Displaying items by tag: Nature camp
Simply because they are active only at night and difficult to observe and understand, bats rank among our planet’s most misunderstood and intensely persecuted mammals. Those that eat insects are primary predators of the vast numbers that fly at night, including ones that cost farmers and foresters billions of dollars in losses annually. As such bats decline, demands for dangerous pesticides grow, as does the cost of growing crops like rice, corn and cotton.
Fruit and nectar-eating bats are equally important in maintaining whole ecosystems of plant life. In fact, their seed dispersal and pollination services are crucial to the regeneration of rain forests which are the lungs and rain makers of our planet.
Many of the plants which depend on such bats are additionally of great economic value, their products ranging from timber and tequila to fruits, spices, nuts and even natural pesticides.
Scary media stories notwithstanding, bats are remarkably safe allies. Where I live, in Austin, Texas, 1.5 million bats live in crevices beneath a single downtown bridge. When they began moving in, public health officials warned that they were diseased and dangerous--potential attackers of humans. Yet, through Bat Conservation International, we educated people to simply not handle them, and 30 years later, not a single person has been attacked or contracted a disease. Fear has been replaced by love as these bats catch 15 metric tons of insects nightly and attract 12 million tourist dollars each summer.
It is now well demonstrated that people and bats can share even our cities at great mutual benefit. As we will show through varied Year of the Bat activities, bats are much more than essential. They’re incredibly fascinating, delightfully likeable masters of our night skies.
Statement by Dr. Merlin Tuttle
Honorary Ambassador
Gray wolf factsheet
- Legal status in U.S.: Federally delisted since January 27, 2012. Currently a "Protected Wild Animal" in Wisconsin.
- 2011 Numbers in Wisconsin: ~800
- Length: 5.0-5.5 feet long (including 15-19 inch tail)
- Height: 2.5 feet high
- Weight: 50-100 pounds/average for adult males is 75 pounds, average for adult females is 60 pounds.
Description
Gray wolves, also referred to as timber wolves, are the largest wild members of the dog family. Males are usually bigger than females. Wolves have many color variations but tend to be buff-colored tans grizzled with gray and black (although they can also be black or white). In winter, their fur becomes darker on the neck, shoulders and rump. Their ears are rounded and relatively short, and the muzzle is large and blocky. Wolves generally hold their tail straight out from the body or down. The tail is black tipped and longer than 18 inches.
Wolves can be distinguished by tracks and various physical features. A wolf, along other wild canids, usually places its hind foot in the track left by the front foot, whereas a dog's front and hind foot tracks usually do not overlap each other. See the wolf identification page for more details.
Thumbnails link to larger images.
Habits
A wolf pack's territory may cover 20-120 square miles, about one tenth the size of an average Wisconsin county. Thus, wolves require a lot of space in which to live, a fact that often invites conflict with humans.
While neighboring wolf packs might share a common border, their territories seldom overlap by more than a mile. A wolf that trespasses in another pack's territory risks being killed by that pack. It knows where its territory ends and another begins by smelling scent messages - urine and feces - left by other wolves. In addition, wolves announce their territory by howling. Howling also helps identify and reunite individuals that are scattered over their large territory.
How does a non-breeding wolf attain dominant, or breeding status? It can stay with its natal pack, bide its time and work its way up the dominance hierarchy. Or it can disperse, leaving the pack to find a mate and a vacant area in which to start its own pack. Both strategies involve risk. A bider may be out-competed by another wolf and never achieve dominance. Dispersers usually leave the pack in autumn or winter, during hunting and trapping season.
Dispersers must be alert to entering other wolf packs' territories, and they must keep a constant vigil to avoid encounters with people, their major enemy. Dispersers have been known to travel great distances in a short time. One radio-collared Wisconsin wolf traveled 23 miles in one day. In ten months, one Minnesota wolf traveled 550 miles to Saskatchewan, Canada. A female wolf pup trapped in the eastern part of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, died from a vehicle collision near Johnson Creek in Jefferson County, Wisconsin in March 2001, about 300 miles from her home territory.
Nobody knows why some wolves disperse and others don't. Even siblings behave differently, as in the case of Carol and Big Al, radio-collared yearling sisters in one Wisconsin pack. Carol left the pack one December, returned in February, then dispersed 40 miles away. Big Al remained with the pack and probably became the pack's dominant female when her mother was illegally shot.
In another case, two siblings dispersed from their pack, but did so at different times and in different directions. One left in September and moved 45 miles east and the other went 85 miles west in November.
Food
Timber wolves are carnivores feeding on other animals. A study in the early 1980s showed that the diet of Wisconsin wolves was comprised of 55 percent white-tailed deer, 16 percent beavers, 10 percent snowshoe hares and 19 percent mice, squirrels, muskrats and other small mammals. Deer comprise over 80 percent of the diet much of the year, but beaver become important in spring and fall. Beavers spend a lot of time on shore in the fall and spring, cutting trees for their food supply. Since beavers are easy to catch on land, wolves eat more of them in the fall and spring than during the rest of the year. In the winter, when beavers are in their lodges or moving safely beneath the ice, wolves rely on deer and hares. Wolves' summer diet is more diverse, including a greater variety of small mammals.
Breeding biology
Wolves are sexually mature when two years old, but seldom breed until they are older. In each pack, the dominant male and female are usually the only ones to breed. They prevent subordinate adults from mating by physically harassing them. Thus, a pack generally produces only one litter each year, averaging five to six pups.
In Wisconsin, wolves breed in late winter (late January and February). The female delivers the pups two months later in the back chamber of a den that she digs. The den's entrance tunnel is 6-12 feet long and 15-25 inches in diameter. Sometimes the female selects a hollow log, cave or abandoned beaver lodge instead of making a den.
