Passport to Texas

Passport to Texas from Texas Parks and Wildlife and the Sport Fish and Wildlife Restoration program

We share a common problem with Japan.

They, too, are seeing a decrease in the understanding of nature – and consequently – in the understanding of science.

Cappy Manly coordinates Project Wild for Texas Park and Wildlife…it’s a K-through-12 program that trains teachers how to incorporate the natural world into their curricula. Japan has had Project Wild for several years and sought Manly’s expertise to enhancement their understanding.

I was quite honored to be invited by the Japanese government, their parks foundation, to come in and do a speech for some of their academics and some of their practitioners, but then do two days of workshops with a lot of their educators and staff people that deliver Project Wild programs in Japan.

Children in Japan, as in the US, are becoming estranged from nature.

For example…the Ministry of Education did a presentation at the same symposium that I was asked to speak at. They had seen a decrease in the last ten years of the number of children who had climbed a tree higher than their head. Who had witnessed a sunrise or a sunset. Who had never gone fishing….

These are basic experiences that a generation ago were “a given” for the Japanese and for us. We’ll have more with Cappy Manly tomorrow.

That’s our show… made possible by the Sport Fish and Wildlife Restoration Program… helping to fund the operations and management of more than 50 wildlife management areas.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

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