parental fear and it's a whole host of fears, from 'stranger danger' to kids getting hurt to insect bites, animal bites, and just kind of general fear of the unknown," said Cleary.
And whether the fear is based on perception or reality, they say it will take a commitment across communities to draw more children to the outdoors.
"We need a massive involvement of communities to revitalize neighborhoods around children's access to nature and play," said Goodenough.
Some of the conference's other participants included The Sierra Club, the National Wildlife Federation and the NC State Natural Learning Institute.
[+] read the report
Washington Post: Inside the Capitol, the Great Outdoors
Washington Post – April 17, 2008
By Moira E. McLaughlin
It's not uncommon to see fifth-graders touring Capitol Hill. What was unusual yesterday is that sharing the experience with the class from South Shore Elementary were an alligator, a flamingo, an armadillo, two clouded leopard cubs and two terrapins.
They were at the U.S. Capitol to support a bill called No Child Left Inside that would create a $500 million environmental education program to get kids out of the classroom and into nature.
"How can we learn by being inside?" asked Kristi Bridgwater, a student at the Crownsville, Maryland, school. "Sitting in front of a computer is not enough."
As Kristi listened to the measure's sponsors, Zachary Bell and Faye Barrett held Pebbles and Steve, the class terrapins.
The kids have been studying terrapins all year. At the start, Pebbles and Steve were the size of quarters. Later this month they will be released into the wild, where young terrapins often struggle to survive.
"We're jump-starting them," Zachary said.
Faye said she would like to write a book about terrapins.
Because of their project, Kayla Smith said that when she and her classmates grow up, they will be more aware of the environment.
National Park Week Highlights Youth Programs
White House – April 16, 2008
President Franklin D. Roosevelt once said, "There is nothing so American as our National Parks." During National Park Week, we underscore our commitment to conserving these magnificent places and recognize the many employees and volunteers who give their time and energy to keep them beautiful for all Americans to enjoy.
This year's theme for National Park Week, "Kids In Parks," highlights youth programs and initiatives offered by the National Park Service to encourage children to be good stewards of the land. The Junior Ranger program is one such program that encourages America's youth to explore, protect, and learn about our national parks. Today, many national parks have active Junior Ranger programs. By visiting nps.gov/webrangers, young people can sign up to become WebRangers, enabling them to learn about different parks, monuments, and historic sites right from their homes.
Across the United States, the Federal Government plays a vital role in protecting our natural and historical treasures. My Administration launched the National Park Centennial Initiative to preserve and enhance these scenic wonders and to prepare for the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service in 2016. Serving as the Honorary Chair of the National Park Foundation, First Lady Laura Bush has also played a significant role in preserving our national parks. The First Lady is actively involved in programs such as First Bloom, which teaches children how to preserve native plants across America. In addition, this past Christmas, the White House highlighted our national parks with the theme "Holiday in the National Parks."
Our National Parks belong to each of us, and they are natural places to learn, exercise, volunteer, spend time with family and friends, and enjoy the magnificent beauty of our great land. During National Park Week and throughout the year, Americans of all ages can pledge to help maintain and enhance America's national treasures for future generations.
NOW, THEREFORE, I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim April 19 through April 27, 2008, as National Park Week. I invite all my fellow citizens to join me in celebrating America's national parks by visiting these wonderful spaces, discovering all they have to offer, and becoming active participants in park conservation.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this fifteenth day of April, in the year of our Lord two thousand eight, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-second.
GEORGE W. BUSH
First Hearing on No Child Left Inside Act on April 22
Chesapeake Bay Foundation – April 15, 2008
As warm weather takes hold, we are springing into high gear to support environmental education; so we want to share news and make an important request.
What: A Field Hearing with the subcommittee of the House Education and Labor Committee
When: Earth Day, Tuesday April 22nd, from 12:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m.
Where: Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Laurel, MD
Please let people know about the hearing and invite them to attend.
We offer special thanks to Rep. John P. Sarbanes, our lead House sponsor, who is working with the committee to organize the hearing. Having a hearing both generates attention to the legislation and signals support for its goals among the committee’s leaders.
To make the hearing a success, we need some specific help from you.
As a buildup to the hearing, we are sponsoring No Child Left Inside Days in the week prior to Earth Day, April 14-21. Please be a part of that by holding local NCLI Days events at local schools or environmental education centers. The goal is to generate media coverage of these activities and share news about the activities with members of Congress, particularly members of the House Education and Labor Committee. We have created a toolkit to help you organize and promote such events.
We can also provide help and advice about organizing and promoting NCLI Days events. Just email Albert "Abby" Ybarra at aybarra@cbf.org. And please let us know about your events!
Chronicle of Philanthropy on Children and Nature
Chronicle of Philanthropy – April 17, 2008
By Debra E. Blum
The following is an Excerpt from the April 17th Article:
Support From Grant Makers
Among foundations, it is difficult to add up support for get-outside programs. Traditionally, much of the private money aimed at young people has supported environmental education, like through curriculum guides and teacher training, and that support, says Nicole Ardoin, a research fellow at the Environmental Grantmakers Association, in New York, appears to be on the wane.
