Pictures

Andrew Sullivan posted this picture this morning that is iconic of the changes in our culture away from the outdoors and Nature. This image is from a slideshow from an article in the New York Times Magazine (been archived by NYT now).



the caption reads:

NAME Lucas Shaw
BORN 1985
OCCUPATION Student
LOCATION Texas
AVATAR NAME Gaenank
AVATAR CREATED 2003
GAME PLAYED EverQuest
HOURS PER WEEK IN-GAME 55
CHARACTER TYPE Barbarian berserker

Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words.

Update: Some info on EverQuest and its addicting characteristics.

The game is renowned and berated (by some psychologists specializing in computer addiction) for its addictive qualities. Many refer to it half-jokingly as "NeverRest" and "EverCrack" (a reference to crack cocaine). EQ is very time-consuming for many people, and there have been some well-publicized suicides of EverQuest users, such as that of Shawn Woolley. Relationships broken because of obsessive playing resulted in the creation of an online support group called EverQuest Widows and sites like GamerWidow.com. An infamous rant titled "EQ: What You Really Get From An Online Game" appeared on Slashdot in 2002 , and brought this issue of EverQuest addiction to the forefront of many message boards across the Internet.

Summer Reading

Want to learn more about the Children and Nature issue? Here's a sixpack of books for those hot days under the umbrella on the beach or the back lawn.

1. Children and Nature: Psychological, Sociocultural, and Evolutionary Investigations by David Kahn and Stephen Kellert

A good academic anthology.

Children and Nature incorporates research from cognitive science, developmental psychology, ecology, education, environmental studies, evolutionary psychology, political science, primatology, psychiatry, and social psychology. The authors examine the evolutionary significance of nature during childhood; the formation of children’s conceptions, values, and sympathies toward the natural world; how contact with nature affects children’s physical and mental development; and the educational and political consequences of the weakened childhood experience of nature in modern society.

2.The Thunder Tree by Robert Michael Pyle

While Bob Pyle first coined the term "Extinction of Experience" in 1975, he discussed it further in The Thunder Tree published in 1993. Read it.

3. Extreme Kids: How to Connect With Your Children Through Today's Extreme (and Not So Extreme) Outdoor Sports by Scott Graham

Get the Millennials out!

"You want your kids to have character, confidence, and courage, then by God banish Xbox, Nintendo, and Game Boy and take them on an adventure. How? Where? When? The answers are all here. Someone finally distilled the fundamentals - both psychological and practical - of taking kids kayaking and climbing, surfing and skiing, scuba diving and kiteboarding. I wish I had this book 10 years ago."
- Mark Jenkins, columnist for Outside magazine and author of The Hard Way

4. Monkey Dancing: A Father, Two Kids, and a Journey to the Ends of the Earth Daniel Glick

OK, so we can't all take our kids on an around the world trip, but see what happens when Glick does just that.

5. Randolph Paths by the Randolph Mountain Club

This guide covers one of the finest mountain path networks anywhere. Some are steep and hard, others easy strolls. And keep it quiet, this place is a secret.

6. Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder by Richard Louv

The Book that started it all.

Thursday Extra

Interesting post at Jonah Lehrer's the Frontal Cortex blog. I'm not trying to get into an evolution spat (even though I support the good science of evolution), rather, Lehrer's comments are interesting when viewed through the Children and Nature lens.

And then I looked at myself, lazing on a couch and complaining about the lack of air-conditioning as I sipped my cold beer. I have absolutely no understanding of the struggle for existence, or just how cruel the selection of the fittest really is. Most Americans live similar lives of luxury. As a result, we don't realize that staying alive (let alone reproducing) is damn hard work. And this leads us to dramatically underestimate the creative powers of natural selection.

So maybe we add to our "barriers" list the fact that many in our population have it so good that understanding even the basic challenges faced by other organisms in nature is beyond them.

Wildlife Camp in Iowa

The University of Iowa has a great camp program, held at the Macbride Nature Recreation Area.

The mission of the camps has changed little. Our ultimate goal as educators is to guide each camper closer to a sound environmental ethic, an informed and conscientious concern for things wild. No matter where the camper is on that path, we hope to guide them towards that goal.

This is a great model for a summer program, and has caught the attention of the press.

Christopher Murphy-Veigelt, 10, is spending this week of his summer at the University of Iowa Wildlife Camp at the Macbride Nature Recreation Area, his second year at the camp.

