Improving Children's Health Through Nature

Improving Children's Health Through Nature  

NEEF's Children and Nature Initiative educates health professionals on health benefits for children who participate in outdoor activities and connect with nature. In partnership with the National Audubon Society and the US Fish and Wildlife Service, NEEF encourages pediatric health care professionals to "prescribe" nature to their patients in order to create and encourage opportunities for outdoor play in the natural environment. The initiative was presented at the Children and Nature Network's 2009 Grassroots Gathering in September. The initiative and related materials were also exhibited at the CDC's National Environmental Public Health Conference in Atlanta in October. The initiative was featured in Nickelodeon's Playbook for World Wide Day of Play. Our article titled "Building on Partnerships: Reconnecting Kids with Nature for Health Benefits" highlights our Children and Nature Initiative. It has been accepted for publication in Health Promotion Practice and the abstract is currently available on PubMed.

Beyond the Classroom

Beyond the Clasroom: Exploration of Schoolground & Backyard
Roth, Cervoni, Wellnitz, Arms. Inspired collection of 33 field trips that require neither special equipment nor buses. This complete resource book provides lists of materials and procedures and a review of the process skills learned during each 15-40 minute session. Activities are inquiry-oriented and can be performed on schoolgrounds or in parks, fields, or backyards. Open-ended field activities for grades K-6. #EE-3034.
http://www.acornnaturalists.com/store/images/ProdImages/EE-3034.jpg
More at www.acornnaturalists.com

Interest Areas

Environment-based Education

Outdoor Education

Science and Nature Kits

Acorn Naturalists Discovery Kits and Modules

Acorn Naturalists Outdoor Exploration Packs

Field Backpacks

LaMotte Environmental Analysis and Test Kits

Little Labs Science Kits

Scientific Explorer Kits

Science Discovery Kits

Owl Pellet Discoveries

Gyotaku (fish printing) Kits, Supplies & Replicas

Paper Making Kits, Books and Supplies

Paper Casting Kits, Books and Supplies

Rubber Stamp Kits and Ink Pads

Sunprint Kits (Photosensitive Paper)

American Indian Craft Kits and Activities

Animal Replica Casting Kits

Engraving Kits with Science and Nature Themes

Science and Nature Rubbing Plate Kits

Science and Nature Games

Science and Nature Displays

A Place for Wonder

Just published! A Place for Wonder offers a variety of projects that primary teachers can weave into existing routines as they teach nonfiction literacy. Click here to preview the entire book online!

In A Place for Wonder, Georgia Heard and Jennifer McDonough discuss how to create "a landscape of wonder," a primary classroom where curiosity, creativity, and exploration are encouraged. For it is these characteristics, the authors write, that develop intelligent, inquiring, life-long learners.
The authors' research shows that many primary grade state standards encourage teaching for understanding, critical thinking, creativity, and question asking, and promote the development of children who have the attributes of inventiveness, curiosity, engagement, imagination, and creativity. With these goals in mind, Georgia and Jennifer provide teachers with numerous, practical ways—setting up "wonder centers," gathering data though senses, teaching nonfiction craft—they can create a classroom environment where students' questions and observations are part of daily work.
They also present a step-by-step guide to planning a nonfiction reading and writing unit of study—creating a nonfiction book, which includes creating a table of contents, writing focused chapters, using "wow" words, and developing point of view. A Place for Wonder will help teachers reclaim their classrooms as a place where true learning is the norm.

Browse the entire book online!