At birth, wolf pups are deaf and blind, have dark fuzzy fur and weigh about 1 pound. They grow rapidly during the first three months, gaining about 3 pounds each week. Pups begin to see when two weeks old and can hear after three weeks. At this time, they become very active and playful.
When about six weeks old, the pups are weaned and the adults begin to bring them meat. Adults eat the meat at a kill site often miles away from the pups, then return and regurgitate the food for the pups to eat. The hungry pups jump and nip at the adults' muzzles to stimulate regurgitation.
The pack abandons the den when the pups are six to eight weeks old. The female carries the pups in her mouth to the first of a series of rendezvous sites or nursery areas. These sites are the focus of the pack's social activities for the summer months and are usually near water.
By August, the pups wander up to two to three miles from the rendezvous sites and use them less often. The pack abandons the sites in September or October and the pups, now almost full-grown, follow the adults.
Photos of wolf pups at a den site
Thumbnails link to larger images.
Distribution
Before Europeans settled North America, gray wolves inhabited areas from the southern swamps to the northern tundra, from coast to coast. They existed wherever there was an adequate food supply. However, people overharvested wolf prey species (e.g., elk, bison and deer), transformed wolf habitat into farms and towns and persistently killed wolves. As the continent was settled, wolves declined in numbers and became more restricted in range. Today, the majority of wolves in North America live in remote regions of Canada and Alaska. In the lower 48 states, wolves exist in forests and mountainous regions in Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin, Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Washington, Arizona, New Mexico, North Dakota, and possibly in Oregon, Utah and South Dakota.
Map showing wolf distribution
History in Wisconsin
Before Wisconsin was settled in the 1830s, wolves lived throughout the state. Nobody knows how many wolves there were, but best estimates would be 3,000-5,000 animals. Explorers, trappers and settlers transformed Wisconsin's native habitat into farmland, hunted elk and bison to extirpation, and reduced deer populations. As their prey species declined, wolves began to feed on easy-to-capture livestock. As might be expected, this was unpopular among farmers. In response to pressure from farmers, the Wisconsin Legislature passed a state bounty in 1865, offering $5 for every wolf killed. By 1900, no timber wolves existed in the southern two-thirds of the state.
At that time, sport hunting of deer was becoming an economic boost to Wisconsin. To help preserve the dwindling deer population for this purpose, the state supported the elimination of predators like wolves. The wolf bounty was increased to $20 for adults and $10 for pups. The state bounty on wolves persisted until 1957. By the time bounties were lifted, millions of taxpayers' dollars had been spent to kill Wisconsin's wolves, and few wolves were left. By 1960, wolves were declared extirpated from Wisconsin. Ironically, studies have shown that wolves have minimal negative impact on deer populations, since they feed primarily on weak, sick, or disabled individuals.
The story was similar throughout the United States. By 1960, few wolves remained in the lower 48 states (only 350-500 in Minnesota and about 20 on Isle Royale in Michigan). In 1974, however, the value of timber wolves was recognized on the federal level and they were given protection under the Endangered Species Act [exit DNR]. With protection, the Minnesota wolf population in-creased and several individuals dispersed into northern Wisconsin in the mid-1970s. In 1975, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources declared timber wolves endangered.
Intense monitoring of wolves in Wisconsin by the DNR began in 1979. Attempts were made to capture, attach radio collars and radio-track wolves from most packs in the state. Additional surveys were done by snow-tracking wolf packs in the winter and by howl surveys in the summer. In 1980, 25 wolves in 5 packs occurred in the state, but dropped to 14 in 1985 when parvovirus reduced pup survival and killed adults. Wisconsin DNR completed a wolf recovery plan in 1989. The recovery plan set a state goal for reclassifying wolves as threatened once the population remained at or above 80 for three years. Recovery efforts were based on education, legal protection, habitat protection, and providing compensation for problem wolves.
In the 1990s the wolf population grew rapidly, despite an outbreak of mange between 1992 -1995. The DNR completed a new management plan in 1999. This management plan set a delisting goal of 250 wolves in late winter outside of Indian reservations, and a management goal of 350 wolves outside of Indian reservations. In 1999, wolves were reclassified to state threatened status with 205 wolves in the state. In 2004 wolves were removed from the state threatened species list and were reclassified as a protected wild animal with 373 wolves in the state.
Current status (as of April 2012)
The wolf is a "Protected Wild Animal" in Wisconsin. After five years of delisting attempts and subsequent court challenges, a new federal delisting process began on May 5, 2011 and wolves were officially delisted on January 27, 2012. The count in winter 2011 was about 782-824 wolves with 202-203 packs, 19-plus loners, and 31 wolves on Indian reservations in the state.
Misconceptions and controversies
Wolves are the "bad guys" of fable, myth and folklore. The "big bad wolf" fears portrayed in "Little Red Riding Hood," "Peter and the Wolf" and other tales have their roots in the experiences and stories of medieval Europe. Wolves were portrayed as vile, demented, immoral beasts. These powerful negative attitudes and misconceptions about wolves have persisted through time, perpetuated by stories, films and word-of-mouth, even when few Americans will ever have the opportunity to encounter a wolf.
Wolves are controversial because they are large predators. Farmers are concerned about wolves preying on their livestock. In northern Wisconsin, about 50-60 cases of wolf depredation occur per year, about half are on livestock and half on dogs. As the population continues to increase, slight increases in depredation are likely to occur. In Minnesota, with about 3,000 wolves, there are usually 60 to 100 cases per year.