But, she says, the drop may be misleading because grant makers may be redirecting money to areas, like youth advocacy, community gardening, and efforts to promote environmental justice, that could be considered under a broader definition of environmental education.
"They may not be calling it environmental education anymore," says Ms. Ardoin, who is just starting a research project exploring the issue, "but many of these things — like setting up a school garden to show kids where their food comes from — is back-to-nature, teach-kids-about-nature stuff under a different label."
But no matter what grant-making category is used to classify the efforts, the No Child Left Inside brand may invite other challenges to attracting support.
Grant makers that give money to environmental causes often focus on physical threats to the environment, like pollution, or they generally want to have a direct effect, like so many acres preserved.
"Addressing the issue of childhood moving indoors is addressing a very different kind of threat than most funders are used to dealing with," says the National Wildlife Federation's Mr. Coyle. "This is more of a social issue that has to be looked at over a very long timeline, and it is very difficult to measure results in the short term."
One Farmer’s Efforts to Connect Kids with Nature
(Cedar Rapids) Gazette – April 12, 2008
By Orlan Love
In an increasingly digitized world, conservationists worry that a new generation of joystick-wielding, video-watching mouse clickers will become too disconnected from nature to care for it.
"This generation has lost its roots in nature. They don't feel a part of it," said Dick Jensen, an Elgin farmer and environmental missionary who is investing his time and money to reverse the trend.
Apart from the harm sedentary children do to their own physical and mental health, Jensen, 70, and other conservationists worry that people who don't wade in streams will not appreciate the value of clean water, that people who don't watch or hunt wildlife will be less likely to support critical habitat.
But perhaps worst of all, people who withdraw from nature deprive themselves of the peace and joy that come from living in harmony with their environment, said Jensen, who often uses the word "baptized" in discussing the introduction of a child to the wonders of nature.
"To me, it has a spiritual and emotional aspect. When properly understood and appreciated, nature should feed the human heart," Jensen said.
People who don't personally connect with nature are missing the emotional and spiritual lift it can provide, agrees Dennis Goemaat, deputy director of the Linn County Conservation Department.
"There's something about it, a calming effect, the feeling of being off the clock, that lets you reboot your systems," he said.
That feeling inspired Randi Hepker, 20, of Marion, who grew up in a non-hunting family, to take a hunter education course last month.
"Too many kids today spend too much time in front of TVs and computers, and they have too little respect for nature. It's sad, They are missing the natural beauty of the landscape," Hepker said.
Alicia Main, 31, of Lisbon, took the same course sponsored by the Linn County Izaak Walton League so she can share time outdoors with her 10-year-old son.
"He likes his video games, and it's getting to be more of a struggle to get him outside," Main said.
Fewer go outside
Children of the digital age interact with nature much less than their forebears — a trend documented in a recent study funded by The Nature Conservancy.
Since the late 1980s, the percentage of Americans engaging in fishing, camping and other outdoor activities has declined at slightly more than 1 percent a year and is down 18 percent to 25 percent from peak levels, according to biologist Oliver Pergams, co-author of the study with ecologist Patricia Zaradic of Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania.
Pergams, who teaches at the University of Illinois at Chicago, blames the decline in large measure on videophilia, a term he and Zaradic coined to describe the recent human tendency to focus on activities involving electronic media.
Youngsters' preference for television, computers and video games, at the expense of outdoor physical activity, contributes to obesity, lack of socialization, attention disorders and poor academic performance, Pergams said.
But the biggest downside, he said, is that children who grow up estranged from nature will care less about it as adults.
The study draws upon data collected from fishing and hunting licenses and head counts from national, state and local parks.
Iowa data tell a similar story.
The sale of resident fishing licenses, for example, peaked in 1976 at 541,000, averaged 344,000 from 1995 through 2000 and leveled off last year at 310,000.
Resident small-game hunting licenses have steadily declined from an annual average of 339,000 in the decade ending in 1956 to an annual average of 197,000 in the decade ending in 2006.
Iowa doesn't track state park usage, but Kevin Szcodronski, chief of the Department of Natural Resources State Parks Bureau, said the loss of young campers, while a concern, is not as acute as in more urban states.
Fear of outdoors
Author and journalist Richard Louv, in his 2005 book "Last Child in the Woods," introduced the term "nature-deficit disorder" as shorthand for the many ills attributed to dissociation from nature.
"It's a useful concept in understanding how we can optimize kids' health," said Kathleen Janz, a professor in the University of Iowa Department of Health and Sports Studies.
Janz said electronic media, the fast pace of modern American life and parents' fear of leaving children to play without supervision — "stranger danger," as it's called — have combined to deprive children of "unstructured play in woods, creeks and fields" and to create "a cohort of children who are more sedentary and less healthy than previous generations."
Children's schedules are so full of organized activities that they simply lack time to spend outdoors, said Dale Braun of Cedar Rapids, who since 1987 has taught the fundamentals of hunting to 3,778 students through the Linn County Chapter of the Izaak Walton League.
Katherine McCarville, an assistant professor of geosciences at Upper Iowa University in Fayette, said pests such as ticks and mosquitoes, mere inconveniences to previous generations, are now — in an era of widespread publicity of Lyme's disease and West Nile virus — considered deal breakers by many young people.
