Lessons from the National Dialogue on Children and Nature

Groups gathered each day after the plenary sessions to focus on four areas of vision and action for addressing “nature deficit disorder”.  These professionals, from traditional and nontraditional sectors, gathered to create solutions in the arenas of education, children’s health, modern culture and the built environment.

The following is a distilled summary of those sessions of facilitated group discussions:


EDUCATIONAL ASPECTS OF CHILDREN AND NATURE:

Members shared visions:
• Schools include curriculum for all children advancing child wellness and nature connection
• Schools of education incorporate nature-based education into curriculum
•  High-performance education is an applicable term for schools using nature in education
•  Literacy about child nature deficit disorder is widespread
•  Community organizations fund school fieldtrips as a matter of course
•  The legal community is fully engaged and helps break down liability barriers that keep children from nature
•  Every school is associated with a natural place
•  All educators are included in children and nature movements and improvements (teachers, faith leaders, informal organizations, academics)
• Outdoor education ranks highly on the “cool” factor.
•  Increased outdoor time at school
•  Every school has a garden that all students use
•  Nature-related competitions (e.g., nature Jeopardy) are popular
•  Childhood experience in nature begins early
•  All disciplines are integrated into nature-based curriculum
•  Focus on place-based education
• Strong links exist between researchers, the local area where research is taking place, and with educators and the  community



Members shared action steps:
• Make nature education a requirement for teacher certification programs
•  Provide additional community based outdoor classrooms
•  To debunk the myth that nature is past, and technology is future; instill that they work together, in balance.
•  Partner with land conservation groups to buy land around school for their use.
•  Use drug and alcohol prevention money to collaborate with land conservation groups to buy land around schools.
•  Amend “No Child Left Behind” to include science and ecological “hands-on” as Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorn suggests
•  Establish a National Nature Bee on local species that carries the same prestige as spelling bee
•  Institute mandatory state standards for minimum exercise in school
•  Use national media, USA Today to launch a “Jr. Naturalists” national award and identify winners in each of the 50 states
•  Engage well-known, positive role models (sports, actors, musicians) to link and reinforce the “coolness” of being outdoors.
•  Enlist them for fund raising for outdoor activities
•  Encourage more involvement of land management agencies in schools
•  Connect teachers to resources in public lands to use in their classes (e,g, garden in every school – in science curriculum).
•  Require that high school mandatory community service hours include outdoor service activities.
• Make it an expectation that every 3rd grader will have the opportunity to go to camp
• Incorporate environmental education into teacher education programs and accreditation
• Engage community sponsors for field trip funding
• Establish formal and informal ties with the legal community to overcome liability issues


HEALTH ASPECTS OF CHILDREN AND NATURE

Visions:
• Develop integration of health and welfare agencies with land and water agencies.
• Education systems have strong connection with outdoors
• All children somehow exposed to the outdoors
• Every child has meaningful connection with nature
• Parents possess a more realistic picture of actual risks to being outside
• Prevention vs. treatment: establish value of nature as curative through research.
• Children and Nature movement is robustly supported by research and funding
• The public health sector educates people regularly on how to assess their own health with a focus on time outdoors or in nature
• The outdoors is an understood and accepted part of good mental and physical health;– “Outdoor Therapy” as a health strategy.
• “Nature Therapy” is a large part of all medical conferences


Actions:
Develop integration of health and welfare agencies with land and water agencies.
• Create places for interactions to occur.
• Integrate greenness across curriculum from many and varied sources in K-12 grades
• Research agenda item: what is needed to create minimum benefit of exposure to nature – how long and how often?
• Remover barriers (fear, stranger-danger, etc) that inhibit the connections through the involvement of all stakeholders in the solution
• Redefine exercise to take away stigma
• Nature Rx – work with professional children’s and mental health professionals to  advance time in nature as a prescription
• Develop strong, ongoing media plan
• Provide free public transportation to public lands
• Incorporate “nature therapy” in medical school curriculae
• Incorporate nature design into medical centers such as green space, larger and increased numbers of windows, etc.
• Community health as a paradigm that includes nature
• Look for financial incentives to move focus from CARE to PREVENTION.
• Develop and scope a Health Impact Assessment (HIA) to forecast benefits of time in nature in communities.
• Legitimize the broader holistic perspective of health