A few hunters continue to illegally kill wolves, believing that such actions will help the deer herd. It is important to place in perspective the impact of wolves preying on deer. Each wolf kills about 20 deer per year. Multiply this by the number of wolves found in Wisconsin in recent years (800), and approximately 16,000 deer may be consumed by wolves annually. This compares to about 27,000 deer hit by cars each year, and about 340,000 deer shot annually by hunters statewide. Within the northern and central forests where most wolves live, wolves kill similar numbers of deer as are killed by vehicles (about 8,000), and about 1/10 of those killed by hunters (8,000 in 2010). Wolves are a factor in the deer herd, but only one of many factors that affects the total number of deer on the landscape.
Research and management
The Wisconsin DNR has been studying wolves since 1979 by live capturing, attaching radio collars and monitoring movements. Much has been learned about wolf ecology in northern Wisconsin. In 1992, the department began a research project to determine the impact of highway development in northwest Wisconsin on wolves. A Geographic Information System, (computer mapping system) was used to determine that northern Wisconsin has about 6,000 square miles of habitat that could support 300-500 wolves. Recent studies suggest the state can perhaps support 700 to 1,000 wolves (in late winter), but this level may not be socially tolerated and recent federal delisting of wolves will allow the department to manage the wolf population toward sustainable but acceptable population levels.
The DNR recognizes wolves as native wildlife species that are of value to natural ecosystems and benefit biological diversity of Wisconsin. The department approved a Wolf Recovery Plan in 1989. The plan's goal of 80 wolves was first achieved in 1995 mainly through protection and public education programs, and did not require any active reintroductions into the state. In 1999, wolves were reclassified to threatened in Wisconsin, and a new wolf management plan was approved that set a state delisting goal at 250 and management goal at 350 wolves in late winter outside of Indian reservations. The wolf management goal represents a threshold level that allows the Department to use a full range of lethal controls, including public harvest, to manage the wolf population. Wolves were state delisted in 2004 and federally in 2012, returning management back to the state and Indian tribes. Landowners will be able to control some problem wolves on their land and government trappers will remove problem wolves from depredation sites.
Wisconsin Summer Campsare the perfect place to expose kids to camp. Picking. a Wisconsin summer camp offers a child the chance to be away from daily civilization. No place in the midwest will give a child an amazing experience in the country. At Camp Nature Swift child gets to play, make new friends and learn new outdoor activities, this takes place in the fun sun of the northwoods of Wisconsin.
A Wonderful Summer Camp. (Summary)
The children have such a diverse selection of activities at this Wisconsin summer camp that they can barely fit it all in during their stay! From horseback riding and swimming to archery and craft making the time is action packed with fun filled adventure that your child won’t stop talking about.
Swift Camp is dedicated to the spirit of Naturalist Ernie Swift. The camps goal is to provide a traditional summer camp while encouraging children to respect nature and to understand it in a more profound way, This ACA accredited camp has been helping children have a great summer for over 40 years.
The Discovery Program is a unique camp program only for the first time camper. This special session is unlike any other sleepaway camp because it is designed to give additional attention to those children a little reluctant to leave home for their first overnight summer camp experience. Regardless if your child is a first time campers or is experienced at overnight backpacking and canoeing trips your child can attend this camp.
To learn more about picking the best summer camp for your child visit SummerCampAdvice.com
Children detach from natural world
as they explore the virtual one
San Francisco Chronicle
Peter Fimrite,
Yosemite may be nice and all, but Tommy Nguyen of San Francisco would much prefer spending his day in front of a new video game or strolling around the mall with his buddies.
What, after all, is a 15-year-old supposed to do in what John Muir called "the grandest of all special temples of nature" without cell phone service?
"I'd rather be at the mall because you can enjoy yourself walking around looking at stuff as opposed to the woods," Nguyen said from the comfort of the Westfield San Francisco Centre mall.
In Yosemite and other parks, he said, furrowing his brow to emphasize the absurdly lopsided comparison, "the only thing you look at is the trees, grass and sky."
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The notion of going on a hike, camping, fishing or backpacking is foreign to a growing number of young people in cities and suburbs around the nation, according to several polls and studies.
State and national parks, it seems, are good places for old folks to go, but the consensus among the younger set is that hiking boots aren't cool. Besides, images of nature can be downloaded these days.
It isn't just national forests and wilderness areas that young people are avoiding, according to the experts. Kids these days aren't digging holes, building tree houses, catching frogs or lizards, frolicking by the creek or even throwing dirt clods.
"Nature is increasingly an abstraction you watch on a nature channel," said Richard Louv, the author of the book "Last Child in the Woods," an account of how children are slowly disconnecting from the natural world. "That abstract relationship with nature is replacing the kinship with nature that America grew up with."
A lot of it has to do with where people live - 80 percent of the U.S. population lives in urban areas, where the opportunities for outdoor activity apart from supervised playgrounds and playing fields are limited.
But Louv said the problem runs deeper. Wealthy suburban white youngsters are also succumbing to what he calls "nature deficit disorder."
"Anywhere, even in Colorado, the standard answer you get when you ask a kid the last time he was in the mountains is 'I've never been to the mountains,' " Louv said. "And this is in a place where they can see the mountains outside their windows."
The nature gap is just as big a problem in California, where there are more state and national parks than anywhere else in the country. A recent poll of 333 parents by the Public Policy Institute of California found that 30 percent of teenagers did not participate in any outdoor nature activity at all this past summer. Another 17 percent engaged only once in an outdoor activity like camping, hiking or backpacking.
The numbers coincide with national polls indicating that children and teenagers play outdoors less than young people did in the past. Between 1997 and 2003, the proportion of children ages 9 to 12 who spent time hiking, walking, fishing, playing on the beach or gardening declined 50 percent, according to a University of Maryland study.