Photo: Sandy Island, September, 2009. Ellie Goldberg

The Sense of Wonder

Posted by Diane Kinney on July 31, 2009, 12:25 pm
Bowker Reads - http://www.bowkerreads.com/

The Sense of Wonder

http://www.bowkerreads.com/reviews/non-fiction/family/the-sense-of-wonder/

• Author(s): Rachel Carson
• Contributor(s): Kaiulani Lee
• Publisher: Blackstone Audiobooks
• ISBN: 9781433207235
• Release Date: c. 1956; 2007

This lovely reading of Rachel Carson’s The Sense of Wonder serves to reinforce the knowledge that having the capacity to appreciate the beauty of nature affects our lives in countless positive ways. I listened to this half-hour-long CD on at least five separate occasions and each time came away with something new. Renowned for her influential work Silent Spring and credited widely as the founder of the modern environmental movement, Carson is no less of an inspiring force nearly a half century after her death. The Sense of Wonder relates her experiences of sharing the joy of outdoor discovery with her young nephew, Roger, and is part homage to the wild landscape of Maine and part parenting manual.

Contending that the importance of adult encouragement of natural discovery to a child’s development cannot be overstated, the author feels that all too often mothers and fathers are discouraged from doing so either due to the “inconvenience” of these adventures and/or a feeling of ignorance about how to teach things they themselves do not know. Carson strongly believes that whether or not a particular star, animal, or plant is correctly identified by name misses the point entirely—the true appreciation of nature stems from perception rather than knowledge. The struggle to combat materialism and indifference is centuries-old, of course, but I still found it hard to believe that The Sense of Wonder wasn’t written recently. Though a short work, it is extremely powerful, and I highly recommend it for all.

EARLY SPRING

An Ecologist and Her Children Wake to a Warming World

by Amy Seidl
reviewed by Alison Hawthorne Deming (http://www.orionmagazine.org)

Beacon Press, 2009. $24.95, 192 pages.

HOW ARE WE TO SEE OURSELVES as characters--as actor--in the enormous story of climate change and the planet's diminishment? How do we change our role in the drama from consumer to caretaker? How are we to think and feel about our bewildering moment in natural history, when the complexity of change is occurring on a scale not observable to the plain eye? Amy Seidl's Early Spring brings complexity home to the author's garden, family, and community in northern Vermont. She moves gracefully among roles as mother, ecologist, neighbor, and thoughtful witness of the everyday. She shows us where to look to see local change in circadian rhythms of both nature and culture: the date the lilacs first bloom or robins arrive, the forestalled annual ice-fishing derby or sugaring-off celebration in maple country. To a trained eye, these changes speak volumes about how creatures, plants, and human communities are being pressed into adaptation.

Seidl writes wonderfully detailed descriptions of complicated processes, such as the "pillow and cradle" features of her local landscape, the process of caterpillar metamorphosis and the peril of Bt toxins, and how plant chemistry responds to increased ultraviolet rays. She shows the value and mechanism of sustained looking: the family journal that spans three generations of data on ice-out on Lake Damariscotta, Maine; the woman in Michigan who observed birds from her kitchen window and recorded their visits for over forty years; and the woman in Massachusetts who kept track of what she saw on daily walks for forty-two years--"when the wood ducks arrive at her pond, the first time she heard the peepers' chorus, and when the wood anemones bloomed"

These compulsive note-takers do more than add information to our overburdened hoard. They are "recording the rhythm of life" around us, Seidl writes, a rhythm that has its analogue in our consciousness. The lilacs in her backyard bloom eight to sixteen days earlier than when she was born, and by the time her daughters are her age they will bloom fourteen to twenty-eight days earlier. We are engaged in a transformation that requires new calibrations of feeling and reflection's well as policy and action.

Seidl's tutelary spirit is Rachel Carson, whose words introduce the chapters of this book. The title Early Spring suggests one of the challenges here: many people in cold climates would be darned happy to have an earlier spring. At this book's conclusion, that benign phrase will begin to have the poetic resonance and urgency of Carson's catalyzing work in Silent Spring.

Childhood and Nature

Design Principles for Educators

by David Sobel, reviewed by K. Meagan Ledendecker

Stenhouse Publishers, 2008. $17.50, 178 pages.

Review published in the May/June 2009 issue of Orion magazine

IN HIS NEW BOOK, Childhood and Nature, veteran educator and place-based education advocate David Sobel asks the big question: what’s the most effective way to educate children so that they will grow up to behave in environmentally responsible ways?

