82. Work for legislation. At the national, state, and local levels enact bills supporting environmental education in the classroom and outdoor experiential learning.
Goals for Government
83. Launch a governor’s campaign in your state. For example, in 2007, Jim Douglas announced the No Child Left Inside challenge in Vermont, John Baldacci unveiled Maine’s Take It Outside initiative, and Ed Rendell appointed a task force to organize a series of public meetings on the issue across Pennsylvania. Governors also can sponsor versions of the Children’s Outdoor Bill of Rights, signed by California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2007 (to see the bill, go to www.calroundtable.org). The National Governors Association could also take action.
84. Mayors and other local and regional government executives: Review zoning barriers to nature; support environmental and outdoor education in municipal and state parks and recreation centers; convene meetings of developers, health and childhood experts, landscape architects, and outdoor play experts to consider future development and redevelopment policies.
85. Enact legislation that strengthens public health and education by increasing both opportunities for contact with nature and investments in research related to children and nature.
86. Provide state and federal funding to train teachers in environmental education, develop model outdoor education and environmental literacy programs, finance grants to teach teachers how to take kids into nature, and reestablish an office of environmental education within the U.S. Department of Education.
87. Support policies that increase the supply of naturalists at our parks and other nature settings. Government conservation agencies could build a stronger national conservation corps (or family conservation corps) to actively recruit young people from diverse backgrounds into the conservation professions.
88. At the federal and state levels, park systems can replicate Connecticut’s No Child Left Inside program, which has so successfully repopulated that state’s parks with families. Innovative nature attractions should be supported; for example, the simple “canopy walk,” created by biologist Meg Lowman in Florida, doubled attendance at one state park.
89. Adopt policies that keep farming families on their land, strengthen land trust law, and decrease property owners’ liability when they allow children to play on open land.
90. Build collaborations between the departments of Interior, Education, Agriculture, and Health and Human Services that focus on children and nature. This is a challenge that affects them all and can best be addressed through multiple disciplines.
91. Reach beyond government. By encouraging and working with a national Leave No Child Inside movement, government agencies can seek philanthropic partners—for example, foundations concerned about child obesity, education philanthropies promoting experiential learning, and civic organizations that see the link between land and community.
Build the Movement
92. Create a regional Leave No Child Inside campaign. The challenge of connecting children to nature is place-based, planted fully in the biology and human ecology of each region. There is no single set of solutions. However, leaders of regional campaigns are already learning from one another. To find out more, go to the Children & Nature Network (www.cnaturenet.org).
93. Botanical gardens, zoos, and natural history and children’s museums: become convening centers for regional children and nature campaigns and for discussion groups for adults and young people. Bookstores could host similar meetings throughout the year.
94. Follow the lead of communities that have launched campaigns. The new Leave No Child Inside initiative of Chicago Wilderness is bringing together 206 organizations in Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, and Michigan to sponsor year-round nature events, such as camping trips and restoration activities. They also are compiling the Chicago Wilderness Field Book for families. Still in its formative stage, Leave No Child Inside of Greater Cincinnati is posing such questions as: “Can we form alliances with preschools and day care centers that will encourage them to make use of local green spaces? Can we create ‘train the trainer’ courses so their staffs will feel comfortable taking the children into nature for play activities?” Their experiences may benefit campaigns in other regions.
95. Work with researchers, civic organizations, and advocacy groups to establish baseline measurements of the nature deficit so that progress can be measured and reported. Include annual progress measurements in reports on children’s health and educational status.
96. Establish the economic importance of nature experiences for children and adults. A full economic study would include but go beyond traditional recreational activities (fishing, hunting, boating, hiking) and also beyond concern about the negative impact of environmental toxins. It would consider the positive economic impact on public mental and physical health, education, and jobs. For a starter, download the Trust for Public Land’s economic reports, including its 2007 publication “Economic Benefits of Land Conservation” (www.tpl.org).
97. Break down the barriers: promote dialogue among people from different cultures, as well as among individuals who speak different professional languages, such as pediatricians and landscape architects, public health professionals and park and recreation officials, bike and pedestrian advocates, and arborists, hunters, anglers, residential developers, and environmentalists. Engage faith-based communities.
98. Bake a bigger pie. Institutions, organizations, and individuals—especially those that have been working on this issue for many years—need better funding. The best way to broaden the funding base will be to bring new players to the table, including businesses.
99. Assemble leaders spanning the political, religious, economic, and geographic spectrum. Help build a widening network of these advocates by creating face-to-face conferences at the local or international level and by using new communications technology. Act locally; organize globally.
