The tide of change on the issue of connecting children with nature is rising especially here in our nation's capital. I attended a Green Group briefing yesterday where over thirty groups participated in a round-table discussion on the Federal No Child Left Inside Act

http://www.naaee.org/ee-advocacy

Over a hundred groups have signed on to this legislation as well as 52 legislative co-sponsors. The bill is not the end all answer to connecting more children with the outdoors but it will promote environmental literacy and help let teachers take their students on field trips which is becoming a missing ingredient in so many schools.  

A study came out last week that showed national part attendance is dropping at never before seen levels. 

This study highlights that as Martin Luther King said so well there is an urgency of now with our issue. There is no doubt that the movement to connect children with nature is growing from the local and regional level led by the Children and Nature Network www.cnaturenet.org  to National initiatives like the Federal leave No Child Inside Act but competing with this our drops in park attendance, communities that are developed that don't allow a treehouse and fear among parents to not let their kids outdoors because of the fifty cable networks covering one child abduction case. People are engaged more then ever as I saw last month in Columbus, Ohio when I spoke to the Ohio Camp Association and over 200 people attended not to listen to me but to have a dialogue together on how they can work proactively in communities across the state to connect children to the outdoors because as camp directors they see more and more children losing a sense of their heritage through a loss of that special place in nature.

Time is not our ally with this challenge as if we lose a generation it is impossible to get them back. 

Here is a great link to an interview with Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods

in US News and World Report where he mentions the Sierra Club's work

http://health.usnews.com/articles/health/2008/02/13/why-kids-need-a-big-dose-of-nature.html 

 

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