To answer, Sobel offers tools and inspiration applicable to anyone whose life intersects with the lives of children. He argues convincingly against inundating children with factual information about nature, insisting instead that children need experiences that will allow them to muck about and (to paraphrase Robert Michael Pyle) get earth under their nails and a sense of place under their skin. Yet so often schools, not to mention home environments, divorce children from play in natural settings.

Children need experiences in nature that allow them to form connection, affinity, and ultimately love for the natural world. These experiences, which Sobel terms “transcendent experiences,” are more important than learning facts about nature and are actually prerequisites for environmental concern. Simply put, “Talking to trees and hiding in trees precedes saving trees.”

Sobel’s theories about children and nature education emerge from his natural-history-style observations of children at play. Sobel identifies seven “play motifs” based on these observations, which he translates into design principles for how to guide children’s experiences. The power of these principles lies in how Sobel has identified them. All too often those working with children fail to first observe children’s behavior, and then to use those real-life observations to enhance children’s experiences.

The design principles—adventure, fantasy and imagination, animal allies, maps and paths, special places, small worlds, and hunting and gathering—are illustrated throughout a series of Sobel’s essays that comprise the second section of the book. Although the essays were published previously, they remain surprisingly fresh, in part due to the introduction Sobel provides to each chapter, as well as Sobel’s conversational tone.

Sobel writes for his readers as if he has sidled up to share stories with fellow educators, parents, and observers of children. While offering inspirational tales of children engaging with their natural and human communities, Sobel hands us the tools we need to offer our children similar opportunities. “Won’t you come too?” he asks. How can we not want to accept Sobel’s invitation, join in the fun, and provide children with the “experiences that allow love to slowly take root and then flourish”?

What is Green

What is Green?

(from www.greendepot.com/)

Icon System

Our Green Depot Icon System is designed to show at a glance why we call a particular item green. First, we decided that for us, a "green" product offers among five basic environmental benefits: it improves indoor air quality, conserves resources, stimulates the local economy, saves energy, and is manufactured responsibly. We then defined icons to identify every product that meets one of the above criteria—half-tone if it performs better than most conventional products yet there's room for improvement, full-tone if it truly meets or exceeds our standards.

• NON-TOXIC
• NON-ALLERGENIC
• NO OR VERY LOW VOCs
• NO COMBUSTION GASSES
• NO PARTICULATES
• MOLD FIGHTER
• AIR PURIFIER
• SOUND INSULATOR

More »

• RECYCLED, RECLAIMED, REUSED
• RAPIDLY RENEWABLE
• PROTECTED/STEWARDED
• NON-POLLUTING
• DURABLE
• WATER SAVER
• WASTE REDUCER

More »

• LOW CARBON FOOTPRINT
• LOCAL BUSINESS STIMULANT

More »

• ENERGY-CONSERVING DESIGN
• RENEWABLE ENERGY SOURCE
• DAYLIGHTING
• LOCAL

More »

• RESPONSIBLE MANUFACTURING
• DEVELOPMENT OF GREEN JOBS
• ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION
• WORKER PROTECTION
• TRUTHFUL MARKETING

More »

Children & Nature Network March 2009

Children & Nature Network

Click to view this message in a browser

News from the Children & Nature Network March 2009 Forward this to a friend This special update from the Children & Nature Network provides a behind-the-scenes look at what we're doing, where we've been, and what we have planned for the months ahead. Second Annual Children & Nature Awareness Month Nature Clubs for Families Tool Kit Greeted with Enthusiasm and Praise C&NN signs request asking for Obama's support for Great Outdoors Month Natural Leaders Coordinator, Juan Martinez, Introduces Salazar at PowerShift '09 C&NN BOD member Brother Yusuf is Honored by Albanyâ& #128;& #153;s Commission on Human Rights Charles, Louv, LeBlanc, and Chawla Venture North To Help Get Canadians Outside From Richard Louv: Orion Article and His Newest BLOG The Chicago Zoological Society brings Louv to Illinois on March 18th