100. Spread the word. Offer presentations to school boards, parent-teacher associations, and similar groups, and advocate the educational and health benefits of nature experience for children and young people, and the environmental importance of that connection.
For more information, see solutions presented throughout Last Child in the Woods. Also, use the link to the nonprofit Children & Nature Network for more ideas for your family and community, including a downloadable action guide for change as well as news about state and national programs and the latest research. Connect with the efforts of others around the world. And please let us know how your own family, school, organization, or community connects young people to nature. Send your ideas and suggestions to the Children & Nature Network (www.cnaturenet.org).
Discussion Points
Questions for Book Groups, Classrooms, and Communities
Adults
1. Can you recall and describe your favorite childhood place in nature? Where was it, how did you find it, how did you feel when you were there, what became of it?
2. Do your own children, or children of people you know, have fewer experiences in nature than you or your friends did at their age?
3. If children aren’t spending as much time outdoors, what are the top five reasons?
4. How do the physical, cultural, political, and legal barriers separating children from nature differ in inner-city, suburban, and rural neighborhoods?
5. Which of these barriers can be safely reduced by parents? Who can lower the other obstacles?
6. What are some ways that nature “amplifies” or changes the perception of time for children and adults?
7. Can you identify accessible “nearby nature” in your neighborhood or community?
8. When introducing children to nature, where is the balance between imparting information and encouraging joy and wonder?
9. What is the role of grandparents, aunts, uncles, and other members of your family in helping children experience nature?
10. Can you identify institutions and organizations in your community that can h
elp parents and children get outside?
11. What are the health benefits of nature experiences to children and adults?
12. What role should nature experiences play in education?
Children and Young People
13. How would you define nature?
14. When was the last time you went outside into nature near your house? How long were you there? What did you do?
15. How many video games or cartoon characters can you name?
16. What do you fear most about nature?
17. What do you love most about the outdoors?
18. How many kinds of plants and animals in your neighborhood can you name?
19. When you’re in the woods, at a stream, at the beach, or out in a field, how do you feel?
20. Next time you’re in one of those places, ask yourself, what do you hear, smell, taste, see?
21. When was the last time your parents or some other adult took you hiking, camping, fishing, or exploring in nature?
22. What could you do to have more time outdoors?
23. What could you do to help your friends and other young people experience more nature?
Community Groups
24. What are the primary causes of nature-deficit disorder in your community?
25. What effects of nature-deficit disorder do you see in your community?
26. Who is working on this issue in your region? Who is able to make a difference?
27. Why are you personally interested in this issue?
28. Why is your organization interested, and how can it help a community campaign to connect children with nature?
29. How do we want to affect the lives of the next generation and the one after that, in terms of physical and emotional health, ability to learn, awareness of environmental issues, and family bonds?
30. What capacities can you build on and what gaps must be filled?
31. What are the clear categories for needed focus (community parks, school curricula, public and personal safety concerns, built environment, access to natural areas, economic barriers, media awareness)?
32. For each area of focus, what are your short- and medium-term goals?
33. What initiatives could you undertake to achieve the goals and objectives you have identified or to enhance other initiatives already under way?
34. Which of the initiatives identified have priority for immediate action and how do they relate to the initiatives identified in other areas of focus?
35. What will the future of your community be like in twenty years if your community acts?
The 2008 Field Guide to Last Child in the Woods was assembled with the help of many leaders in the children and nature movement, including Cheryl Charles, Amy Pertschuk, Martha Erickson, John Parr, Martin LeBlanc, Nancy Herron, Dean Stahl, Amy Gash, and Ina Stern. Portions of the Notes from the Field section were adapted, with permission, from Richard Louv’s Orion magazine article “Leave No Child Inside,” published in the March/April 2007 issue.
About the Author
RICHARD LOUV is the author of seven books about family, nature, and community and the chairman of the Children & Nature Network. He has written for numerous newspapers and magazines, including the New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor, Orion Magazine, and Parents magazine. From 1983 to 2006 he was a columnist for the San Diego Union-Tribune. He has been an adviser to the Ford Foundation’s Leadership for a Changing World award program and the National Scientific Council on the Developing Child, and is a member of the Citistates Group, an organization of urban observers. In 2008 he was awarded the Audubon Medal by the National Audubon Society. Past recipients have included Rachel Carson, Robert Redford, Jimmy Carter, and E. O. Wilson.
Richard Louv may be reached by e-mail at [email protected]
or via the Children & Nature Network at www.cnaturenet.org.
Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder Page 41
