There was a
time, not all that long ago really, when most children grew up close to
nature. In 1900, 40% of the U.S.
population lived on farms, and even city dwellers had relatively easy access to
undeveloped open spaces. By 1990, less
than 2% of the US population lived on farms, and too often modern city dwellers
must fight traffic for an hour or more to reach remaining patches of wildlife
habitat. That’s a big change in a
relatively short period of time. Our
connections to rural places are dwindling, and I often find myself wondering
what effects these changes have on our kids.
Richard Louv
posed the question well in his book Last Child in the Woods. “Nature is imperfectly perfect, filled with
loose parts and possibilities, with mud and dust, nettles and sky, transcendent
hands-on moments and skinned knees. What
happens when all the parts of childhood are soldered down, when the young no
longer have the time or space to play in their family’s garden, cycle home in
the dark with the stars and moon illuminating their route, walk down through
the woods to the river, lie on their backs on hot July days in the long grass,
or watch cockleburs, lit by morning sun, like bumblebees quivering on harp
wires? What then?”
Too many of
our remaining open spaces are shrinking, often disappearing entirely as the
human population keeps growing, requiring more resources, more housing tracts,
more strip malls. The result is often
increased pressure and overuse of the few open spaces that do remain, and this
increased pressure often leads to new rules aimed at protecting these
resources. Today more than 57 million Americans
live in homes ruled by some type of condominium or homeowner’s association, and
many of these groups have strict covenants that ban or discourage kids from
playing in landscaped or natural areas.
City ordinances also often restrict children’s access to open spaces or
limit the activities they can engage in while playing outside.
The intent
of these rules is generally good—protection of a shrinking resource. But discouragement of natural play has been a
sad and unintended consequence. Many remaining
pockets of urban open space are now strictly set aside to be seen—not
touched. Too often, there is no room
left for free, unorganized, outdoor play.
And this creates unfortunate consequences for kids. In too many communities there is nowhere left
for them to wander off the sidewalk, build forts of fallen branches, construct
rock pools along streams, catch snakes, find out what wild onion tastes like,
or lay on the earth in the dappled shade of an oak tree, unhassled, unhurried,
unscheduled, simply reflecting and dreaming.
As these quintessential outdoor childhood moments fade, I can’t help but
worry that there is some important aspect of being human that fades along with
them.
In the not
too distant past, a basic familiarity with and understanding of the natural
world was seen as an important character trait.
As Robert Michael Pyle explains, “George Washington and Thomas Jefferson
were both excellent naturalists. A
lively, experimental curiosity in plants and animals was nothing unusual, it
was simply one component of the engaged citizen’s life.” In their day, and for more than a century
afterwards, natural history was emphasized in schools and universities as an
important area of study. And before that—for
millennia—understanding the life we shared this planet with was essential
knowledge. Bill McKibben states it
perfectly. “You pass a hundred different
plants along the trail—I know maybe twenty of them. One could spend a lifetime learning a small
range of mountains, and once upon a time people did.”
Now,
however, fewer students are being trained to identify plants and animals, to
understand their life cycles, their unique ecological positions and
interactions. As a result, even while
our population is skyrocketing, there is now a far smaller proportion of human
beings with the ability to recognize, let alone understand, a significant
number of the living things we share this planet with. At a time when conservation of biodiversity
is most urgent, we are losing much of our capacity to train and employ people
with the right knowledge to sustain Earth’s ecosystems.
Why does it
matter? If we know something, if we’ve
grown up with it, engaged with it, we’re more likely to care about it. But if we’re not familiar with the plants and
animals around us, then we won’t recognize when they disappear. We won’t make the changes needed to sustain
them. Ignorance breeds
indifference. The less we know, the less
we notice, the less we care, and it’s a downward cycle. We’re already losing our natural neighbors,
eroding the ecological processes that sustain life on this planet, and in the
end it will come back to bite us.
However,
each of us, you and I, can start turning the cogs in reverse. We can get to know the living things in our
own communities, and if we share these things with children, we’ll all
benefit. Playing in nature, whether
young or old, stimulates a sense of wonder, creativity, imagination—and it
helps us develop and nurture a sense of place.
Taking the time to notice and experience nature, even urban remnants,
even the tiniest patches of garden, helps us realize (and remember) that we’re
part of everything, made of the same elements as earth, water, air and all
living things. We’re all just pieces of
the greatest puzzle, and we need to pay attention to how the pieces fit.
For
children, pockets of nature render a canvas for countless types of creative
play—opportunities for control and mastery, construction of special spaces,
manipulating loose parts, moving in a wide variety of ways, taking risks,
solving problems, and finding stillness.
In the words of Stephen Kellert, Ph.D., “Play in nature, particularly
during the critical period of middle childhood, appears to be an especially
important time for developing the capacities for creativity, problem-solving,
and emotional and intellectual development.”
In this, it
seems the Scandinavians have gotten it right.
The Norwegians have a word, Friluftsliv, which translates to “free air
life”—a concept that promotes direct experience in nature. In Norwegian culture it is viewed as a
prerequisite for learning. The link
between nature and learning is also emphasized in Finland’s education
system. And it’s an informed
approach. A growing body of research has
shown that multisensory experiences in nature help build the cognitive
constructs necessary for sustained intellectual development. Finland consistently ranks in the top three
countries worldwide for academic performance (the United States ranks far below
at 20 according to recent United Nations Study). Finland pays higher teacher wages, allows
more independence for teachers, has shorter school hours and emphasizes the
value of unstructured outdoor play time.
We also know
that spending time in nature enhances well-being and provides positive mental
health benefits. Time and again,
research has shown that nature-based experiences reduce anxiety and stress,
improve self-esteem, mitigate depression, alleviate attention disorders, and
even lead to positive behavior changes.
How can
spending time in nature help with all these things? In nature we tend to engage in the types of
activities and thought processes that enlist and strengthen the brain’s right
hemisphere, and this has been shown to restore harmony to overall brain
function. It helps to think of the brain
as being capable of two types of attention—directed attention and involuntary
attention. Our culture has become more
and more focused on directed attention, leaving less time for involuntary
attention.
Why does
this matter? Directed attention is what
our kids use for hours at school or while doing homework. It’s important, but it causes fatigue, and
too much directed attention leads to agitation, impulsiveness, irritability and
difficulty concentrating. Involuntary
attention, on the other hand, is more automatic and can be thought of as
fascination. Involuntary attention is
what we often experience in the outdoors, and it gives our brains a much-needed
break from the rigors of directed attention and helps restore brain performance. In fact memory and attention span have been
shown to improve by an average of 20% after just one hour of interacting with
nature.
I think most
of us in the modern world could use an extra dose of involuntary attention in
our daily lives—and we can find it by walking in the woods, growing a garden,
watching the sunset… getting mud on our feet.
Even though 98% of us now live in cities, we can find, create and cultivate
the pockets of nature around us. We can
share these places with the kids we care about—and if we do they will
benefit! So will we.