Media coverage of melting ice caps and dwindling rain forests also has contributed to a sense of environmental hopelessness among today's youths, she said.
Doing something about it
While Louv raised awareness of the increasing dissociation of young Americans from nature, Jensen, the Fayette County nature advocate, had identified and begun to address the problem long before he'd heard of Louv.
In 1990, Jensen started bringing youth groups to his farm to teach enjoyment and value of nature. In 2000, he began building a 2-mile nature trail on his property at his expense as a way to help people learn to live with the Earth and take care of it.
In 2006, he founded TAKO, or Take a Kid Outdoors, a non-profit educational organization that has since introduced hundreds of youngsters to the joy of outdoor activities. This fall, Valley Community Schools in Elgin will introduce as a TAKO pilot project a place-based curriculum intended to teach students to appreciate nature in their own backyard.
"Schools are the key to reversing the trend. So many kids today come from single-parent homes, and they don't have a mentor to teach them about nature and introduce them to outdoor activities," Jensen said.
Valley Superintendent Cathy Molumby said she hopes the curriculum will balance and integrate nature and technology.
"One should not be at the expense of the other. They should be complementary," she said.
Recognition of Iowans' growing disconnection from nature also inspired the upcoming $20 million land preservation bond referendum in Johnson County.
Dissociation from the natural world has been accelerating in rapidly growing areas like Johnson County because "we are losing nature all around us to development," said Harry Graves, director of the Johnson County Conservation Department.
"We need more green infrastructure to give residents an opportunity to commune with nature," Graves said.
The DNR, county conservation departments and hunting and fishing-related conservation groups have all committed substantial resources to youth-recruitment efforts.
The DNR, for example, has introduced special youth hunting seasons that precede the regular hunting seasons for most popular game species. The Linn County Conservation Department built its Wickiup Hill Outdoor Learning Center primarily to help youngsters learn about nature. And Pheasants Forever has introduced a "No Child Left Indoors" educational initiative aimed at unplugging youths from electronics and turning them on to nature and wildlife.
The movement is gaining momentum, said Jensen, who maintains environmental knowledge gleaned from the Internet is no substitute for learning about nature "through the fingers, arms, brain and heart."
Corporate Survey Looks at Benefits of Outdoor Time
Miracle-Gro – April 09, 2008
While 83 percent of Americans say spending time outdoors makes them feel refreshed, healthy and excited, 61 percent admit they don't take enough advantage of the restorative powers of nature. In response to these and other results of the Miracle-Gro survey released today, the company kicks off the "It's Gro Time" campaign, which urges people to unplug and unwind by heading outside to enjoy the healthy benefits of gardening.
"Spring is the perfect time of year to get outside, get motivated and find an outdoor activity to enjoy like gardening," said William Moss, master gardener specializing in urban gardening and author of the "Moss in the City" e-newsletter for the National Gardening Association (http://www.garden.org). "Anyone can garden -- whether they have 50 acres in Colorado or an apartment with a tiny terrace in the heart of Manhattan, connecting with nature has long- lasting positive effects and provides an outlet for creative expression."
The survey also revealed:
-- While 61 percent of Americans understand the benefit of nature, an equal percent feel they don't spend enough time outdoors.
-- The leading reasons Americans didn't spend time gardening in the past year: they didn't feel they had a "green thumb" (38 percent) or didn't have enough time (36 percent).
-- Fifty-three percent of Americans feel the growing reliance on technology has led them to spend less time outdoors.
-- When surveying parents, 84 percent feel it's important for their child to spend time outdoors, however, 69 percent say their children spend less time outdoors than they did as children.
Beating Nature Deficit Disorder Through Gardening
Miracle-Gro is a strong believer in the benefits of nature. By spending less time outdoors, people are endangering their connection with nature and depriving themselves of the health benefits of being outside and being active -- a condition called "nature deficit disorder."
"April is National Garden Month(R), a program of the National Gardening Association (http://www.garden.org), which is an ideal time to put down the remote and spend some time getting to know the world around you," said Keith Baeder, senior vice president, Miracle-Gro Gardens. "Build a flower box for your apartment or create a full outdoor space for your entire family to
enjoy. The only limit is your own creativity."
Learn to Garden Wherever You Are
To celebrate "National Garden Month" and "It's Gro Time," Moss offers these beginners' tips:
-- Choose plants that suit your environment: Gardening isn't a lost cause if you have less than ideal conditions. Even houseplants enrich our lives with color and vitality, not to mention oxygen -- all of which are especially important to those of us living in artificial environments of concrete and steel. Just their presence brightens spirits. Visit your local nursery or garden center to find plants that will thrive in different conditions.
-- Space-deprived? Try a container garden: Turn small spaces like patios and balconies into beautiful retreats with colorful pots and window boxes. They're easy to plant and maintain indoors or out. When selecting containers, choose decorative pots made of ceramics, plastics, or other composites. They come in all colors and styles and retain moisture better than other materials. Remember, unless you are growing water plants, your container will need drainage holes.
-- Plant a vegetable garden: Not only will you reap the benefits of being outside while gardening, you'll eat the benefits of your gardening with fresh vegetables. You can even grow an organic garden. In an urban environment, be sure to amend the soil with organic matter, which adds nutrients, buffers against toxins, and helps improve soil conditions.
