Welcome Activity

Choose an animal and imitate its movements, behaviors, and personalities

When you meet another animal take turns guessing each other’s animal form.

When you’ve met at least 3 animals, return to your seat.

No Child Left InsideSaving Our Children from Nature Deficit

Disorder

Eric Krawczyk, MA, LPC, BCPCC

Workshop Objectives

Participants will:

understand some of the history and research contributing to NDD

be introduced to nature connection and its benefits

learn about and experience activities that prevent NDD

look at a new way to assess healthy connections

integrate knowledge into personal next steps

“Nature-deficit disorder is not an official

diagnosis but a way of viewing the problem, and

describes the human costs of alienation from

nature, among them: diminished use of the

senses, attention difficulties, and higher rates of physical and

emotional illnesses. The disorder can be detected

in individuals, families, and communities.”

— Richard Louv, Last Child in the Woods

The Book That Launched a Movement

I like to play indoors better 'cause that's where all the

electrical outlets are.

-a fourth-grader in San Diego

Unplug

What is Nature Deficit Disorder

*New media and natural resource technologies

*Economic growth & prosperity

*City/residential planning

*High stakes testing in schools

*Loss of place-based knowledge from occupational migration

*Personal/family cultural changes- time, pleasure, and fear

Causes of NDD

Children are spending 40 to 65 hours or more a week attached to electronic media.

Fewer than 1 in 5 children walk or ride a bike to school.

Childhood obesity has increased from 4% in the 1960s to about 20% today.

Children have less time for unstructured, creative play in the outdoors than ever before in human history.

What Research Says: The Deficit

Preschoolers in a cross-sectional study spent 89% of their days at daycare centers doing sedentary activity. When even outdoors, kids spent 56% of their time in sedentary activity. (Brown WH, et al "Physical activity in preschools" Child Dev 2009)

Dr. Paul Dykema has practiced general Pediatrics for nearly 45 years, giving him a longitudinal view of the health of American children. The Michigan pediatrician states that, “among the most striking changes I have observed over my career are the rise of obesity, type 2 Diabetes, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD), anxiety and depression.” He continues, “There are many factors contributing to the increase of these disorders in children but it is apparent that the lack of outdoor, unstructured and imaginative play is a significant contributor.” (Children & Nature Network 2010 Report Progress, Initiatives, Studies, Tools, Networks, and Innovation. Cheryl Charles Richard Louv Sara St. Antoine. C&NN. October 2010)

Young people ages 8-18 spend more than 7 12 hours a day on smart ⁄phones and computers and watching television—over 53 hours a week plugged into electronic media. (Kaiser Family Foundation, 2005)

Research

Opportunity for recess has declined in many schools. Yet children who have more time for recess in school are better behaved and learn more. (Barros, Silver, and Stein, “School Recess and Group Classroom Behavior,” Pediatrics, February 2009)

Eighty-five percent of mothers said TV and computer games were the number one reason for the lack of outdoor play; 82% identified crime and safety concerns as factors that prevent their children from playing outdoors. (Clements, “An Investigation of the Status of Outdoor Play,” Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, 2004)

Compared to the 1970s, children now spend 50% less time in unstructured outdoor activities. (Juster et al. “Major Changes Have Taken Place in How Children and Teens Spend Their Time,” 2004)

Children ages 10 to 16 now spend, on average, only 12.6 minutes per day in vigorous physical activity. Yet they spend an average of 10.4 waking hours each day relatively motionless. (Strauss et al., “Psychosocial Correlates of Physical Activity in Healthy Children,” 2001)

Research

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.

Richard LouvLast Child in the Woods: Saving our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder

On Education

Healing the broken bond

Experiences that:

*encompass core routines

*instill wonder and foster curiosity

*take place in outdoor settings ranging from backyards to neighborhoods to city parks to wilderness

*take the shape of guided activities as well as unstructured nature play in children’s everyday lives

What is Nature Connection?

Happier: Nature play increases self esteem,

improves psychological health and reduces stress.

Children learn self-discipline and are more cooperative

Healthier: Nature play improves physical conditioning

and reduces obesity. Physicians are even prescribing it.

Smarter: Nature play stimulates creativity and

improves problem solving. Children do better in school.Burdette, Hillary L., M.D., M.S.; and Robert C. Whitaker, M.D, M.P.H. "Resurrecting Free Play in Young Children: Looking Beyond

Fitness and Fatness to Attention, Affiliation and Affect." © 2005 American Medical Association.

Benefits

Benefit Research

Proximity to, views of, and daily exposure to natural settings has been associated with children’s ability to focus and enhances cognitive abilities (Wells, 2000).

Children who experience school grounds with diverse natural settings are more physically active, more aware of nutrition and more civil to one another (Bell and Dyment, 2006).