MODERN CULTURAL ASPECTS OF CHILDREN AND NATURE

Visions:
• Each community has its own unique way of getting kids into nature that reflects their cultural identities
• Leaders are aware of changing demographics and culture that are the backdrop to reducing barriers to children’s time in nature
• Every state has a program like Connecticut’s “No Child Left Inside”
• Madison Avenue and Hollywood make children & nature a part of their work
• Every child has better access to open space from school and home
• Children recognize environmental and natural science heroes like they do professional sports celebrities
• Children understand the connection between the natural world and their future and show it in academic performance in all disciplines
• Family time spend in nature should hold the place in values as family meals together.


Actions:
• Incorporate walkways and bike trails into neighborhoods, unlinked to roads, for recreating and commuting by families
• Involve the health care community in describing nature for children Doctors are the most trusted source of health information. Pediatricians have an opportunity to see and influence parents and children
• Provide paid leave time both in private and public sector for parents to go to schools and participate in outdoor field trips and school gardening projects
• Institute a “Spend a week with a ranger” program and give grade school kids get credit. Example – counting birds at a migratory site.
• Engage social marketing firm(s) to bring about cultural and social change that slows down community life. Over time, this will allow more time to appreciate and experience nature


BUILT ENVIRONMENT ASPECTS OF CHILDREN AND NATURE

Visions:
• Our built environment allows for a seamless connection between work/play/learning and nature; it creates a sense of place in every aspect of our everyday lives.
• A built-in environment reflects and respects the local/regional landscape and natural resources 
• A recognized and household term, the branding of “Children and Nature” is well-established.  It encompasses a framework of messages that differentiate if from the environmental movement, but position it as a partner and end-user


Actions:
• Enhance, protect, and restore nature where it exists and bring it into the places where it is missing—where we live, where learning takes place in natural settings, like outdoor classrooms.
• Integrate LEIDS (Low environmental impact design) certification with nature-connectedness design
• Create incentives for sustainable and nature-integrated designs to create demand.
• Offer community tax breaks to builders using children and nature design principles (improves desirability of community, community, quality of life).
• Emphasize children and nature in architecture and landscape design principles and their certification programs
• Invest in pubic transportation infrastructure so you can get to more places
• Encourage incentives for private investment in supporting these concepts – invest in public sector.
• Feature/awards for exemplary designs and systems at national level through children and nature organizations.
• Educate community planners, designers, golf courses, chambers of commerce through presentations, speakers’ bureau, media, etc.
• Develop a quality of life nature community/index for communities.
• Develop model communities: demonstrate financial benefits to developers/building/local politicians/communities of increased access to green space, etc. 
• Use wildscaping around schools
• Address zoning change incentives through an “access to nature” lens
• Give credits, waive fees and requirements, etc. for developers that follow best practices
• Create press kit for every community planner with green guidelines
• Create a greenprint for your community – buy what you want to natural area NOW!
• Encourage parents and neighbors to accompany children as they walk to school (reliable people gather up kids and walk with them. “Walking school bus”
• Create a new business (kidscaping) to design your yard for your kids.(example – digging pit, tree for treehouse, grassy knoll, etc.) insert web link to more info here
• Develop a children/nature impact assessment tool and standards.
• Conduct a child/nature impact assessment. Look at existing space and “grade it” for children.
• Start a “bring nature in” initiative and maximize natural light in office spaces; bring nature inside the building (example glass roof, no partitions, natural light, etc.)


The National Dialogue on Children and Nature was hosted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, The National Conservation Training Center (NCTC), the Conservation Fund, and Richard Louv. Conference resources Copyright ©2006 National Conservation Training Center