Kim Strub, a 46-year-old Mill Valley mother of 13- and 16-year-old girls, said kids these days just don't have the time to get out in nature with all the pressure to get good grades and be accepted into a prestigious college.
"There is probably five times as much homework than there used to be when I was a kid," she said.
"I used to be a member of Campfire Girls, and we would go out camping, sleep under the stars, go hiking, grind acorns, real outdoor stuff," Strub said. "My two daughters have been in Girl Scouts, and when they meet it is primarily indoors. Going outdoors is just not a priority anymore."
The lack of outdoor activity is more pronounced in California's minority and lower-income communities. Latino parents, for example, were twice as likely as white parents to say their child never participated in an outdoor nature activity and three times more likely to say their child did not go to a park, playground or beach this past summer, according to the Public Policy Institute poll.
Several African American, Asian and Latino students from various San Francisco high schools admitted they rarely, if ever, go to the neighborhood park, let alone visit a national or state park.
"We are city kids, so we don't get to experience the outdoors," said Ronnisha Johnson, a 17-year-old senior at Philip Burton High School. "I don't like bugs, and most of my friends don't like wild animals. And they don't teach you about the wilderness in school. Kids don't think of it as a park. They just think of it as a big open space where there is nothing to do."
Video games, television and electronic entertainment are undoubtedly part of the problem. Nguyen, a sophomore at San Francisco's Washington High School, is part of a generation of teenage technophiles who always have a cell phone or iPod in their ear.
Nguyen said he plays video games two hours a day on average, but has been known to spend the whole day in front of a new game. He doesn't know anybody who camps, backpacks or who has ever built a tree fort.
Children between the ages of 8 and 18 spend an average of 61/2 hours a day with electronic media, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. The trend starts early. A 2002 study found that 8-year-olds could identify 25 percent more Pokémon characters than wildlife species.
"Everybody is glued to the computer, on Facebook or MySpace, and they're texting all the time," said Brendan Lin, 15, of San Francisco, who wants to be a computer technician when he grows up.
"These kids are becoming so acculturated to very fancy devices that do 50 things at one time that they can't grasp how going out into nature and just looking or relaxing can be rewarding," said Kevin Truitt, the principal of San Francisco's Mission High School. "To go on a hike, to participate in nature, to just look at the beauty is foreign to them."
Louv does not believe technology is the only reason for the lack of exposure to the outdoors. He said sensationalistic reporting of rare occurrences is a big reason why parents are reluctant to let their children out of the house, let alone wander through the woods or down by the creek.
"Every time CNN or Fox makes a huge story about a lost Boy Scout or a bear attack, it feeds the growing fear that parents and kids have of strangers and of nature itself," Louv said. "The actual number of stranger abductions has actually been level or falling for 20 years, but you would never know it from the media. When they get done telling about the crime, they tell about the trial. And when it's a slow news day, they bring up JonBenet Ramsey again."
Entrance fees at state and national parks also serve as barriers, Louv said. In the inner city, lack of maintenance and violence in the parks deter visitation. In the suburbs, neighborhood regulations discourage young people from using open space, Louv said.
"Just try to put up a basketball court in one of these gated communities, let alone build a tree house," Louv said. "Covenants and restrictions in planned communities often give the impression that playing outdoors is illicit and possibly illegal."
The situation has caused great concern among parents, educators and physicians, many of whom believe the epidemic of childhood obesity in America is a direct result of the lack of outdoor activity.
Environmentalists are worried that the next generation won't give a hoot about the spotted owl or other species. Others foresee trouble if children continue to be deprived of the many physical and psychological benefits that studies have shown nature and the outdoors provide.
A nationwide movement has begun to try to reverse the trend and, in many ways, California is leading the way.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger issued a proclamation in July recognizing a children's outdoor bill of rights, which lists 10 activities children should experience by the time they turn 14, including exploring nature and learning how to swim.
The Golden Gate National Recreation Area engages 30,000 school-age children in outdoor and environmental programs in the park every year, many of them ethnic minorities from the inner city. Numerous outdoor education programs for inner-city youngsters have also been implemented at the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, which borders urban areas of Los Angeles.
The National Park Service and a variety of local environmental organizations, including the San Francisco-based Trust for Public Land, Save the Bay, and the Pacific Forest and Watershed Lands Stewardship Council, have joined the effort.
Brendan Lin is an example of how such programs can work. He remembers fondly the one time he went camping on a school graduation trip five years ago or so.
"It was fun because it was quiet and there was no one to bug you. I like that," he said. "I saw deers, squirrels, and I did a rope course."
Louv said he is convinced American youth can once again learn the glory of mucking around in the natural world as opposed to the virtual one.
"We don't all get to go to Yosemite, nor do we have to," he said. "It can be the clump of trees at the end of the cul-de-sac or the ravine by the house. Those places may in terms of biodiversity not be that important, but to a child they can be a whole universe, where they can discover a sense of wonder. That is essential to our humanity, and we can't deny that to future generations."
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/10/22/MN15SJ64U.DTL&tsp=1#ixzz0RUds2DQ1
- Have you heard of vitamin N? It has been part of humanity forever. Yet, today fewer and fewer families are getting enough. Here is a list of ideas that will improve health, cognitive and creative benefits and help your child succeed in school and throughout life.
- Invite native flora and fauna into your life. Maintain a birdbath. Replace part of your lawn with native plants. Build a bat house. For backyard suggestions, plus links to information about attracting wildlife to apartments and townhouses, see the National Audubon Society’s Invitation to a Healthy Yard. Make your yard a National Wildlife Federation (NWF) Certified Wildlife Habitat.
