Children & Nature, Part 1 of 2
Monday, February 11th, 2008Passport to Texas from Texas Parks and Wildlife
Today’s children spend precious little time outdoors involved in unsupervised play, something nature educators and others view as a serious problem.
It’s a solvable problem, but this problem is growing, and we need to act now on it.
Nancy Herron coordinates outdoor learning programs for Parks and Wildlife. She says the book Last Child in the Woods, by Richard Louv, struck a chord, galvanizing a broad spectrum of concerned individuals and groups to address the issue.
From doctors and teachers and nurses and urban planners, ranchers, the people who’ve traditionally been in nature education, have all come together with the single combined vision of reconnecting children to nature.
You might wonder what affects this alienation from nature has on children.
Children who are confined indoors all the time, or confined with technology and not those nature and natural experiences, what happens is their world becomes very small. They have more trouble with attention. They have more trouble with stress.
They have more trouble, says Herron, coping with life.
Tomorrow, we examine ways to reintroduce children to nature, http://www.cnaturenet.org/.
That’s our show for today…remember: life’s better outside… For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.
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