In 2015, the leaders of the retail outdoor equipment Co-op REI made a big decision. They closed their doors on Black Friday, the biggest day in the global retail calendar. Instead, they encouraged their 12,000 employees to Opt Outside (#OptOutside), to reconnect with...

It’s 1993. Fred Rogers enters a noisy hotel lobby, taking pictures of the people who have come to meet him. You realize that you have lowered the volume of your voice. I look down at my son, Matthew, who had turned 6 on the day before Halloween. Normally ebullient and...

My mother, perhaps like yours, gave the gift of nature. I remember her here. The old chest of drawers proved to be a treasure chest. It was a small piece of furniture, perhaps an old washstand, with three drawers. It sat in a storage unit for over a year, and when we...

Dear Virginia, Time has slipped by, and I’ve been meaning to write to you. I met you about a year and a half ago at a conference of environmental educators in Asheville, North Carolina. You were 11 years old then. Your mother had brought you to one of my sermonettes....

My son Matthew and I were wading up a stream of Alaska's Kodiak Island. For a second year, Joe, our guide, was teaching us how to sense the presence of Kodiak brown bears, the largest grizzlies — the ones that can run 35 miles per hour, the ones you cannot outrun....

The children and nature movement may be more diverse than many others, but it needs even more diversity of ethnicity, culture, abilities and economics. I invite you to join us by becoming a Member of the Children & Nature Network. Your support will help children...

  On the way out of town, I got the shakes. Well, not the shakes exactly, but I wasn’t a happy pre-camper. My wife, Kathy, and I had committed to four days away from beeping gadgets, ringing phones, sawing neighbors, the on-demand life. It had been too long since...

Two-thirds of the U.S. population and more than one-half of the European population may have already lost the ability to see the Milky Way with the naked eye. When air pollution and urban domes of artificial light obscure our view of the night sky, our mental and physical health pay a price. Stars or no stars, natural darkness has value; our biological clocks count on it. In this blog post, Richard Louv shares the importance of seeing stars and why it is a great gift to give to ourselves and to our loved ones.

The National Parks are called that for a reason. They're not the Parks for the One Percent. Not just the Parks for People with Cool Gear. Some people say there are too many people visiting the nation's parks. They argue that increasing entry fees specifically during...

At first light, my wife Kathy woke up and walked outside to get the paper. She felt a wave of heat and looked up. The sky was amber and black and foul. "Something's wrong," she said, shaking my shoulder. Four hours later, we were driving out of Scripps Ranch as a...