- Revive old traditions. Collect lightning bugs at dusk, release them at dawn. Make a leaf collection. Keep a terrarium or aquarium. Go crawdadding — tie a piece of liver or bacon to a string, drop it into a creek or pond, wait until a crawdad tugs. Put the garden hose to good use: make a mud hole. (Your kids will sleep well later.)
- Help your child discover a hidden universe. Find a scrap board and place it on bare dirt. Come back in a day or two, carefully lift the board (watch for unfriendly critters), and see how many species have found shelter there. Identify these creatures with the help of a field guide. Return to this universe once a month, lift the board and discover who’s new.
- Encourage your kids to go camping in the backyard. Buy them a tent or help them make a canvas tepee, and leave it up all summer. Join the NWF’s Great American Backyard Campout. (Pledge now to camp out on June 28.)
- Take a hike. With younger children, choose easier, shorter routes and prepare to stop often. Or be a stroller explorer. “If you have an infant or toddler, consider organizing a neighborhood stroller group that meets for weekly nature walks,” suggests the National Audubon Society. The American Hiking Society offers good tips on how to hike with teenagers. Involve your teen in planning hikes; prepare yourselves physically for hikes, and stay within your limits (start with short day hikes); keep pack weight down. For more information, consult the American Hiking Society or a good hiking guide, such as John McKinney’s Joy of Hiking. In urban neighborhoods, put on daypacks and go on a mile hike to look for nature. You’ll find it — even if it’s in the cracks of a sidewalk.
- Be a cloudspotter or build a backyard weather station. No special shoes or drive to the soccer field is required for “clouding.” A young person just needs a view of the sky (even if it’s from a bedroom window) and a guidebook. Cirrostratus, cumulonimbus, or lenticularis, shaped like flying saucers, “come to remind us that the clouds are Nature’s poetry, spoken in a whisper in the rarefied air between crest and crag,” writes Gavin Pretor-Pinney in his wonderful book The Cloudspotter’s Guide. To build a backyard weather station, read The Kid’s Book of Weather Forecasting, by Mark Breen, Kathleen Friestad, and Michael Kline.
- Collect stones. Even the youngest children love gathering rocks, shells, and fossils. To polish stones, use an inexpensive lapidary machine-a rock tumbler. See Rock and Fossil Hunter, by Ben Morgan.
- Encourage your kids to build a tree house, fort, or hut. You can provide the raw materials, including sticks, boards, blankets, boxes, ropes, and nails, but it’s best if kids are the architects and builders. The older the kids, the more complex the construction can be. For understanding and inspiration, read Children’s Special Places, by David Sobel. Treehouses and Playhouses You Can Build, by David and Jeanie Stiles describes how to erect sturdy structures, from simple platforms to multistory or multitree houses connected by rope bridges.
- Plant a garden. If your children are little, choose seeds large enough for them to handle and that mature quickly, including vegetables. Whether teenagers or toddlers, young gardeners can help feed the family, and if your community has a farmers’ market, encourage them to sell their extra produce. Alternatively, share it with the neighbors or donate it to a food bank. If you live in an urban neighborhood, create a high-rise garden. A landing, deck, terrace, or flat roof typically can accommodate several large pots, and even trees can thrive in containers if given proper care.
- Invent your own nature game. One mother’s suggestion: “We help our kids pay attention during longer hikes by playing ‘find ten critters’—mammals, birds, insects, reptiles, snails, other creatures. Finding a critter can also mean discovering footprints, mole holes, and other signs that an animal has passed by or lives there.”
- For more suggestions, in addition to Last Child in the Woods, a number of recent books offer great advice, including Fed Up with Frenzy, by C&NN’s Suz Lipman, I Love Dirt! by Jennifer Ward, The Nature Connection by Clare Walker Leslie, and the free booklet A Parent’s Guide to Nature Play by Ken Finch. Also, the classic Sharing Nature With Children by Joseph Cornell. Online, Nature Rocks is another good resource.
- And of course visit the Children & Nature Network for more ideas for your family and community, including an action guide for change, toolkits to create a Family Nature Club or become a Natural Leader, resources for Natural Teachers and pediatricians — as well as state and national news and the latest research. Connect with the grassroots campaigns and efforts of others around the world. And please tell us how your own family, school, organization, or community connects young people to nature.
On April 22, 1970, 20 million people across America celebrated the first Earth Day. It was a time when cities were buried under their own smog and polluted rivers caught fire. Now Earth Day is celebrated annually around the globe. Through the combined efforts of the U.S. government, grassroots organizations, and citizens like you, what started as a day of national environmental recognition has evolved into a worldwide.......
by Swift Nature Camp
On April 22, 1970, 20 million people across America celebrated the first Earth Day. It was a time when cities were buried under their own smog and polluted rivers caught fire. Now Earth Day is celebrated annually around the globe. Through the combined efforts of the U.S. government, grassroots organizations, and citizens like you, what started as a day of national environmental recognition has evolved into a worldwide campaign to protect our global environment.
Since those early days, we have done a pretty good job cleaning up the planet. Yet , there is a staggering divide between children and the outdoors, child advocacy expert Richard Louv directly links the lack of nature in the lives of today’s wired generation-he calls it nature-deficit-to some of terribler childhood trends, such as the rises in attention disorders, obesity, and depression.
His recent book,Last Child in the Woods, has spurred a national dialogue among educators, health professionals, parents, developers and conservationists. It clearly show we and our youth need to spend time in nature.
