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Connecting Children to Nature Archive
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Providing Life-Affirming Experiences—Not Just Facts
Posted on October 26, 2009 | No CommentsIsn’t experiencing life through personal discovery, cooperative challenges, and self-directed learning more enjoyable and exciting than listening to a recitation of facts, no matter how interesting those facts are? Since the unfortunate advent of No Child Left Unscathed—or is that No Child Left Behind?—many nature and history interpretive programs have begun to teach to state standards. -
Experience from Prairie Appreciation Day
Posted on October 21, 2009 | No CommentsWhen the Washington Butterfly Association participated at Prairie Appreciation Day, an event designed to help young people understand the importance of remnant prairies south of Washington’s Puget Sound, we realized we had very little for youngsters. By contrast, the folks in the booth next to us had butterfly costumes youngsters could wear and flit about, a collection of prairie butterfly specimens, and, most importantly, an aquarium with live beetles children could handle. At another station, kids were swarming around a simple display board that, when buttons were pushed, identified the seedpods that followed the flowering of various prairie species. With all of this in mind, we set out to develop our own kid-friendly materials. -
Unplugging Minnesota’s Children
Posted on October 16, 2009 | 1 CommentIt’s been popping up in most newspapers and parenting magazines for years—the warning to get our kids outdoors before they become completely sucked into the world of technology and video games and we lose all hope of them ever becoming healthy, active young adults. Never mind that they will not be able to appreciate our natural resources if all they’ve ever done is sit on the couch. -
No Stone Left Unturned: The Role of the Interpretive Parent
Posted on October 6, 2009 | No CommentsOften, I leave the electronic world to reminisce about my childhood—a childhood filled with days chasing butterflies through a nearby field, hours spent catching creek crawdads, and time just playing outside with no particular goal in mind. I remember my father, a single parent raising his only child, asking me what I was doing as I looked under rocks along the river. My answer was simple and that of a youngster: “I plan to leave no stone unturned.” Quietly, my dad began to look under rocks with me as if to help me reach my goal, and as we turned over stones and gently replaced them, he taught me about the animals living beneath. -
Leave No Parent Behind
Posted on October 1, 2009 | 1 CommentWhen I was growing up, the comedian Red Skelton had a variety show on television. I don’t remember what night or what time it came on. I don’t even recall watching it all that often, but my memory of Red remained for several reasons. First of all, my dad liked him. Skelton’s antics made him laugh quite a bit—not with belly laughs, mind you, but with a kind of wheezing snicker usually reserved for small humor. Personally I didn’t quite get it; although I noted to myself many times that this TV guy must be really funny to elicit such a reaction from an otherwise stoic guy. -
Children Can Be Interpreters, Too
Posted on September 21, 2009 | No CommentsIn a review of Richard Louv’s book Last Child in the Woods published in The Wall Street Journal, Mark Yost says that Mr. Louv wrote that “kids are aware of the global threats to the environment—but their physical contact, their intimacy with nature, is fading.” Mr. Yost’s review further states that our ultimate goal is to help children find “their spontaneous connection to the natural world—and thus the very reason that anyone comes to care for nature in the first place.” -
Soft Walking to Natural Awareness
Posted on September 16, 2009 | 5 CommentsThirty second graders, some with arms outstretched for balance, take large steps, tiptoeing behind me. They carefully select each footfall so that it alights like a butterfly on a flower. Glancing over their shoulders, their eyes widen. Some fashion their hands beside their heads, make a sign for deer, and point at the full-grown doe who trails our little “Soft Walking” adventure. I carry a large, lidded basket full of treasures from the Earth, gifts representing this place I love. -
Urban Wild: Showing L.A.’s youth the wild side of America’s most sprawling city
Posted on September 6, 2009 | 1 CommentA city made infamous by its air quality struggles, traffic jams, and teeming populace, Los Angeles isn’t one of the first places most people would expect to find a flourishing outdoor education program. Looming skyscrapers and ever-expanding freeways define what would seem to be a stark antithesis to the natural world, trademarks of a city that coined the term “urban sprawl.”