“Although domesticated nature activities — caring for plants and gardens — also have a positive relationship to adult environment attitudes, their effects aren’t as strong as participating in such wild nature activities as camping, playing in the woods, hiking, walking, fishing and hunting,” said environmental psychologist Nancy Wells, assistant professor of design and environmental analysis in the College of Human Ecology at Cornell.
Interestingly, participating in scouts or other forms of environmental education programs had no effect on adult attitudes toward the environment.
“Participating in nature-related activities that are mandatory evidently do not have the same effects as free play in nature, which don’t have demands or distractions posed by others and may be particularly critical in influencing long-term environmentalism,” Wells said.
Couldn’t do any harm either. Maybe even leave the PSP home?
When I was a kid my mom would tell me to go outside to play because it would be good for me. I wish I’d had this information back then, although I suspect her real motive was to get rid of me for a while.
While they are at it maybe they could do a sex sim for teenage geeks. They could use the instruction.
James,
If she really wanted to get rid of you, she would have suggested playing by the busy freeway!
I grew up in Southern California in the 1950’s and we were outside folks. I remember going to the Rose Bowl via the Arroyo Secco in the first grade. I wandered all over Pasadena without supervision and later in life our father would take us to Tin Can Beach on one weekend and then to Shady Oaks in the Mountains above Pasadena the next weekend. I now live in Kentucky where everyone spends most of their time out of doors. Stories like these are for the folks that live in crowed places like Japan and New York. When my wife first moved here she felt bored and so would most of you if you did likewise. There is something close to Zen in the minds of folks just sitting on their porches in Kentucky.
Ethan – You mom told you to play on a freeway too???
Here my take: I was ALWAYS outside as a kid until we got a NES when I was 5. After we got that my outside time was severly diminished. I still loved the outdoors but I spent a LOT more time inside. I became more and more interested electronic devices and spent less time outdoors. I finally went to college and have a AAS degree in Programming and BS in Info Sci. Here’s the kicker: I took one Biology class and decided to major in that also. I’ll have a Bio BS this spring. I realized how much I had missed by sitting in front of a computer. Now don’t get me wrong I’m a pretty good programmer and I like it a lot but I would rather be wrestling with a wolf trying to get a transponder tag to stay attached. I’m glad my parents limited my time on video game systems and computer and kicked me outside. I think my generation (I’m 24) was the transitional one between the “outdoors” and the “indoors”. There’s kids that don’t know what its like not to have a computer and a gaming system in the house. When I finally procreate (it’ll be a dark day for the world, haha) my kids will be allowed on a gaming system and computer, for a limited amount of time a day/week and then I’ll kick them outdoors. On a side note, no console game system until their at least 10.
It might be too late. We have a generation of parents who never go camping, so who’s going to take the kids camping. As was stated, scouting, summer camp, other group activities are mandatory and too structured.
The kids need to know what it’s like to just walk in the woods, wade in a stream, look at waterfalls or just hunt for agates on the north shore of Lake Superior.
The Arroyo Secco was a gully (wash, wild habitat) back then.
I’m sitting here laughing at Thomas’s reference to Tin Can beach. My Dad always talks about his trips to Tin can beach. Alas, that was before they finally cleaned it up.
I’m so glad that most of my life was spent on a ranch in Arizona, where I was outside more than in, camping, and hiking are just part of my life, like taking a shower or brushing my teeth….just there.
I’ll be taking my final year of law in the fall, and specializing in animal rights/and habitat…..I’ll be the guy fighting the assholes in court that want to kill that wolf that Jim is wrestling to fit with a transponder. I envy Jim.
Growing up in a crime-infested ghetto with parents that loved to stay home and whom were pycho protective about my safety, I stayed home all the time except for school, shopping with parents and going to the park on Sundays. My entire summers were spent looking out of the fifth story window watching the action out on Broadway isolated from everyone, even my family.
Today, as I was driving near the Atlantic sea coast in New York City, also known as Brighton Beach/Coney Island I was struck by the beauty of the white clouds against a clear blue sky. I had a moment, a kind of relgious moment, that everything became clear to me. That dying didn’t matter. That being born was the greatest gift ever given to me. I started crying and sobbing. Tears of happiness, joy and gratefulness for a world that is staggering beautiful. A world that for whatever reason, God gave me the ability to understand. I took a walk on the boardwalk. So windy. Seagulls followed the powerful winds. One man fishing on the long pier and mussels clinging to the jetty against the mighty waves. Who created this miracle? Who gave me the world to enjoy? The answer can be known. Nature is the answer. Concrete blocks that answer.
Spent my playtime as a kid in a wooded buffer strip around the farmer’s field behind our house. Later I joined Boy Scouts (which didn’t do me any harm). Still a hiker and general outdoor enthusiast.