-- Garden with kids: Involving your children from start to finish -- choosing, planting, and tending the plants - will teach them an appreciation for nature and give them a sense of satisfaction and ownership. And, most importantly, get them outdoors appreciating and enjoying nature and its benefits. Find a variety of family projects at http://www.itsgrotime.com .
It's Gro Time in New York City
To encourage Americans to embrace the outdoors and create their own gardens -- big or small, Miracle-Gro will turn a well-known "garden" -- Madison Square Garden -- into an urban outdoor garden oasis on April 15. Generally a day Americans dread with the daunting tax deadline, urban dwellers will have the chance to spend the day in an unexpected garden building flower boxes, which will remain intact for the entire day and will then be donated throughout the city. The event will take place from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., and will include tips from master gardeners William Moss and Rebecca Kolls. Miracle-Gro(R) Watering Can Singles(TM) plant food and recipe cards with easy-to-follow gardening tips will be available.
About Miracle-Gro's Nature Nurture Survey
The survey was conducted online by StrategyOne between February 15 and February 20, 2008. The survey consisted of 1,000 completes with adults 18 years of age or older in the contiguous U.S. The sample consisted of individuals selected from an online consumer opinion panel, and was balanced to be representative of the general population based upon region,
gender, age and household income data from the U.S. Census Bureau.
Children and Nature Documentary Airs
(Detroit) Metro Times – April 09, 2008
By Jim McFarlen
Cat Stevens would be proud. Then again, this might be the kind of depressing realization that prompted him to become Yusuf Islam. Though his song of nearly 40 years ago is nowhere to be heard, a new locally crafted documentary suggests the same haunting musical question Stevens asked then still demands answers today: Where Do the Children Play?
The hourlong Michigan Television production, airing at 9 p.m. Tuesday, April 15 (repeated at 2:30 a.m. Wednesday, April 16), on WTVS/Channel 56 is a must-see for parents or anyone who cares about kids, a compelling, serious look at a normally carefree subject. Interspersing lovingly photographed footage of youngsters exploring their natural surroundings of woods and waters with opinions of experts from as far away as Great Britain (all seemingly shot outside; nice touch), Where Do the Children Play? makes a convincing case that free play in the outdoors, a function essential for normal childhood development and taken for granted by the postwar generation, has given way to video games, Facebook pages and fear of the world beyond the front gate.
Only 10 percent of kids even walk to school anymore. Indeed, among the doc's more provocative notions is that kids from poor (not poverty-ridden) city neighborhoods are growing up in a better environment for play and socialization today than youngsters in the sterilized suburbia of soccer leagues and regimented play dates.
"I like that this film blows stereotypes apart and forces people to take a different look at things," says its writer-director-producer Christopher Cook, multiple regional Emmy winner who's possibly better known as food critic for Hour Detroit magazine. "We've been going through a lot of societal shifts in the country, and I wanted to create an awareness, especially on the part of suburbanites, that the continuing outward movement to bigger and better places is not always ideal, especially for kids."
Shot entirely in Michigan, the work travels to unspoiled, isolated Beaver Island, where young people don't have — gasp! — cell phones or e-mail addresses, yet seem to be getting on fine. Contrast that to the Rainforest Café in Auburn Hills, where kids can see and touch animals up close — and mechanized. The most consistent voice among the grown-ups is Richard Louv, author of the book Last Child in the Woods, who has a knack for the summarizing remark. "Kids who've been growing up in the last 20 years see nature as an abstraction," he notes. "It's a generation looking at screens instead of streams."
The independent production, seven years in the making and fueled by seed funding from the University of Michigan, has been picked up by public TV stations throughout the state and on Washington, D.C.'s giant WETA-TV, among others, a rarity for any program not funneled down the PBS pipeline. The programmers may realize that determining Where Do the Children Play? is too important to ignore.
Chicago Sun-Times: The Importance of Nature Relief
Chicago Sun-Times – March 30, 2008
By Andrew Herrmann
My annoyed mother used to dispatch her noisy rugrats with a sharp look and a stern command: Go outside!
A University of Illinois at Chicago researcher is saying pretty much the same thing these days -- not only to kids but to grownups as well.
Oliver Pergams, a UIC assistant professor of biological sciences, isn't just annoyed. In a new study funded by the Nature Conservancy, he reports that not only children but adults, too, are spending far less time outdoors than ever before -- a development he finds dangerous.
Poring over data on camping, backpacking, fishing, hiking and visits to state and national parks, Pergams and fellow researcher Patricia Zaradic concluded that since the 1980s, overall "nature use" has dropped by as much as 25 percent. The consequences could be "deep and far-ranging for health, for human well-being and for the future of the planet," Pergams said.
I read of Pergams' warnings in a recent Newsweek article titled "Out of the Wilderness.'' But my interest in "nature deficit disorder" was first raised a couple of years earlier by Richard Louv's book Last Child in the Woods (Algonquin Books, $24.95). In it, Louv described "the rapid slide from the real to the virtual, from the mountains to the Matrix.''
If Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn were around today, he wryly notes, they'd be plugging in "Becky's PlayStation 2" and mastering Grand Theft Auto. Of course, there's always been a little Aunt Polly in everyone over 30: What these kids today need, harrumph, is a paintbrush, a bucket of whitewash and a long fence. But Louv says the matter goes beyond gumption.
"As the young spend less and less of their lives in natural surroundings, their senses narrow -- physiologically and psychologically -- and this reduces the richness of the human experience," Louv writes.
Pergams -- who blames the nature disconnect to "videophilia," or too much time spent with electronic games, television, DVDs and the Internet -- says the fallout can be obesity, depression and attention disorders. And, both say, it can lead to a fundamental lack in appreciating and protecting nature.
It's healthy -- and Thrifty
This wasn't what set me and my wife to camping; we simply looked to it as a way to satisfy our wanderlust without wounding our wallets too deeply. What we found, though, was how amazing natural beauty, surprisingly as close as the Great Lakes states, can be so mentally rejuvenating. And we have felt blessed that by venturing outdoors, our two children, now 11 and 14, have acquired a taste for adventure and a sense of ownership of nature.
Pergams, 50, of Oak Park, seems a kindred spirit. With his wife and three children (18, 16 and 11), he has camped for years -- the "National Lampoon thing," he says with a laugh. Mostly his family has stayed in tents, but the Pergams rented a pop-up trailer last year for a trek to Canada's Riding Mountain National Park in Manitoba.
As campers tend to do, we talked camping. My advice to novices is borrow a tent, find a sleeping bag, get yourself a cooler and an old pot and purchase a camp stove (about $50). You don't want to try cooking over a campfire unless you're looking to lose a few pounds.
Your first trip should be short: a couple nights in the middle of the week. Stick to pasta, pre-frozen chili, sandwiches and cereal for the maiden journey -- when mixed with fresh air even lunch meat tastes like heaven. And it's no sin to head off to a restaurant if you want -- nobody's keeping score.
Camp sites can run $30 a night at some premium, lakeside Michigan state parks, though some less popular places charge half that. Also be aware that many Midwest state parks outside Illinois charge daily admission fees.
Ready?
The Midwest offers hundreds of prescriptions for nature deficit disorder: reliable Wisconsin, Michigan's star-studded shoreline parks and some unexpected gems in Illinois and Indiana -- all within a tank or two of driving.
Michigan
In Michigan, the Pergams enjoyed Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park in Ontonagon in the Upper Peninsula. "The Porkies," as they are known, have cabins for rent for those who want to speed-date nature but aren't quite ready to go steady.
For years we have worked our way up Michigan's western lakefront, finding the farther north we ventured, the richer the natural experience. Near Muskegon, P.J. Hoffmaster State Park's three miles of forest-covered dunes -- giant sand mountains that serve as perches for family-bonding sunsets over Lake Michigan -- have provided great Great Lakes memories. At night, we've dipped deep into the vastness of the universe as rangers guided our stargazing from Hoffmaster's sugar-fine beach.
Better yet is Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, with 35 miles of Lake Michigan coastline and the Manitou islands. Federally operated, clean and well-run, the Bear provides a week full of outdoor fun, from scaling the dunes to watching blacksmiths hammer away at work in a hands-on history lesson to touring its lighthouse.
The shallow, sandy-bottom Platte River lazily winds its way through forests and past sleepy blue herons, the stream gently carrying sun-splashed swimmers aboard inner tubes and air mattresses to Lake Michigan.
As Alfred E. Neuman used to say, What, me worry?
Illinois
In the Midwest, Pergams likes Illinois' Starved Rock and Matthiessen state parks, about 100 miles southwest of Chicago. "The sandstone bluffs and waterfalls are very pretty,'' he noted.
Southern Illinois' Shawnee National Forest has 270,000 acres of fantastic hiking among towering trees and mossy gorges, he added.
Once my own brood got past all the bad jokes and the possible horrors that could await us at a place called Kickapoo State Recreation Area, we were pleasantly surprised, which is often the case with Illinois camping.
Near Downstate Danville, Kickapoo's pluses are twofold: It has a separate, non-electric campground that makes for a more natural experience and it rents kayaks to explore the the scenic Middle Fork of the Vermilion River.
Once you've done the kayak, you never go back -- to canoeing that is. Amazingly nimble, kayaks are generally lighter and easier to handle, allowing the energetic to silently glide along the waterways once navigated by Native Americans.
Wisconsin
America's Dairyland likes to boast that it has more than 15,000 inland lakes, 43,000 miles of rivers and 659 miles of Great Lakes shoreline -- more water-based fun than many coastal states. The Door County peninsula is home to the Five Jewels -- Newport, Peninsula, Potawatomi, Rock Island and Whitefish Dunes state parks. However, they can get crowded, as the area is a favorite for Chicago area nature seekers.
One of Wisconsin's lesser-populated places we've sampled is Blue Mound State Park, about 25 miles west of Madison near Mt. Horeb. Billed as the tallest spot in southern Wisconsin -- 1,700 feet above sea level -- its hills make it an exciting place for bicycling, But experience has painfully shown that Blue Mound can be a dangerous place to sail on those Razr scooters. (Did I mention that every camper should have a good first aid kit?)