Schools have tried to use nature in the class room for some time. At Holman School in NJ, Ms. Millar began an environmental project in the school’s courtyard. It has become quite an undertaking–even gaining state recognition. It contains several habitat areas, including a Bird Sanctuary, a Hummingbird/ Butterfly Garden, A Woodland Area with a pond, and a Meadow. My students currently maintain the Bird Sanctuary–filling seed and suet feeders, filling the birdbaths, building birdhouses, even supplying nesting materials! In addition, this spring they will be a major force in the clean up and replanting process. They always have energy and enthusiasm for anything to do with “their garden”.
Despite schools doing their best to get kids in nature , we as a nation have lost the ability to just send our kids out to play. Summer Camps are a great wayto fill this void. A recent study finds that todays parents overprotect their kids. Kids have stopped climbing trees, been told that they can’t play tag or hide-and-seek Not to mention THE STTICK and how it will put out someone’s eye.
Is the Internet and computers to blame for the decline in outdoor play? Maybe, but most experts feel it’s mom and dad. Play England says “Children are not being allowed many of the freedoms that were taken for granted when we were children, They are not enjoying the opportunities to play outside that most people would have thought of as normal when they were growing up.”
According to the Guardian, “Voce argued that it was becoming a ’social norm’ for younger children to be allowed out only when accompanied by an adult. ‘Logistically that is very difficult for parents to manage because of the time pressures on normal family life,’ he said. ‘If you don’t want your children to play out alone and you have not got the time to take them out then they will spend more time on the computer.’
The Play England study quotes a number of play providers who highlight the benefits to children of taking risks. ‘Risk-taking increases the resilience of children,’ said one. ‘It helps them make judgments,’ said another. We as parents want to play it safe and we need to rethink safety vs adventure.
Examples of risky play that should be encouraged include fire-building, den-making, watersports and climbing trees. These are all activities that a Summer camp can provide. At camp children to get outside take risks and play, this while being supervised by responsible young adults.
Swift Nature Camp is a Noncompetitive, Traditional OUTDOOR CAMP in Wisconsin. Our Boys and Girls Ages 6-15. enjoy Nature, Animals & Science along with Traditional camping activities. We places a very strong emphasis on being an ENVIRONMENTAL CAMP where we develop a desire to know more about nature but also on acquiring a deep respect for it. Our educational philosophy is to engage children in meaningful, fun-filled learning through active participation. We focus on their natural curiosity and self-discovery. This is NOT School.
In addition, regarlss of skill level, Swift Nature Camp has activities that allows kids to get better and enjoy. We promoted a nurturing atmosphere that gives each camper the opportunity to participate and have fun, rather than worry about results.
Our adventure trips that take campers out-of-camp on trips, such as biking, canoeing, backpacking. This is a highlight of all campers, they find it exciting to discover new worlds and be comfortable in them. We are so much more than a SCIENCE SUMMER CAMP.
Since the early days of Earth Day We have come a long way in protectin the planet Now its time to let our children play outside. This summer you can help your child appreciation nature by sending them to Swift Nature Camp. Summer Camp sets the foundation for a health life and is remembered for a lifetime by campers.
About the Author:
About the authors: Jeff and Lonnie Lorenz are the directors of Swift Nature Camp, a non-competitive, traditional coed overnight summer camp serving Wisconsin, Minnesota, and the Midwest. Boys and Girls Ages 6-15 enjoy nature, animals & science along with traditional camping activities. Swift specializes in programs for the first time camper. To learn more clickAnimal Camps
Do you enjoy Nature? Do you like to take pictures?
Now it’s your chance to make the call! The National Wildlife Federation needs your vote!
Their Magazine has selected the finalists for this Photo Contest. The theme is “Nature in My Neighborhood.” Now we need YOU to help choose the winner!
Vote for your favorite image today!
The top vote-getter receives an official NWF field guide and, if not already a member, a free one-year membership to National Wildlife Federation. But we need to hear from you soon: Voting ends April 15!
It is a movie that all Swift Nature Campers will love!
Go to DISNEYNATURE
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This earth day 2009 Walt Disney Studios is launching Disneynature a prestigious new production that will go to the ends of the earth to produce big screen documentaries. In the great tradition of Walt Disney Disney nature will offer spectacular movies about the world we live in...be sure to see it !
Children detach from natural world
as they explore the virtual one
San Francisco Chronicle
Peter Fimrite,
Yosemite may be nice and all, but Tommy Nguyen of San Francisco would much prefer spending his day in front of a new video game or strolling around the mall with his buddies.
What, after all, is a 15-year-old supposed to do in what John Muir called "the grandest of all special temples of nature" without cell phone service?
"I'd rather be at the mall because you can enjoy yourself walking around looking at stuff as opposed to the woods," Nguyen said from the comfort of the Westfield San Francisco Centre mall.
In Yosemite and other parks, he said, furrowing his brow to emphasize the absurdly lopsided comparison, "the only thing you look at is the trees, grass and sky."
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The notion of going on a hike, camping, fishing or backpacking is foreign to a growing number of young people in cities and suburbs around the nation, according to several polls and studies.
State and national parks, it seems, are good places for old folks to go, but the consensus among the younger set is that hiking boots aren't cool. Besides, images of nature can be downloaded these days.
It isn't just national forests and wilderness areas that young people are avoiding, according to the experts. Kids these days aren't digging holes, building tree houses, catching frogs or lizards, frolicking by the creek or even throwing dirt clods.
"Nature is increasingly an abstraction you watch on a nature channel," said Richard Louv, the author of the book "Last Child in the Woods," an account of how children are slowly disconnecting from the natural world. "That abstract relationship with nature is replacing the kinship with nature that America grew up with."
A lot of it has to do with where people live - 80 percent of the U.S. population lives in urban areas, where the opportunities for outdoor activity apart from supervised playgrounds and playing fields are limited.
