This text is an excerpt from the Keynote Address delivered by Cheryl Charles to the 35th Annual Conference of the North American Association for Environmental Education, October 14, 2006.

Introduction

The World Future Society (www.wfs.org) released a report on October 11, 2006 that includes a forecast of the “top ten” major global developments for 2007. Children's nature deficit disorder is among the top five, the report states:

“Children’s ‘nature deficit disorder’ will grow as a health threat. Children today are spending less time in direct contact with nature than did previous generations.  The impacts are showing up not only in their lack of physical fitness, but also in the growing prevalence of hyperactivity and attention deficit.  Studies show that immersing children in outdoor settings—away from television and video games—fosters more creative mental activity and concentration.”

Re-Connecting Children and Nature

There is a movement emerging, and every one of you is part of it, in your own way, with your own passions, persistence, dedication, expertise and energy.  It is a movement to reconnect children and nature. 

It is grassroots.  It is diverse. It is spontaneously generating and it is self-organizing. It is what author, journalist, futurist and child advocate Richard Louv calls “a doorway issue”—the issue of reconnecting children and nature gets people through a door together who might not otherwise do so.

Let me say a few quick words about Richard Louv, since I will cite his work in various ways throughout this keynote.

Rich, as perhaps everyone here knows, wrote a book that was published in 2005, titled Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder.  If you’ve not read it, you probably have at least heard of it. Keep in mind that this is Rich’s sixth or seventh book. This one has a life of its own, and its reach is growing, and growing, and growing.  That is good news for all of us.  The book has opened door after door after door to give voice for us all to build on its momentum, resonance, and inspiration.  The messages in Last Child in the Woods—combined with the evidence all around us for what can be called “nature deficit disorder”—are among the energies fostering, nourishing, compelling and creating this emerging children and nature movement. For the record, Rich is quick to say that “nature deficit disorder is not a medical diagnosis, but a description of the human costs of alienation from nature.”

The children and nature movement that is emerging is common sense. It touches and resonates. We have—all of us—an immense and important set of opportunities.  We, as members of this movement, can help move it along to fundamentally change policies, lifestyles, the health and wellbeing for children now, and all of life in the future.

I don’t think I need to review the data with you.  A few key points are worth repeating as we all learn to get better and better about communicating the importance of nature in our lives.

Children and youth today have little direct experience with the out-of-doors.

They especially don’t play in natural settings in unstructured, free-form playtime.  There are always exceptions, but, on the whole, the defining experience of today’s youth and children is in-doors, at home or in school, or in a car.

There are many reasons—adults’ fear for their children’s safety, what Richard Louv and others call, fear of “stranger danger.”  Fear of liability; restrictive covenants, including rules against building tree houses are signs of the time.  There is even a growing movement in the United States to prevent children from running and playing on the school grounds, including during recess. One of my colleagues reports recently seeing a sign on a playground in Florida, “Children—Do Not Run.” An elementary school in Wyoming recently prohibited tag at recess. The National Program for Playground Safety reports that dodge ball has been out at some schools for years, but banning games like tag is a newer development.

Parents are busy, maybe overly busy.  Children need leisurely, un-scripted, genuinely playful, and exploratory hours to find the wonders in their own backyards and neighborhoods.  Committed to hectic schedules and without enough support for what I call a new common sense, well-intended parents drive in circles to shuttle their children to the four walls of schools and other supervised programs with, again, little unstructured time for natural play. 

And schools are often of little help—despite the best efforts of so many of you in this room and our colleagues around the world.  Particularly in the last decade, with the narrow emphasis on testing, we’ve lost some ground. But, with this huge swell of the new common sense—this resonance to reconnect children and nature—there is hope.

There are other forces at play, as you know. A host of lifestyle changes in US society in the past 20 to 30 years has contributed to a sedentary society of youth, who, according to a recent study conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation, are spending as much as 60 hours a week involved in electronic media. 

The lifestyle changes show up in many ways—from the pervasive influence of urbanization, the electronic umbilica of cell phones and Ipods, and the diminished time for family outings in the out-of-doors.

These are only a few of the indicators of massive changes underway in the past two to three decades in the United States. Diminished health, higher stress, higher aggression, reduced cognitive and creative capacities, lower school achievement, blighted sense of efficacy, and diminished productivity are among the documented negative impacts of a disconnect and lack of direct experience with nature and natural elements in our surroundings. 