Tears may be washed away in Blue Mound's swimming pool, the only Wisconsin state park to have one.
Indiana
Not convinced on camping yet?
Indiana's Turkey Run State Park, about three hours southeast of Chicago, is another place for the camping-wary. Its 82-room inn is homey and affordable and puts you within strolling distance of its saddle barn. No horseback riding experience is necessary to gallop through the woods and along ravines on buckaroo-led jaunts.
Yipee-i-ays are optional -- but go ahead and shout 'em out.
Mother Nature is one mom who doesn't mind the noise.
Putting California’s Outdoor Bill of Rights into Action
(San Luis Obispo) Tribune – March 30, 2008
By Bob Cuddy
Participating in a team sport, playing in a safe place and splashing in the water are three of the 10 ‘rights’ California kids should have experienced before they turn 15.
Telling children they have a formal right to play outdoors seems superfluous, almost silly. After all, they need merely scurry to the door, turn the knob, push it open, and there they are in the great outdoors.
The problem is, not enough youngsters are doing that.
“They do have a right,” said Betsy Kiser, director of the San Luis Obispo Parks and Recreation Department. “They aren’t taking advantage of it.”
About 30 percent of children in San Luis Obispo County and California are overweight, according to Cal Poly’s Center for Obesity Prevention and Education.
Last summer, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger took note of this, signing the Children’s Outdoor Bill of Rights. Now that spring has sprung, various local public and private agencies are trying to incorporate the bill’s principles into their programs for youngsters.
An enthusiastic Pete Jenny, county parks manager and a longtime advocate for the importance of nature to children, has been meeting with other local park directors in an effort to get the campaign started.
With spring here, they have yet to complete a formal coordinated plan, but each agency is working up a course of action.
Kiser said the city sends an activity guide to residents that identifies outdoor activities such as swimming, camping and bicycling.
Jenifer Rhynes, chief executive officer of the San Luis Obispo County YMCA, said the organization “has committed itself to having kids get an appreciation” of the outdoor activities highlighted in the Children’s Outdoor Bill of Rights.
Kiser and Rhynes understand that, to some, telling kids they have a right to do something obvious might seem unnecessary. But having a right and exercising it are two different things.
“I think you have to require the child to go outside,” said Christy O’Hara, an Atascadero mother of four children between 9 and 18. She said hers is an outdoors family, but even so, the children have to be prodded.
She said one of her younger children has a video game that allows her to interact with virtual puppies. She’d rather play with them than go outside and cavort with the family’s two dogs.
Youngsters’ addiction to electronic games and television is a given in 21st-century society. The obesity of young people has become an ominous cliché, with dark portents for their childhood and later in life.
“American kids between 6 and 18 spend 6.5 hours a day with electronic media,” Jenny said. “That’s scary. How can they appreciate the majesty of a 500-year-old oak tree when they haven’t seen one?”
The increased tendency of youngsters to stay indoors is bad from a developmental point of view, Rhynes added.
“Imaginative play happens in the outdoors,” Rhynes said, and children who don’t play “lose the ability to self-regulate.”
Rick Mathews of the county Parks and Recreation Commission calls this “nature deficit disorder” and “electronically enhanced neglect.”
Parents up and down the state have been taking note of this for nearly a decade. So when Schwarzenegger signed the Children’s Outdoor Bill of Rights last summer, local outdoors and children’s advocates jumped on board.
Schwarzenegger worked with the California Roundtable on Recreation, Parks and Tourism, a volunteer group comprising public and private organizations at the federal, state and local levels.
The governor encouraged parents, educators and others to “do all they can to help our state’s children experience and enjoy the wonders of Mother Nature.”
Jenny is contemplating giving out a card that lists the 10 activities that make up the Children’s Outdoor Bill of Rights and having parents and youngsters check off each one as they complete it.
As Jenny pointed out, they don’t have to reinvent the bicycle wheel.
“We don’t need to do new stuff,” he said. “We just will brand what we’re doing already.”
A big part of making the Children’s Bill of Rights more than a feel-good slogan is reaching out to parents and getting them involved, park directors said.
“It’s to make a statement,” Kiser said. “Children are not experiencing the outdoors.”
Iowa County Officials Warn of Nature-Deficit Disorder
KCCI 8 – April 02, 2008
Officials with the Polk County Health Department and Polk County Conservation Board are calling on Iowa parents to help prevent "nature deficit disorder."
“Treatment for Nature Deficit Disorder does not require a trip to the doctor or a prescription. Simply allowing children a few uninterrupted hours in a neighborhood thicket or trees can address the disorder,” said Pat Boddy, director of Polk County Conservation.
Officials said they're concerned with the number of children missing out on outdoor fun. They cited a 2005 study by the Kaiser Family Foundation that showed children ages 8-18 spend an average of 45 hours a week watching TV and playing video games.
The Conservation Board has developed a number of programs that help kids interact with nature, including nature walks, a class on learning how to fish, a class on wildlife babies and more.
You can find an updated list on the board's Web site.
Colorado Earth Day Forum to Focus on Kids and Nature
Denver Post – April 01, 2008
By Charlie Meyers
It has been termed a national disaster, this unholy union between our children and Nintendo or similar weapons of mass destruction. The fallout has been much lamented, ills ranging from obesity to mental lassitude.