But Louv said the problem runs deeper. Wealthy suburban white youngsters are also succumbing to what he calls "nature deficit disorder."
"Anywhere, even in Colorado, the standard answer you get when you ask a kid the last time he was in the mountains is 'I've never been to the mountains,' " Louv said. "And this is in a place where they can see the mountains outside their windows."
The nature gap is just as big a problem in California, where there are more state and national parks than anywhere else in the country. A recent poll of 333 parents by the Public Policy Institute of California found that 30 percent of teenagers did not participate in any outdoor nature activity at all this past summer. Another 17 percent engaged only once in an outdoor activity like camping, hiking or backpacking.
The numbers coincide with national polls indicating that children and teenagers play outdoors less than young people did in the past. Between 1997 and 2003, the proportion of children ages 9 to 12 who spent time hiking, walking, fishing, playing on the beach or gardening declined 50 percent, according to a University of Maryland study.
Kim Strub, a 46-year-old Mill Valley mother of 13- and 16-year-old girls, said kids these days just don't have the time to get out in nature with all the pressure to get good grades and be accepted into a prestigious college.
"There is probably five times as much homework than there used to be when I was a kid," she said.
"I used to be a member of Campfire Girls, and we would go out camping, sleep under the stars, go hiking, grind acorns, real outdoor stuff," Strub said. "My two daughters have been in Girl Scouts, and when they meet it is primarily indoors. Going outdoors is just not a priority anymore."
The lack of outdoor activity is more pronounced in California's minority and lower-income communities. Latino parents, for example, were twice as likely as white parents to say their child never participated in an outdoor nature activity and three times more likely to say their child did not go to a park, playground or beach this past summer, according to the Public Policy Institute poll.
Several African American, Asian and Latino students from various San Francisco high schools admitted they rarely, if ever, go to the neighborhood park, let alone visit a national or state park.
"We are city kids, so we don't get to experience the outdoors," said Ronnisha Johnson, a 17-year-old senior at Philip Burton High School. "I don't like bugs, and most of my friends don't like wild animals. And they don't teach you about the wilderness in school. Kids don't think of it as a park. They just think of it as a big open space where there is nothing to do."
Video games, television and electronic entertainment are undoubtedly part of the problem. Nguyen, a sophomore at San Francisco's Washington High School, is part of a generation of teenage technophiles who always have a cell phone or iPod in their ear.
Nguyen said he plays video games two hours a day on average, but has been known to spend the whole day in front of a new game. He doesn't know anybody who camps, backpacks or who has ever built a tree fort.
Children between the ages of 8 and 18 spend an average of 61/2 hours a day with electronic media, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. The trend starts early. A 2002 study found that 8-year-olds could identify 25 percent more Pokémon characters than wildlife species.
"Everybody is glued to the computer, on Facebook or MySpace, and they're texting all the time," said Brendan Lin, 15, of San Francisco, who wants to be a computer technician when he grows up.
"These kids are becoming so acculturated to very fancy devices that do 50 things at one time that they can't grasp how going out into nature and just looking or relaxing can be rewarding," said Kevin Truitt, the principal of San Francisco's Mission High School. "To go on a hike, to participate in nature, to just look at the beauty is foreign to them."
Louv does not believe technology is the only reason for the lack of exposure to the outdoors. He said sensationalistic reporting of rare occurrences is a big reason why parents are reluctant to let their children out of the house, let alone wander through the woods or down by the creek.
"Every time CNN or Fox makes a huge story about a lost Boy Scout or a bear attack, it feeds the growing fear that parents and kids have of strangers and of nature itself," Louv said. "The actual number of stranger abductions has actually been level or falling for 20 years, but you would never know it from the media. When they get done telling about the crime, they tell about the trial. And when it's a slow news day, they bring up JonBenet Ramsey again."
Entrance fees at state and national parks also serve as barriers, Louv said. In the inner city, lack of maintenance and violence in the parks deter visitation. In the suburbs, neighborhood regulations discourage young people from using open space, Louv said.
"Just try to put up a basketball court in one of these gated communities, let alone build a tree house," Louv said. "Covenants and restrictions in planned communities often give the impression that playing outdoors is illicit and possibly illegal."
The situation has caused great concern among parents, educators and physicians, many of whom believe the epidemic of childhood obesity in America is a direct result of the lack of outdoor activity.
Environmentalists are worried that the next generation won't give a hoot about the spotted owl or other species. Others foresee trouble if children continue to be deprived of the many physical and psychological benefits that studies have shown nature and the outdoors provide.
A nationwide movement has begun to try to reverse the trend and, in many ways, California is leading the way.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger issued a proclamation in July recognizing a children's outdoor bill of rights, which lists 10 activities children should experience by the time they turn 14, including exploring nature and learning how to swim.
The Golden Gate National Recreation Area engages 30,000 school-age children in outdoor and environmental programs in the park every year, many of them ethnic minorities from the inner city. Numerous outdoor education programs for inner-city youngsters have also been implemented at the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, which borders urban areas of Los Angeles.
The National Park Service and a variety of local environmental organizations, including the San Francisco-based Trust for Public Land, Save the Bay, and the Pacific Forest and Watershed Lands Stewardship Council, have joined the effort.
Brendan Lin is an example of how such programs can work. He remembers fondly the one time he went camping on a school graduation trip five years ago or so.
"It was fun because it was quiet and there was no one to bug you. I like that," he said. "I saw deers, squirrels, and I did a rope course."
Louv said he is convinced American youth can once again learn the glory of mucking around in the natural world as opposed to the virtual one.