Turning to the direct and documented evidence of the benefits from the child and nature connection, there are many.  A variety of researchers indicate that children’s cognitive flexibility and creativity are enhanced if they have the experience in childhood to problem-solve in natural settings. Beyond cognition, there are mental health benefits. 

With people of all ages, the results are dramatic.  People’s overall health, peacefulness and general wellbeing will be enhanced to the degree that we spend some time on a regular basis in the out-of-doors.  This clearly is “preaching to the choir” in this room, but, again, we need to grow the choir.  Many, many more people need to hear the good news that just opening the door and going for a walk can diminish stress and foster good health—that is, if the neighborhood is safe, and has even a modest amount of foliage and greenscapes.

So there are immediate physical payoffs for those of us who get outside, but there is obviously more.  If we are in the out-of-doors, and on a regular enough basis to watch the seasonal changes, as one example, we learn about “place.”  We learn about the natural cycles and changes of an ecological setting.  To the extent that any of us does that on a regular basis, we are going to be more inclined to have a more complex and informed understanding of that natural system—and potentially other natural systems.  We will be far more likely to care about the health of living systems over time, to make informed decisions, and to effect responsible actions. 

Beyond a caring and informed public, direct experience in the out-of-doors tends to be a precursor to career choices that involve work related to everything from architecture to science to conservation.  One of the many things I am worried about is the impact of the significant numbers of looming retirements on informed decision-making in all fields. 

So there are many reasons for opening the doors for children to play again in the out-of-doors. The need is urgent.  The benefits will be enormous, for now and in the future.

Richard Louv, in Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder, writes:

“For eons, human beings spent most of their formative years in nature.  But within the space of a few decades, the way children understand and experience nature has changed radically.  A child today can likely tell you about the Amazon rain forest, but not about the last time he or she explored the woods in solitude, or lay in a field listening to the wind and watching the clouds move . . . Healing the broken bond between our young and nature is in everyone’s self-interest, not only because aesthetics or justice demand it, but also because our mental, physical and spiritual health depend upon it.”

An amazing array of people is embracing the book and its message—from architects to physicians, parents to CEOs. A real estate developer in California has given literally hundreds of copies of the book to clients and so are others around the country.  From People magazine to National Public Radio, the book and its message has touched a chord of common sense. Rich is bringing an eloquent and powerful voice to a yearning for balance and intimacy with the natural world, while there is still time to do something about it.  And, among young people, the message is inspiring HOPE and a sense of belonging, a sense of not being alone.

Here is an excerpt from an email Rich Louv received a few weeks ago from a 13-year-old, which I am sharing with you with permission to do so: 

“It's now twelve a.m. and I do have school tomorrow but I cannot sleep if I do not tell you what I am thinking right now. I grew up in the 90s where of course, there was a lot of technology and a lot of gadgets . . . I cannot say that I never owned any of these things when I was young. I cannot say I didn’t enjoy them at the time. Thinking back upon it, even though as a kid I did enjoy spending most of my time outside, I realize that while I was playing tomagotchi, or gameboy, I was missing out on being outside. I have many friends and acquaintances. However, deep down, I find that I do not relate to them, or most people around me. . .  I would much rather sit in the park than sit on the computer. . . I have a brother . . . He's actually my half brother. He and I have always had a connection. Much like me, he feels alone in the world. . . The only other whole connection I have in this world is nature. It's beautiful, it's escape, it's free, it understands me, and I understand it, however not in words. Nature is something you must feel and see, something you must be one with. Something that, as long and hard as you think and look, does not have answers in words, but in emotion. . . I believe what my imagination tells me about the earth. For example, science class last year, we had to learn about clouds. It made me sad because . . . I don't want to know if there is water in them from reading a text book. I want to lay on some grass, look above and see the clouds, feel the earth beneath my back. All of this I felt I had to express to you because I found your book today, in the library. . . I thought to myself, I've been thinking of this, possibly I can relate to this author. See, fiction or not, I believe that many authors are the people who also feel alone in the world because of the way they think, which is why a book is a place for friends, for connection. . . Truly, thank you.”