If we search deeper into the rubble, we may find the greatest tragedy of all — a growing disconnect from nature, a separation that robs us both of physical exertion and a certain spiritual link that sweeps cobwebs from our souls.
When Henry David Thoreau wrote, "In wildness is the preservation of the world," the philosopher never could have imagined how his words might have played out in reverse. As the noted environmental writer Michael Frome said recently in a treatise prepared for the Outdoor Writers Association of America, ". . . in the separation of the human species from nature life goes awry."
In becoming prisoners of galloping civilization and its devices, we have lost so many of the things integral to our basic well-being. Now, finally, a movement has begun to win some of that back.
While the recent focus has been on youth, this emphasis perhaps instead should start with the adults who guide them — or at least should. Certainly that will be the impetus gained by those who gather April 22 at a Colorado Earth Day forum at the Denver office of the Environmental Protection Agency.
The working title of the forum is "Connecting Kids to Nature," a label that suggests the presence of adult facilitators somewhere in the mix. As sometimes is the case, much of the movement originates with a book, in this case "Last Child in the Woods," by Richard Louv, recipient of the 2008 Audubon Medal.
The book, which became a national bestseller, also launched an initiative called "Leave No Child Inside," active in 27 states and four foreign countries. Its publisher, Algonquin, has issued an updated and expanded edition of the 2005 original. The publication date, appropriately, will be April 22, Earth Day.
Supplements include a field guide with 100 ideas to create change, from families to communities, along with various discussion points that lend action to the ideas. Louv is a splendid writer who spices solid information with a rich narrative that removes any medicinal aftertaste from the learning process.
As an example of style, we have this as a prelude to describing an outing with his children:
"But before I take you on this hike, let me say something about the pressures parents endure. Simply put, many of us must overcome the belief that something isn't worth doing with our kids unless we do it right. If getting our kids out into nature is a search for perfection, or is one more chore, then the belief in perfection and the chore defeats the joy."
Certainly this is the case as it pertains to the parental role in sharing the delights of hunting and fishing. If anyone believes we must be experts before we set out to teach our children, then we have flunked the most important elements of the process, which are humility and humanity and sharing.
Even as we bemoan the decline of participation in outdoor sports, we neglect that very first act to set the pattern right. This is simply to take a child by the hand for those first steps into the woods.
While most of Louv's writing addresses the more pristine issues of nature, he also argues for the values of mainline outdoor sport.
"Yet in an increasingly de-natured world, fishing and hunting remain among the last ways that the young learn of the mystery and moral complexity of nature in a way that no videotape can convey.
"No child can truly know or value the outdoors if the natural world remains under glass, seen only through lenses, screens or computer monitors."
The book costs $14.95. For parents who indeed desire to recapture the controls of that computer game, it just may be the best investment they ever made.
Novel Ideas for Funding Nature Education
(Tacoma) News Tribune – March 13, 2008
By Jeffrey P. Mayor
Last week I talked with Richard Louv, author of “Last Child in the Woods.” His book energized individuals, organizations and agencies nationwide to work at reconnecting today’s children with nature.
Louv was in Olympia to join the celebration of Washington’s effort to leave no child i nside, the focal point being the $1.5 million appropriated last year by the Legislature to fund nature education programs.
Seeking a combined $8.9 million, 235 groups applied for part of the money. The grants will be awarded early next month. That means many applicants are going to be disappointed.
The demand shows one of the largest obstacles to maintaining the momentum Louv created – money.
The Sierra Club’s Martin LeBlanc, one of the driving forces behind landing that money, says his organization plans to go back to the Legislature next year. “It will be tough; there will likely be a recession. We want to get a source of sustainable funding,” he said.
While I agree with LeBlanc that it will be difficult, I don’t understand why. Our political leaders have shown they understand how important this issue is by setting aside the $1.5 million. Why would they not be willing to find a way to fund nature education programs on an annual basis?
As I listened to Louv, LeBlanc and others, three ideas came to me to funnel money in to an ongoing Washington Nature Education Fund:
License plates: The state currently issues 16 specialty license plates that feature nature or education. In December, there were 39,351 specialty plates promoting wildlife, parks, cycling, skiing and colleges and universities on Washington vehicles. That raised more than $1 million for various organizations. Surely groups such as Washington’s National Parks Fund or The Evergreen State College would be willing to share some of the proceeds. Taking $5 from each new plate or renewal, would generate about $200,000 for the fund.
Nature-based equipment tax: According to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service’s 2006 national survey, nearly $1.6 billion was spent on wildlife-associated equipment. That could be shotgun shells for duck hunting, binoculars for bird-watching or a new rod for steelhead fishing.
We already have the Pittman-Robinson Wildlife Restoration and Dingell-Johnson Sport Fish Restoration programs. Funds are generated by federal excise taxes on purchases of firearms, ammunition, archery and angling equipment and boat motor fuels. Washington received more than $14 million in fiscal year 2008 from those programs.
Think of the funds a Washington nature education tax could generate.
