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To take Richard Louv a couple steps further, our children need opportunities to experience nature in as unstructured and as unsupervised a manner as possible, with minimal mediation between them and raw nature. I learned just about everything about the natural world from a partially degraded woodland/wetland/marshland/river oxbow environment in the suburbs of a major East Coast city. As a result, I have never had any fear of the wild, even solo, no matter the environment or weather. No adults intervention, no adult supervision. Yes, we got into trouble. There were injuries. There are risks in being alive, in being a human being. Yes, there are reasons for 21st Cent. parents to be more cautious, more protective, but we have taken it way too far. We are raising risk-averse indoor children whose only experience of the outdoors is organized sports, and looking at the natural world through the windows of minivans and schoolbuses.

No matter how powerful the computer/DVD/video game/nature documentary experience, that kind of media/high tech experience of the natural world will never, ever be as powerful, as lasting as the direct, tactile, sensual experience of an immersive experience of the natural world.

Every parent should read Richard Louv's book...and every adult and teenager should read E.O. Wilson's autobiography (which details how his youthful wanderings in the Alabama woods had a lasting impact on his life, career and philosophy). If everyone had a deeper connection with the natural world, and a deeper appreciation for biodiversity and interdependency, then we would not be in the precarious state we are in.

Yes, to more Outdoor School kinds of programs, and thank goodness for Opal Creek. We also need to find ways to help kids (and parents) appreciate what is near at hand, and the power of "urban nature."

Only connect.

posted 4 years, 12 months ago
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