The New Nature Movement Blog
FEATURED WRITING BY RICHARD LOUV
Richard Louv is our co-founder and best-selling author of the quintessential “Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder” and two follow-up books on nature connection, “The Nature Principle: Reconnecting with Life in a Virtual Age,” and “Vitamin N: The Essential Guide to a Nature-Rich Life.”
GUEST BLOGGERS
Blog posts from guest writers worldwide sharing their work and ideas to connect children to nature.
A MILESTONE IN THE STUDY OF NATURE’S BENEFITS: From Intuitive Understanding to Overwhelming Evidence
Thirty years ago, I was a newly hired faculty member in the Department of Special Education at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. Many of my graduate students were working as teachers in classrooms with young children with disabilities. Teaching strategies, at...
HEADING TO THE FOREST: Bringing Joy, Accomplishment & Hope to Children
This is the second installment of a two-part series. In the first part of this article, we visited a nature-based early childhood program in a forest preserve on the western edge of Chicagoland. Here, children found treasure, became pirates, engineered a raft/bridge...
TOWARDS ECOPHILIA: Being Hopeful in Spite of It All
This is the first installment of a two-part series. A plague of digitalization is sweeping through American youth, infecting all whom it touches. Teens quake in horror when their cell phones are out of their grasp. Only a regular diet of media stimulation fends off...
CELEBRA LAS AVES: A New Generation of Bird Enthusiasts in Peru
They left at five o’clock in the morning and traveled all day, sitting in their dugout canoes called peke-peke under the punishing tropical heat. Nearly one thousand Peruvians made the long, hot journey this past September. They were gathering to celebrate rainforest...
GROWING THE MOVEMENT: Because Every Child Has a Right to Nature
Fourteen years ago, my book Last Child in the Woods introduced the term “nature-deficit disorder.” The term was new, but the trend (of alienation from the natural world) was not. Parents, educators, caregivers had been witnessing childhood move indoors. They wanted to...
ALL THINGS ARE CONNECTED: How Mayors Are Redefining Nature Connections for Kids
When we think of children and the outdoors, of connecting children to nature, a city landscape is not the first image that comes to mind. But, many mayors across the country hope to change that. As part of the Cities Connecting Children to Nature Initiative, mayors...
STRENGTH FROM NATURE: How Growing up in Nature Helped Me Through My Greatest Challenge
I grew up in a town called Scarborough on the southern coast of Maine. Although I was not born here, it’s the only place I remember living. Here, among the balsams and oaks, the sound of coyote puppies howling or tom turkeys attracting a mate, and the plentiful...
STAGES OF NATURE CONNECTION: Three Steps to Better Health
Agrowing body of research tells us that a connection to nature offers us a host of physical and mental health benefits. Most of us could improve our connection with nature. The good news is that doing so is fun— and simple. Just 30 minutes per day, a couple of...
The Neighborhood Play Project: A New Play Story Unfolds in Queensland Neighborhoods
In just one generation, the average Australian childhood has shifted from a largely outdoors, active, independent, social, community-orientated play to a mostly indoors, sedentary, technologically immersed, highly structured, fearful and risk-averse play space. The...