Activites for Kids in Nature

http://www.naturalland.org/kids_in_nature.htm

eNature Quicklinks

WildlifeGuides: Nature in North America

• FieldGuides: More than 5,500 species
• Birding: Identify, attract and understand birds
• On the Wild Side: Our free nature newsletter!
• Articles: Search our vast archive
• Advanced Search: Identify what you've seen

LocalNature: Your neck of the woods

• ZipGuides: Find species by location
• ParkGuides: Parks & refuges near you
• Gardening: Create, attract and conserve
• Wildlife Lists: Save your sightings
• Send eCards: Thousands of images

Reconnecting Children and Nature

100_0212.jpg

http://www.childrenandnature.org/
The Children & Nature Network (C&NN) was created to encourage and support the people and organizations working to reconnect children with nature. C&NN provides access to the latest news and research in the field and a peer-to-peer network of researchers and individuals, educators and organizations dedicated to children's health and well-being.

NH Children In Nature Coalition

The New Hampshire Children In Nature Coalition is dedicated to fostering experiences in nature that:

1. Improve physical and emotional health and well-being
2. Increase understanding of and care for the natural world
3. Promote stronger connections to community and landscape

...and to providing a forum for continued collaboration.

New! N.H. Children and Nature Initiative Receives

Two Major Grants: The New Hampshire Children in Nature Coalition has received a $50,000 grant from the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation and a $10,000 donation from The Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Foundation in support of statewide efforts to reconnect children and families with nature. Click here for press release.

Founding Documents Developed: Over the past year, Coalition partners and working groups have established the Coalition's structure and drafted founding documents that detail timelines, strategies and goals for the effort, including the following:

• New Hampshire Children in Nature Coalition - Communication Plan - DRAFT (pdf): Many New Hampshire organizations, individuals, and agencies are already working on issues related to children in nature; the Coalition seeks to connect them with each other and help them bring their work into communities where children and families will directly benefit. Coalition partners have committed time and resources to the effort, and have expressed a desire to work together, build the network, and make use of any tools and opportunities the coalition can offer. This plan outlines the first steps in creating those tools and facilitating needed connections. Click here to view the draft plan.
  
  
• Organizational Development and Statewide Program Coordination Work Plan - DRAFT (pdf) - Large numbers of individuals in New Hampshire have expressed interest in developing the NHCINC to promote and coordinate activity around increasing the amount of outdoor free and creative play in the natural environment, to help to reduce childhood obesity and to increase children’s use of all their senses. A work plan charts out a timeline for working toward these goals and objectives. Click to view.
  
  
• New Hampshire Children in Nature Coalition - Mission, Goals, Objectives and Activities - DRAFT (pdf): Dozens of suggested activities for communities, educators and others.

Rachel Carson Contest Winners 2008

EPA's Aging Initiative, Generations United, and the Rachel Carson Council, Inc. are pleased to announce the winners of this year's Rachel Carson "A Sense of Wonder" Intergenerational Essay, Photography, and Poetry Contest.

The categories are Photography, Essay, Poetry and Mixed (Photo, Essay and Poetry).

The contest was designed to increase environmental stewardship and public awareness of environmental issues. This year, the theme is commemorating the 100th anniversary of environmentalist Rachel Carson's life. The contest's intergenerational approach reflects Carson's efforts through her writings to have adults share with children a sense of wonder about nature and help them discover its joys. All teams included both a person under age 18 and a person 50 years of age or older.

More than 140 individuals submitted entries to the Rachel Carson contest. Participants came from all over the US and the world and included intergenerational teams of families, neighbors, friends, and senior centers. Finalists in each category were selected by an intergenerational team of judges. Winners were then selected by public voting on the Aging Initiative website. More than 1,500 individuals cast their votes for their favorite entries.

The categories are Photography, Essay, Poetry and Mixed (Photo, Essay and Poetry).