Child and Nature Network Feed

The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends, ‘Tis not too late to seek a newer world. - Alfred, Lord Tennyson Why is the future so often portrayed as a post-apocalyptic dystopia, filled with human brutality and stripped of nature? For decades, our culture has [...]

Want Your Kids to Get Into Harvard? Tell ‘em To Go Outside Second of two in a series I once met an instructor who trains young people to become the pilots of cruise ships. He described the two kinds of students he encounters. One kind grew up mainly indoors, spending hours playing video games and [...]

First of two in a series September is back-to-school month, and the chanting begins: Drill, test, lengthen the school day, skip recess, cancel field trips, and by all means discourage free time for (gasp!) self-directed play. Is that approach working, particularly in science learning? Not so well. A few months ago, I met with a [...]

Summer has always traditionally been a time when people come together to get outside and go camping. America has been the leader in establishing the “great idea’ of National Parks, as Ken Burns showcased so well in his documentary last year, and in having generations of families head out on the road to camp every [...]

Every December, my wife, Kathy, delivers small gifts to the neighbors on our block, usually a jar of home made jam or a little vase of dried flowers, or something like that. Now she’s come up with an idea for a different kind of gift. She announced it as we were working on our yard. [...]

In the San Diego bioregion, Jerry Schad has accomplished more than anyone I know to create a deep sense of place. Word now comes that Jerry has final-stage kidney cancer and is in hospice care. When I spent time with him several years ago, what impressed me most was not his formidable knowledge but his [...]

Three finalists have been announced for the 2012 Maine Teacher of the Year award. They are Ingrid Stressenger, a 4th grade teacher at Pond Cove School in Cape Elizabeth; Tim Eisenhart, a 9th grade mathematics teacher at Westbrook High School; and Alana Margeson, a 10-11th grade English teacher at Caribou High School. Ingrid Stressenger is [...]

In 2009, Janet Ady of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service stood before a crowd of grassroots leaders gathered by the Children & Nature Network. She held up an outsized pharmacy bottle. Within the bottle was a physician’s prescription – one that would be as appropriate for adults as it would be for children. The [...]

In a recent feature on Orion magazine’s Web site, the editors asked me this question: “Does technology merely distract us from the natural world—or can it help us gaze more intently at its varied forms?” My article, answering that question, is here. In it, I described how I spend more time carrying a camera than a [...]

I just drove in from my time in nature with the kids at Feather River Camp, where we spend a part of every summer. On the way home, I reflected with gratitude on how adaptive the camp experience is. For a change this year, instead of high-impact adventure, tie-dye shirt making, and day-long trips to [...]

Watching a family bond through a shared outdoor experience is always special, as it reminds you of the power of nature and how it can bring people together. But to see military families, who have served and sacrificed to protect our nation, is truly inspiring and humbling. Our family was honored to participate in an [...]