The more vegetation a child had in their neighborhood, the lower their body weight changes. The researchers also found that children in more vegetated settings were less likely to have a higher BMI over 2 years as compared to children in less vegetated settings. (Bell, J. F., Wilson, J. S., & Liu, G. C. (2008). Neighborhood greenness and 2-year changes in Body Mass Index of children and youth. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 35(6), 547-553)

In two recent nationwide surveys in Holland, people who lived within one to three kilometers of green space reported significantly better health than those without such access, after researchers controlled for socioeconomic status, age, and other factors (de Vries et al., 2003; Maas et al., 2006)

Studies of students in California and nationwide showed that schools that used outdoor classrooms and other forms of nature-based experiential education were associated with significant student gains in social studies, science, language arts, and math. (U.S.’s State Education and Environment Roundtable)

“Overall, our findings indicate that exposure to ordinary natural settings in the course of common after-school and weekend activities may be widely effective in reducing attention deficit symptoms in children.”Kuo FE, Taylor AF. A potential natural treatment for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: evidence from a national study. Am J Public Health. 2004;94(9):1580–6.

Research on ADHD

Twenty minutes in a park setting was sufficient to elevate attention performance relative to the same amount of time in other settings. These findings indicate that environments can enhance attention not only in the general population but also in ADHD populations. "Doses of nature" might serve as a safe, inexpensive, widely accessible new tool in the tool kit for managing ADHD symptoms.Kuo FE, Taylor AF. Children with attention deficits concentrate better after walk in the park. J Atten Disord. 2009 Mar;12(5):402-9.

To be spiritual is to be constantly amazed.

“As a parent, you don’t encourage children to experience nature because it’s pretty, but because your children are exposed to something larger and longer standing than their immediate human existence.” (Paul Gorman, founder of the National Religious Partnership for the Environment)

Support has come from the Sierra Club to the 700 Club — including religious leaders, liberal and conservative, who understand that all spiritual life begins with a sense of wonder, and that one of the first windows to wonder is the natural world. “Christians should take the lead in re-connecting with nature and disconnecting from machines,” writes R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, the flagship school of the Southern Baptist Convention.

Wonder is necessary to spiritual growth

Effects on the Spirit

INDICATORS OF PROGRESS:

*Nature-Deficit Disorder moves into the public vernacular*Physicians are recommending time in nature for children’s healthy development*Illinois Governor Quinn re-opens state parks and cites Last Child in the Woods*National parks and state parks across North America launch campaigns to connect families to nature; visits grow*Sesame Street changes its set for the first time in 40 years—to include nature!*Nature-focused preschools, other nature-themed schools, and school gardens are growing*The White House launches America’s Great Outdoors Campaign and the First Lady creates “Let’s Move Outside!”*Networks of young Natural Leaders and Natural Teachers are spreading*Across North America and now in Europe and Australia, families are banding together to create family nature clubs*A growing number of state and regional children and nature campaigns are self-organizing and growing, demonstrating a movement moves!

‘‘(1) IN GENERAL.—Not later than 1 year after the date of enactment of the No Child Left Inside Act of 2011, a State educational agency shall, (A) submit an environmental literacy plan for prekindergarten through grade 12 to the Secretary for peer review and approval that will ensure that elementary and secondary school students in the State are environmentally literate and (B) begin the implementation of such plan in the State.”

No Child Left Inside Act 2011

The Environmental Literacy Plan must:

“(1) Prepare students to understand, analyze, and address the major environmental challenges facing the students’ State and the United States.”

(2) Provide field experiences as part of the regular school curriculum and create programs that contribute to healthy lifestyles through outdoor recreation and sound nutrition.

Local Responses

• Mountain Roots’ Farm To School: Reconnecting kids to the land by teaching kids what good, nutritious food tastes like, why it is good for them, where it comes from, and how it is grown.

• Green Souls Nature Club: offers multi-generational programs and events that strengthen nature connections with ourselves, others, and our souls while building ecological, social and cultural resilience in Gunnison

The decline in children’s experience of nature will not change until a fundamental shift occurs in the attitudes and practices of developers, designers, educators, political leaders, and ordinary citizens. The enormous challenge facing us is how to minimize and mitigate the adverse environmental impacts of the modern built environment and how to provide more positive opportunities for contact with nature among children and adults as an integral part of everyday life.

– Dr. Stephen R. Kellert, Building for Life

Jon Young on NDD

Coyote’s Guide to Connecting with Nature

A radical approach that uses no textbooks or tests, but simply starts at the roots of nature education by engaging people in direct experience with the plants and animals just beyond the edge of their back yards.

Good medicine for NDD and much cheaper than pharmaceuticals

Some Core Routines of Nature Connection

Core Routines Described

Our beliefs and behaviors are a reflection of our brain patterning.

Need to shift our routines in order to reconnect, recover and restore our awareness

Awakens habits of Sensory Awareness, cultivates Knowledge of Place, and connects people to the Natural World

What About You?

What do you remember loving to do as a child?

What were you favorite games to play?

What did you do for fun with your friends?

What were your favorite toys?

What captured your curiosity?

What stories and songs made up your world?

Who were your favorite grownup playmates?

What Child Passions do you still enjoy?

Which Child Passions do the children in your life enjoy?

More Info

www.childrenandnature.org

www.wildernessawareness.org

www.natureskills.com

www.wherewarriorsrise.com

www.wildernesstransitions.com

www.gunnisoncreationcare.com

Thank you!

Indicators of Awareness

Common Sense

Aliveness & Agility

Inquisitive Focus

Caring and Tending

Service to the Community

Awe and Reverence

Self-Sufficiency

Quiet Mind

Genuine Measurement of Learning