I read Last Child in the Woods when it first came out.  I reached out to Rich, not knowing him, to ask him to participate in a National Conservation Learning Summit held in November of 2005 at the National Conservation Training Center in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, sponsored by the Paul F-Brandwein Institute and a host of federal and non-profit organizations.  We convened the Summit to address many of the issues I am raising with you. All of the advance materials, and the Summit proceedings, from video to print, are available on the Brandwein website, by the way, at www.brandwein.org. 

More recently, in September of this year, a second gathering was held at the National Conservation Training Center in Shepherdstown—this one convened by Rich Louv; Rick Lemon, the Director of the National Conservation Training Center of the US Fish and Wildlife Service; and Larry Selzer, President of The Conservation Fund.  It built on both the 2005 Summit and the success of Rich’s message—the title, A National Dialogue on Children and Nature.  A number of folks here, active members of NAAEE, were participants in both.  The most recent event is intended to lead to a host of projects and visibility, another current in the movement to re-connect children and nature. 

Martin LeBlanc, here at this conference in his role as National Youth Director for the Sierra Club, and a sponsor of this NAAEE conference, and others of us, have helped Rich found the Children & Nature Network (C&NN), a new-non-profit educational and advocacy organization.  Martin and I are among the Founding Members of the Board of Directors.

The Children & Nature Network is, from the beginning, looking to fill gaps and connect the good works and resources of many, rather than inventing it all from scratch. And, may I quickly say, we are lean, just getting underway, and trying to figure out how we can be the most help without duplicating efforts.  We want to coalesce, not compete.  We will bring diverse players, leaders, and grassroots talents from broad-based communities of interest.  We will and are bringing many folks together who don’t usually enter a door together, much less sit around the same table. Throughout this growing movement, your expertise will be needed—and valued—even more than ever.

The mission of the Children & Nature Network is to give every child in every community a wide range of opportunities to experience nature directly, re-connecting children with nature’s joys and lessons, its profound physical and mental bounty.  The Children & Nature Network will provide a critical link between researchers and individuals, educators and organizations dedicated to children’s health and wellbeing.  The Network will also promote fundamental institutional change. The Network will publish, convene, communicate, and collaborate. 

We will coalesce, synthesize, connect and celebrate the many good works and good people who are working to re-connect children and nature. Not at all averse to the power of communications technologies, we have established a web site, www.cnaturenet.org.  In fact, some of the proceedings of the September National Dialogue on Children and Nature are posted on the Children & Nature Network web site and more will be added. The site will be a powerful repository of research and resources, and will be the portal through which to provide a new news service that Rich Louv will edit. You can register to receive this free e-newsletter and news of other resources at the web site now.  Though still early in formation, as I indicated, we are getting underway and will be providing regular and ongoing access to tools of all kinds.

One of our major goals is to nourish and support the non-partisan, pro-active campaign that is emerging to Leave No Child Inside.  The campaign is being echoed and replicated, endorsed and championed by allies throughout the nation.  It is bubbling up all over—spontaneously generating, self-organizing, as a natural phenomenon.  Here are some of the places the campaign to leave no child inside is emerging:  Seattle, The Bay Area, New Mexico, Connecticut, Florida, Missouri, Cleveland, Cincinnati, New England and more. 

The book, Last Child in the Woods, has not created the children and nature movement.  It is simply a force that is acting as a natural and powerful collaborative energy. It has, in every sense, unleashed a “force of nature.”

Resources

Books

Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder, by Richard Louv.  Chapel Hill:  Algonquin Books, 2005.

Building for Life: Designing and Understanding the Human-Nature Connection, by Stephen R. Kellert.  Washington, D.C.:  Island Press, 2005.

Coming Home:  Community, Creativity and Consciousness, by Cheryl Charles and Bob Samples.  Fawnskin, CA: Personhood Press, 2004.

The End of Poverty:  How We Can Make It Happen in Our Lifetime, by Jeffrey Sachs.  New York:  The Penguin Group, 2005.

Web Sites

Paul F-Brandwein Institute:  www.brandwein.org

Children & Nature Network: www.cnaturenet.org

Hawksong Associates (Cheryl Charles and Bob Samples): www.hawksongassociates.com

Health Policy Institute:  www.jointcenter.org

World Future Society:  www.wfs.org