Murphy-Veigelt admits "this is kind of different" from how he usually spends his time. At home, his outdoor experiences are in the forest near the house, in his hammock or playing badminton.

"I'm a computer nut, but I still like camp," he said.

The efforts of The Conservation Fund and NCTC is also mentioned in the article:

Beginning in 2006, The Conservation Fund, "Last Child in the Woods" author Richard Louv, and the Secretary of the Interior hosted a dialogue on how to reconnect children with nature, involving leaders from public agencies, corporations, the media and health and environmental organizations.

This year, the issue was revisited in a National Forum on Children and Nature. The group of leaders -- including the governors of Montana, Pennsylvania, Connecticut and South Carolina -- announced that the forum will invest several million dollars in 20 pilot projects encouraging children to go outside.

Getting Them Outside

My daughter attended The Hill School in Middleburg, Virginia for nine years. Hill has a 130 acre campus in Virginia Hunt Country and has some exciting things going on that bring children closer to nature. I recall simple things that they do, such as the mile run, which students in grades 4-8 run every day, but there's far more than that happening.

The Hill School Arboretum today consists of an apple orchard of antique varieties, a Colonial Native American garden, a butterfly garden, a tree circle where eight common native trees are arranged on the points of the compass, a maturing hedgerow of native species, and the new Cork Tree Garden, which showcases ornamental and prairie grasses. More than 700 trees and shrubs and 2,000 conifer seedlings have been planted during the past six years. The Arboretum enhances the school's curriculum and provides a community resource rich with alternative plant materials and ideas with a sensitivity to the environment, habitat development, species preservation, and natural beauty.

For the past several years, Hill has been working to use nature to enhance learning, build character and responsibly, and foster community. They accomplish this by integrating nature into the entire curriculum, K-8; by working to build a sustainable facilities operation; and by responsible stewardship of the land.

Hill has worked with Stephen Kellert of Yale, and others on this project, and as a Hill Parent, I can say that the work is paying off, and is a model for other independent schools with a land base, and at least partially, other schools as well.

We'll keep track of Hill's progress and report back.

FWS Prairie Wetland Learning Center

Lots going on at the Prairie Wetland Learning Center in Fergus Falls, MN. They do lots to help connect children with nature. Check 'em out.

But It's Hot Outside...What Can We Do?

Ok, I don't have any data for what I'm going to say, but it is damn hot outside, and it seems hotter on average than it was ten, twenty or thirty years ago. When I moved to Virginia in 1990, we had hot days, but the humidity, as measured by the dewpoint, never seemed to get much higher than a muggy 68 or so. The past few years, that dewpoint number seems to have risen into the low to mid seventies, on a regular basis. For a Virginian like me, What does this higher dewpoint mean? It means it feels like we live in Georgia during the summer, and that for a lot of people, especially kids who grew up in air conditioned spaces, going outside in this weather is not what we do.

The News Journal in Wilmington looks at this issue today.

"Being inside is better, because the air conditioning is better than the heat," said Juliana Panzera, 13, of Wilmington, as she ate a salad at the food court of the Concord Mall.

So there's one more hurdle to getting kids out--the heat.

So, now that I've thrown out the next problem, how do we solve it? One answer that comes to mind right away is the way my friends and I dealt with the heat when I lived in Ct and NH. Waterfalls. Here's a few good ones that I have personally tested:

1) Enders State Forest--The good ole' high school swimming hole. Enders had a smooth rock slide that dumped you into a pool. Great place.

2) Bash Bish Falls, Massachusetts--A great place with a lot of pools. Iremember one place where you could jump 15 feet into a deep clear pool. Of course in today's litigious society, swimming here is probably not allowed. Need to do another field check.

3) The Fallsway, Randolph, NH--probably one of the best waterfall paths anywhere in the Northeast. For more than a mile, follow a mountain brook up into the northern Presidentials, with a waterfall every few hundred yards. Plenty of good swimming to be had. Cold water. Here's some shots by R. Turmelle of one of the falls on the the Fallsway, which I have personally tested in hot weather:



So that's my solution for today...

Waterfalls and swimming holes are pretty common across the country. Because I'm a New England lad, here are some other NE waterfall resources to help you folks in that neck of the woods:

Connecticut Waterfall Site.
Northeast Waterfalls Site.