Children should experience nature more, author says

By Ursula Mommsen-Henneberger Sep 29, 2011, 3:06 GMT

Berlin - Children need to experience nature with all their senses. Going on adventures in the woods, hiking across fields, playing in mud, observing earthworms and experiencing a thunderstorm in the mountains are examples of things that belong to a healthy upbringing.

US environmentalist and author Richard Louv says in his book Last Child in the Woods that returning to nature would be a decisive step towards promoting our children's healthy development. Experiencing nature helps strengthen their self-confidence and their ability to learn, he says.

The book, first published in 2005 and now reaching the international market, has provided food for thought in support of more ecological education.

The book is aimed at parents, teachers, city planners, architects, politicians and business owners. Louv argues that the bond between children and nature has been severed.

He subtitled his book Saving Our Children From Nature Deficit Disorder, arguing that a number of physical and mental problems that children have are rooted in their lack of contact with nature.

Louv used studies and conducted interviews with educators and scientists to reach his conclusions. He links the high number of overweight children in the US and the frequency of attention deficit/hyperactivity syndrome to the lack of contact with nature.

Louv places a lot of faith in the healing power of nature through experiencing it with all one's senses under an open sky.

Direct contact with the wilderness and its abundance strengthens a child's self-esteem, his personality and his learning aptitudes such as reading ability. According to the author, only people who have strong contact with nature from an early age can be respectful and protective of it as adults.

Based on his own experience, Louv has placed the bar high. He recommends children build tree houses, stay in cabins and find ways to observe wild animals in their environment. These ideas are hard to fulfill in a city, but the author suggest a number of possibilities for city children to have contact with nature.

For little children, a few trees make up a forest and a puddle can offer a window into a natural habitat. Lift a stone to find the ground teeming with bugs or observe the life of squirrels in city parks, Louv suggests.

He also recommends that parents have their children work in the garden, go on hikes to places that are seldom visited or go on hikes at night. Children should have fun discovering nature and allow themselves to be amazed by it and respect it.

Many children are afraid of the outdoors because of things their parents have warned them about or because of things they have heard in the media. Children can get over this by experiencing nature themselves. This helps children understand that they are not alone in the world and that there is another dimension beyond the populated areas of the world.

Louv also hopes that schools and universities will revive the study of natural history. The subject should regularly be taught outside the classroom, he believes, and he also recommends school gardens or contact with farms, which some schools already maintain.

In Germany some of these ideas are already being implemented. Kindergarten-in-the-woods is a concept in which small groups of children spend their entire day outdoors in the woods. There is also a movement to convert concrete schoolyards to gardens.