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Yahoo!We saw your Outdoors web site and congratulate you on this endeavor. The Museum of Natural History is leading a Leave No Child Inside initiative in Santa Barbara, our focus reconnecting children to the natural world. Richard Louv’s book, Last Child in the Woods, has sparked a national grassroots campaign to let people know what has happened in childhood: Outdoor play and childhood are no longer synonymous. Children spend an average of 45 hours per week in front of some kind of screen. Unstructured play outdoors is missing from the lives of most children. They are afraid to be outside and scared to death of natural things. This has happened in two generations and it has had a disastrous effect on children’s mental, emotional, cognitive, and social development.
We began last year to take visiting students outdoors to explore our creek, and as hard as it is to imagine, the majority have never explored a creek or been to the beach. They are terrified of earthworms at first and end up completely transformed in as little as 45 minutes. As one child climbing across boulders in the creek exclaimed with his arms raised over his head, “I feel alive and free!’
The lack of outdoor play has many ramifications for our children and for our environment. How do we get kids to care about saving a condor if they’ve never noticed the birds in their backyard?
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Well, this has a great impact on human development. Since moving to two (2) other Major Cities (Detroit, DC), I find that many children become cowards as adults. They shun the outdoors and anything that is NOT in a cage or bowl. It is really a pity that many adults on the East Coast believe that if the dog or cat is loose, then those are "Wild Animals". These same people spend every waking hour e-mailing, text-messaging and cell-phone talking from the indoors and the only way they get a tan is from going to a salon and using a tanning bed. I have many people from the 'City', tell me that I must have been raised by wolves because of my easiness around all animals but the truth is I hiked the Los Padres National Forest for over 15 years. I encountered all form of wild creature and NEVER felt scared or threatened unless it was another human (they are so unpredictable). I have seen a few Condors, black bears, mountain lions and Rattle snakes and as long as I gave respect, I got respect (that and I didn't wear a lot deoderant when I hiked).
I encourage the local kids (Ghetto Rats) to get out and explore this world but they just ignore me and go back to their X-Box 360's and Cell-phone's. Oh well........
dou4now (anonymous profile)
April 11, 2008 at 12:45 a.m. (Suggest removal)
For what it's worth George Foreman--known to casual boxing fans as the nice old fat guy that defied the odds and regained the Heavyweight title more than 20 years after he lost it to Ali--was apparently a rather violent youth that was heading very much down the wrong path.
He has stated in interviews that the thing that turned his attitude around was getting involved in the Job Corps and getting away from his urban environment and spending time in the boondocks of Oregon.
Big cities/High crime rates. Rural areas/more peaceful. When addressing the "at-risk" youth issue, more emphasis must be placed on connecting kids with nature, and animals. (Rather difficult since renters are often forbidden from having pets)
Humans simply do not seem to do well in crowded situations.
billclausen (anonymous profile)
April 11, 2008 at 7:47 p.m. (Suggest removal)
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