Hello, I'm the OUTDOOR PROFESSOR from DiscoveringTheOutdoors.com/
Here's your outdoor tip on Children and Nature. Interaction with nature is important beginning early in everyone’s life. More and more research is becoming available about this important connection, and I discuss the importance of this interaction in my book, The Nature Quotient.
An important concern is the lack of environmental education in school curriculum. Starting with young children, in many areas environmental education has been removed from the curriculum. The pressures of the national No Child Left Behind legislation and standardized testing have made it difficult for teachers to build outdoor activities into their curriculum. Reduced school budgets for field trips make it difficult to take children beyond the classroom to experience the natural world. Being able to correctly answer a test question has replaced being able to apply knowledge in the natural world.
A movement called “No Child Left Inside” and an organization of the same name is working to put environmental education back into the curriculum, but how successful they will be is not known. Nature has a unique ability to be used as a tool to encourage creativity, discovery, and personal development yet it seldom makes its way into the classroom.
Children find themselves victims of what popular author Richard Louv (Louv, 2008) calls “nature deficit disorder.” This disorder says that there is a causal relationship between many of our children’s psychological disorders such as ADD and their separation with nature. He argues that after tens of thousands of years of children playing and working outdoors, the latest generations have seen such interaction with nature vanish almost entirely. Children wish to play indoors because that’s where all the electrical outlets are.
Dr. Rhonda Clements (2004) surveyed over 800 mothers in the United States exploring the extent to which children play outdoors as compared to a generation ago. She discovered that children participate mostly in organized youth sports, many of which are played indoors. Young people had little time to spend in the outdoors exploring and experiencing independent discovery.
She also asked mothers about obstacles to outdoor play and their thoughts regarding the benefits. Almost all mothers recognized some of the diverse benefits of outdoor play; obstacles, such as television, computers, and concerns about crime, safety, and injury, prevented their children from participating in more outdoor play. It confirmed the belief that outdoor play in the 21st Century is reduced from earlier years.
Additional studies are finding that including outdoor activities in the lives of children improves their physical well-being. Team or structured sports do not have the advantage that unstructured play has. It is unstructured time in the outdoors that is the most helpful in a child’s development.
The Center on Educational Policy (2008) published the results of a new study in 2008, “Instructional Time in Elementary Schools: A Closer Look at Changes for Specific Subjects” that supports the existence of the first problem. This report discusses the many changes in instruction that have taken place since the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) act was enacted in 2002. Subject areas such as environmental education have been removed from the curriculum in elementary schools because they do not meet mandatory testing requirements created in response to NCLB. Many feel the focus of the testing is based on the accumulation of facts, and does not include the application of knowledge that is learned in environmental education.
When I worked at a local university as Executive Director of the Division of Continuing Education, some of our programs provide outdoor courses to school children and teachers. We have learned that most schools no longer allocate money for field trips for outdoor learning activities. Most dollars are devoted to activities specifically linked to the passing of standardized tests.
There are a number of studies indicating that students who take part in environmentally themed lessons do better in science, math and other subjects. For example, a 2005 study by the California Department of Education found that sixth grade test scores on science knowledge improved by 27% after participating in a week-long outdoor education program. Scores remained high 6-10 weeks after the outdoor experiences (Why Nature, 2009).
Although they are seldom found in school curriculum, there are even outdoor programs such as Project Wild or Project Learning Tree that are developed to provide improvement in subjects and skills related directly to testing. These programs are developed by experts in education and have undergone testing with thousands of young people. They are readily available to schools and are proven against subject standards. For example, Texas Parks and Wildlife supports Project Wild in Texas with its Web site http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/learning/project_wild/teks_correlation.phtml. This site provides a menu that allows you to click on one of the Texas Standardized Tests objectives (TEKS) and it will take you to the Project Wild activity that supports the related learning goal. Correlations are provided by grade level and the subjects of math, science, language arts, and social studies. Wild books with curriculum activities are provided free of charge to schools in Texas yet the majority of schools throughout the state do not take advantage of these resources. Beyond Texas, it is also possible to go to their Web site to find other states promoting these programs.
Research substantiates the importance of the inclusion of nature activities in the curriculum. It is hard to understand why most schools are going in the opposite direction. The Children’s Nature Institute (CNI) is a nonprofit corporation dedicated to providing young children opportunities to explore the natural world through hands-on educational experiences (Why, 2009).
CNI presents why nature should be included in school curriculum. The organization includes this evidence on their Web site in four basic categories detailed in the paragraph below: Academics, Physical and psychological health, Behavior and attitudes and Disconnection from nature.
From an academic standpoint students participating in environmental education do better on standardized tests, outdoor education programs improve children’s science test scores, nature furnishes a hands-on multisensory stimulation for brain development in early childhood, and environment-based education improves motivation to achieve academically. Looking to physical and psychological health, ADHD or ADD show reduced symptoms after playing in natural areas, it’s easier to concentrate and pay attention after spending time in nature, high-nature conditions buffer children against the effect of stressful life, and views of nature reduce stress levels and speed recovery from illnesses or injury. Behavior and attitudes benefit with environmental education providing fewer discipline problems, improved children’s cooperation, conflict resolution, self-esteem, and peer relationships, increased care about the environment as adults, are more likely to engage in positive behaviors such as recycling and more creative in natural areas. And finally the disconnection from nature is shown by declining attendance at parks, lowering sales of entry-level outdoor gear, more time being spend in front of the computer and TV, parents limiting children’s freedom to play outside, family spending little time in their own yards, and limited access to parks (Why, 2009).
Inclusion of outdoor activities in school curriculum has been so limited that a new organization has been created—No Child Left Inside (NCLI). This group was formed to help fight the negative impact that the testing requirements of NCLB has had on environmental education in the schools.
The NCLI group is working to make the following changes to the No Child Left Behind legislation (Coalition, 2010):
- Funding to train teachers to deliver high quality Environmental Education and utilize the local environment as an extension of the classroom.
- Incentives for states to develop State Environmental Literacy Plans to insure that every student is prepared to understand the environmental challenges of the future.
- Encouragement for teachers, administrators, and school systems to make time and resources available for environmental education for all students.
- Environmental Education will be integrated across core subject areas.
The NCLI Coalition supports a number of new laws or changes to NCLB, but the future of this movement is not certain. The organization is trying to move education in the right direction, but it does not guarantee the presence of nature in the lives of children.
You can help by becoming politically active with your local and state politics. Support NCLI initiatives. Be involved with your local school board and take an activist position in promoting nature activities. Volunteer to help with field trips and nature programs. It is possible to make a difference if you become a vocal proponent of supporting the interaction of children with nature.
This is the OUTDOOR PROFESSOR from DiscoveringTheOutdoors.com/
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References-Additional Reading
Nature Quotient.
eBook @Amazon.com
Outdoor Professor’s Tips: Exploring the Wonders of Nature
eBook @Amazon.com