Private partnership: I won’t ask the government to do this alone. REI is noted for financial support – it will dedicate $3.7 million for conservation and recreational access in the coming year. But let’s ask the members of REI to help. Each March, the 3.4 million active members get a dividend. Could the company create a check-off program that allows the 396,000 members in Washington to donate all or some of their dividend to our nature education fund?
I’ll have to give a tip of the hat to REI. This year, for the first time, the company allowed members to donate their dividends to the REI Foundation, which supports programs connecting kids with the outdoors.
I have other ideas – like increasing fines for violations of state fish and wildlife laws, with the additional money going to the fund, or a 25-cent surcharge on recreational fishing and hunting licenses could generate about $325,000. We could do the same for commercial licenses.
I’m sure there are other ways we can spread the burden among private individuals, organizations and businesses. The number of applicants drives home the need for sustainable funding. The political will to appropriate the $1.5 million was there once. I have to think we could find that will again.
Connecticut’s Great Park Pursuit Returns
Voices – March 29, 2008
The Great Park Pursuit, Connecticut's state park family adventure, is returning for a third season.
"The Great Park Pursuit provides children with an opportunity to go outside and have fun," said Gov. M. Jodi Rell.
The Great Park Pursuit is a central element of Connecticut's No Child Left Inside initiative. The game will take Connecticut families to seven different state parks and forests this spring.
Families can register for the game beginning Tuesday, April 1, at www.nochildleftinside.org.
The Great Park Pursuit kicks-off Saturday, May 10, at Hammonasset Beach State Park, Madison, and concludes June 21 with a day of activities followed by a family campout.
Some of the events in the contest will take place on specific Saturdays and will be guided by DEP staff. Other activities are self-guided and families can visit these locations anytime during the seven-week contest period.
Clues to contest activities will be available at the end of each week's activity and on the No Child Left Inside website.
At each location, teams will be asked to complete at least one activity such as hiking, letterboxing, fishing and more. Participants will be eligible for prizes of outdoor equipment donated by local retailers.
The contest is open to families which must include one person older than 18 and one person under the age of 18.
New this Year
With the Department of Social Services Grandparents as Parents Support, the state will create the Across the Generations program, with chances for grandparents and older caregivers to experience the outdoors with their "kids."
Special activities will take place at Mansfield Hollow State Park, Mansfield, and West Rock Ridge State Park, Hamden.
The Take Back the Night program will let families safely explore the world that exists in state parks and forests after dark by offering evening explorations of the night sky, moonlight walks, owl prowls, etc.
Connecticut Farm Tours will take place in the fall of 2008 during a Great Farm Adventure when families can visit Connecticut farms. Those interested may look for sign-up soon at www.nochildleftinside.org.
Participants can access every Connecticut state park and forest on-line, learn about activities at each location and obtain driving directions; maps are available by visiting www.no childleftinside.org.
The Youth Outdoor Recreation Squad (YOUR Squad) includes seven members, aged 8 to 17, who will provide DEP with activity ideas for the Great Park Pursuit and spread the word about the importance of getting outside in their schools and communities.
Friends of Sherwood Island State Park provided funding to build a Nature Center at the park. Ready for use this summer, the new facility is adjacent to the nature trail, with access to the salt marsh and the beachfront.
The center offers an area for presentations, group activities, lectures and programs, and provides a place to pick up park maps, birding guides, trail marker and tree guides, and other program information.
In cooperation with YMCAs and the Connecticut Department of Children and Families, free swim lessons will once again be offered at several state parks.
An Urban Fishing program will be provided. To celebrate the opening day of fishing season on Saturday, April 19, a number of water bodies will be stocked with trout.
The places to be stocked are: Bunnells Pond, Bridgeport; Black Pond, Meriden; Keney Park Pond, Hartford; Lake Wintergreen, New Haven; Mohegan Park Pond, Norwich; Wharton Brook Pond, Wallingford; Valley Falls Pond, Vernon; and Fulton Park Pond, Waterbury.
Instructors from DEP's Connecticut Aquatic Resources Education will visit classrooms to discuss water, fish and fishing prior to opening day of fishing.
Bank of America is once again donating $10,000 to the Connecticut Association of Foster and Adoptive Parents to offer park passes to approximately 2,500 foster families.
Public libraries across the state will have a Connecticut State Park & Forest day pass available for patrons.
Library patrons may borrow the pass and use it for free parking at state parks where parking fees are charged. The pass is also good for limited admission to any museum located at a state park.
There are 25 state parks and forests that will have guided programs, including Black Rock State Park, Watertown; Kellogg Environmental Center & Osborne Homestead Museum, Osbornedale State Park, Derby; Kettletown State Park, Southbury; Lake Waramaug State Park, Kent; Putnam Memorial State Park, Redding; Southford Falls State Park, Oxford, and Topsmead State Forest, Litchfield.
The DEP operates 106 state parks and oversees 32 state forests.
The lands include 21 swimming areas and beaches; 11 historic sites of significance; more than 800 miles of hiking trails; 230 lakes and ponds; 2,000 miles of rivers and streams; 1,300 campsites at 14 state parks; and more than 100 public boat launch areas.
Minnesota Arboretum Hosts Children and Nature Conference
(Minneapolis) Star Tribune – March 27, 2008
By Heron Marquez Estrada