A Texas-Size Classroom, Literally

San Antonio Express-News – February 10, 2007
By Jeanne Russell

Nature-wise

Rubbing her hands together for warmth before a nature hike on a chilly day, fifth-grader Stephanie Estrada said she enjoys the outdoors. What the 12-year-old likes best, however, is "to be on the computer with my friends."

She seldom ventures into the wilderness, and prefers spending time outside when the days are warmer, when she can meet friends at the pool and bike ride on her street.

In short, she's a thoroughly modern kid.

Some child experts, concerned about the diminished time children spend in nature, are beginning to take a look at its effects. Separation from nature may have adverse effects for kids that even their teachers don't suspect, they say.

A prominent advocate of this perspective, author Richard Louv, has coined the term "nature deficit disorder," in a book that links a decline in time outdoors to some serious contemporary problems, such as the rise in childhood obesity and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

"The kids today are more into video games inside and not getting exposed like I was when I was a kid," said Vince Venditto, a fifth-grade teacher at Knowlton Elementary School, where Estrada goes to school. Every fifth-grader in the Northside Independent School District visits this "outdoor classroom" for a nature hike through the Texas Research Park, a local research facility that shares its woods with the school district for this purpose.

Local school kids also take camping trips at the John Knox Ranch in the Texas Hill Country near Wimberley.

Sal Montez, Estrada's teacher, says he can identify the kids who've spent time outdoors when he introduces basic scientific ideas, such as weather. Kids who have grown up indoors are familiar with rain but little else, he said.

Such confusion is evident when Northside outdoor specialist Kelly Fazio holds up a rabbit and students call out: "Beaver!"

Local pediatrician James C. Martin isn't impressed by the science supporting claims for nature deficit disorder, but he does see a child's need for nature and outdoor life as common sense.

"There's no question we're raising a population of unhealthy kids," said Martin, program director for the Christus Santa Rosa family medicine residency program. "The rise in child obesity is incredible. Adult-onset diabetes is now affecting teenagers because of the obesity and the lack of exercise. What is safe to say and what is probably the author's point is: 'Let's go back to what is
healthy."'

Louv blames parents for keeping what he considers an unnecessarily tight leash on their children, unlike the days when children were loosed on the neighborhood and told to return when the streetlights went up. He blames the media for a focus on child abductions.

Moreover, the outdoors now must compete with a dizzying array of stimulating technology, from the iPods that pump music into kids' ears, to the omnipresent cell phone, to the computer as a way to stay connected with friends 24/7.

On those two points, Martin agrees.

"We have become overly like the armadillo, crawling up in a ball ... not giving our children the adventures they need to have to make them more well-rounded people," he said. Outdoor classrooms

On the second day of the three-day camping trip at the John Knox Ranch, students from Coker Elementary learned about birds in the morning, rotating to stations where they study beaks and feeding patterns and learned how to use binoculars before heading out to view birds in the wild.

Laura Hill, 10, and Brianna Apostolow, 10, both fifth-graders at Coker, trudged back from a wet birding walk and said they had expected to be bored.

"It's fun," Apostolow said. "I thought it wouldn't be that fun, but it's really interesting. You get to learn about stuff you don't know about."

Schools, and several districts, including North East, which takes not quite half its fifth-grade classes to the ranch, have latched on to outdoor learning because they say kids understand a sedimentary rock in a different way when they hold it in their hand.

Phyllis Graham, a fifth-grade Coker teacher who brought one of the first classes to the ranch seven years ago, said she's seen firsthand the difference when "they get to touch it and feel it, and we're not just reading about it or seeing a video."

At Bonham Elementary School in the San Antonio Independent School District, parent Helen Ballew has championed outdoor learning for the past four years, first pitching a field trip to Mitchell Lake that included bird-watching. A year later, she helped build a secret garden that became an outdoor classroom on a tiny reclaimed patch of land tucked behind the school.

Gardens designed to attract birds and butterflies with native plants and water have proliferated across San Antonio, and special education teachers in particular say the outdoors has a magically calming effect on some students. "This fall we've been able to take our kids out and been able to show them on a milkweed leaf all the stages of metamorphosis," Ballew said. "That's another one of those big words -- you can see the phases in a book, you can read 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar,' but when you go outside and see the little monarch chrysalis, it makes it real and meaningful and memorable for them."

The Bonham PTA has raised money to support additional field trips and last year the fifth-graders spent three days at the Bamberger Ranch Preserve near Johnson City, where Ballew is on the board.

jeanner@express-news.net

Copyright (c), 2007, San Antonio Express-News. All Rights Reserved.

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