One day, while driving down a freeway, I looked up to see an empty sky where there had been mountaintops. Dust was rising as massive earth graders rumbled across a now-blank plain. Seemingly overnight, they had sliced away the horizon. Later came rows of mini-mansions devoid of color or individuality or visual meaning, and shopping malls, [...]
“Nothing so important as an ethic is ever ‘written’… it evolves in the minds of a thinking community.” — Aldo Leopold. Do children – do all of us – have a right to meaningful connection to the natural world? Annelies Henstra, a Dutch human rights attorney, thinks so. She calls it the “forgotten human right.” In [...]
It’s the season — that time of year when, whatever our religious beliefs, we often think most directly about family ties. We’ve made the case at C&NN that nature experiences can tighten family bonds, most recently in our guide for families, “Together in Nature” (please also see Marti Erickson’s C&NN paper on family bonding and [...]
I was raised in the deserts and high country of the American Southwest. An only child, I spent hours and hours on my own, or with friends, including my cousins, exploring arroyos, climbing trees, and experiencing the sense of being at home that comes from being connected to the place where you live. Some of [...]
During the first week of November, members of the American Society of Landscape Architects and their colleagues from around the country – over 5,000 strong – met at the San Diego Convention Center. Saving the world was somewhere on the agenda. Could they be the group with the most influence on human habitat in the future, [...]
For many stressed-out families, spending more time in the natural world — a nature stimulus package — may be just what the doctor and the economist ordered. Here are a few of the benefits, updated from an earlier post: 1. With high gas prices, families are rediscovering both the joy and the cost-effectiveness of getaways [...]
Why is the future so often portrayed as a post-apocalyptic dystopia, filled with human brutality and stripped of nature? For decades, our culture has struggled with two addictions: to oil and to despair. But what if our lives were as immersed in nature as they are in technology every day? What if we not only conserved nature, but created [...]
Want Your Kids to Get Into Harvard? Tell ‘em To Go Outside. I once met an instructor who trains young people to become the pilots of cruise ships. He described the two kinds of students he encounters. One kind grew up mainly indoors, spending hours playing video games and working on computers. These students are [...]
First of two in a series September is back-to-school month, and the chanting begins: Drill, test, lengthen the school day, skip recess, cancel field trips, and by all means discourage free time for (gasp!) self-directed play. Is that approach working, particularly in science learning? Not so well. A few months ago, I met with a [...]
In the San Diego bioregion, Jerry Schad has accomplished more than anyone I know to create a deep sense of place. Word now comes that Jerry has final-stage kidney cancer and is in hospice care. When I spent time with him several years ago, what impressed me most was not his formidable knowledge but his [...]
Three finalists have been announced for the 2012 Maine Teacher of the Year award. They are Ingrid Stressenger, a 4th grade teacher at Pond Cove School in Cape Elizabeth; Tim Eisenhart, a 9th grade mathematics teacher at Westbrook High School; and Alana Margeson, a 10-11th grade English teacher at Caribou High School. Ingrid Stressenger is [...]
In 2009, Janet Ady of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service stood before a crowd of grassroots leaders gathered by the Children & Nature Network. She held up an outsized pharmacy bottle. Within the bottle was a physician’s prescription – one that would be as appropriate for adults as it would be for children. The [...]
“I recall my father’s dark tanned neck, creased with lines of dust, as he tilled our garden. I ran ahead of him, pulling rocks and bones and toys from his path.” — The Nature Principle In “Last Child in the Woods,” I focused on why children need nature. In my new book, “The Nature Principle,” [...]
Got dirt? “In South Carolina, a truckload of dirt is the same price as a video game!” reports Norman McGee, a father in that state who bought a small pickup-load of dirt for his daughter and friends. As McGee’s photo shows, the dirt was a great success. I told his story a couple years ago in [...]
Richard Louv will be appearing across the U.S. and Canada this spring in a series of book release events and presentations. Many of these local appearances are free and open to the public, providing an excellent opportunity to introduce community members and potential partners to the goals and vision of the children and nature movement. [...]
