EXTINCTION OF EXPERIENCE: Kids may have everything 
today except a relationship with nature ... details on 
Passport to Texas.

PTT from Texas Parks and Wildlife and the SPWR Program

We're seeing a drastic reduction in the amount of time 
children spend outdoors.

In fact, they're calling it the extinction of experience. :03

Cappy Manly is Project Wild coordinator for Texas Parks 
and Wildlife. She teaches educators how to incorporate 
the natural world into their curricula. Manly says if you're 
of a certain age, you probably spent most of your time 
outdoors as a child. That's not true of kids today, and 
experts are trying to understand why.

It seems to be a number of things. One is, yes, there is a lot of 
technology that we are now using inside - and that keeps a lot of 
children inside. But there's also a decrease in the amount of wild 
space. :13

That's because the inevitable growth of cities devours our 
natural areas ... 

When I was a child, there were a lot of natural areas very close to 
home that you could go and explore. And so as our cities grow, 
our abilities to have exposure to those areas close by to home, 
for a lot of people, that's difficult to get. :15

There's another piece to this extinction of experience 
puzzle.

We're not quite as comfortable as we were letting kids leave in 
the morning; come back at home after dark, which is the way I 
lived my life every summer. I survived it. And that's where I 
learned my love of nature and the natural world. :15

We'll have more on this tomorrow. That's our show 
supported by the SFWR program providing funding for 
the Private Lands and Habitat Enhancement Program. For 
Texas Parks and Wildlife ... I'm Cecilia Nasti


Total sound bite time:		0:46.0
 Maximum Script time:		0:40.0	 Suggested show time: 86.0 = 1:26