"We don't all get to go to Yosemite, nor do we have to," he said. "It can be the clump of trees at the end of the cul-de-sac or the ravine by the house. Those places may in terms of biodiversity not be that important, but to a child they can be a whole universe, where they can discover a sense of wonder. That is essential to our humanity, and we can't deny that to future generations."
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/10/22/MN15SJ64U.DTL&tsp=1#ixzz0RUds2DQ1
Recently I read this very complicated study and found the results not all the surprising...We all do better in nature.
Introduction
Attention Restoration Theory (ART) [5] suggests that nature has specific restorative effects on the prefrontal cortex-mediated executive attentional system, which can become depleted with overuse. High levels of engagement with technology and multitasking place demands on executive attention to switch amongst tasks, maintain task goals, and inhibit irrelevant actions or cognitions. ART suggests that interactions with nature are particularly effective in replenishing depleted attentional resources. Our modern society is filled with sudden events (sirens, horns, ringing phones, alarms, television, etc.) that hijack attention. By contrast, natural environments are associated with a gentle, soft fascination, allowing the executive attentional system to replenish. In fact, early studies have found that interacting with nature (e.g., a wilderness hike) led to improvements in proof reading [6], control of Necker Cube pattern reversals [7],[8], and performance on the backwards digit span task [9]. Laboratory-based studies have also reported that viewing slides of nature improved sustained attention [10] and the suppression of distracting information [9]. However, the impact of more sustained exposure to natural environments on higher-level cognitive function such as creative problem solving has not been explored.
To empirically test the intriguing hypotheses that complex cognition is facilitated by prolonged exposure to natural settings and the parallel release from technology immersion, the current research utilized a simple and ecologically valid paradigm of measuring higher order cognitive production in a pre-post design looking at the cognitive facilitative effects of immersion in nature. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first attempt to examine changes in higher-order cognitive production after sustained exposure to nature, while participants are still in the natural environment. The higher order cognitive task used was the Remote Associates Test (RAT) developed by Mednick [11], [12], which has been widely used as a measure of creative thinking and insight problem-solving. Utilizing insight, problem solving, and convergent creative reasoning to effectively connect the cues provided through a mediated relationship (for example: SAME/TENNIS/HEAD = MATCH) is thought to draw on the same pre-frontal cortical structures that are hypothesized to be overtaxed by the constant demands on our selective attention and threat detection systems from our modern, technology-intensive environment.
Methods
Fifty-six (26 Female, average age = 28 years) adults involved in wilderness expeditions run by Outward Bound (http://www.outwardbound.org/) participated in the study. Informed voluntary consent was provided in writing by the Outward Bound organization and was obtained for all participants in the study. The study utilized a between subjects design with 8 hiking groups (half randomly assigned to the pre-hike group and half to the in-hike group). The pre-hike groups backpacked in Alaska (n = 8), Colorado (n = 10), or Maine (n = 6) and the in-hike groups backpacked in Alaska (n = 9), Colorado (n = 14) or Washington (n = 9) and there was no communication between hiking groups. All hikes involved backpacking in the wilderness for 4–6 days and all participants were prohibited from using any electronic technology during the outing. A between-subjects design was selected to avoid unwanted carry-over effects (including collaboration between participants).
The pre-hike participant sample was composed of twenty-four participants (11 Female, average age = 34) and the in-hike group was made up of 32 participants (15 Female, average age = 24). Because age has an effect on the task, age was run as a covariate in subsequent analyses. The pre-hike group completed the RAT measure on the morning before they began their backpacking trip. The in-hike group completed the RAT measure in the morning of the fourth day or their trip. All participants were given an unlimited amount of time to complete 10 Remote Associate Items [13] and the primary dependent variable was the number of correct items provided out of 10 possible. All RAT tasks were completed independently and both analysis of the responses provided and Outward Bound councilors indicated that no collaboration happened between participants.
Results
A simple between-participant ANOVA was utilized. As anticipated, age of participant did significantly influence hit rate for the RAT measure (F(1,53) = 7.20, p<.01, MS = 32.88) and therefore was included as a covariate in the analysis of Group effects. In this analysis we found that the pre-hike group were able to answer fewer RAT items (M= 4.14, SD = .46) than the in-hike group (M = 6.08, SD = .39), F(1,53) = 9.71, p<.01,MS = 44.33, Cohen’s D = 0.86. This represents a 50% increase in performance after four days of exposure to nature.
Discussion
There are multiple candidates for potential mechanisms underlying the effects observed here and in other studies. It is likely that the cognitive benefits of nature are due to a range of these mechanisms and it will require a sustained program of research to fully understand this phenomenon. One suggestion is that natural environments, like the environment that we evolved in, are associated with exposure to stimuli that elicit a kind of gentle, soft fascination, and are both emotionally positive and low-arousing [9]. It is also worth noting that with exposure to nature in decline, there is a reciprocal increase in the adoption of, use, and dependency upon technology [14]. Thus, the effects observed here could represent either removal of the costs associated with over-connection or a benefit associated with a return to a more positive/low-arousing restorative environment.
Exposure to nature may also engage what has been termed the “default mode” networks of the brain, which an emerging literature suggests may be important for peak psychosocial health [15]. The default mode network is a set of brain areas that are active during restful introspection and that have been implicated in efficient performance on tasks requiring frontal lobe function such as the divergent thinking task used here [16]. On a hike or during exposure to natural stimuli which produce soft-fascination, the mind may be more able to enter a state of introspection and mind wandering which can engage the default mode. Interestingly, engaging the default mode has been shown to be disrupted by multimedia use, which requires an external attentional focus, again pointing to the possibility that natural environments such as those experienced by the current participants may have both removed a cost (technology) and added a benefit (activation of brain systems that aid divergent thinking).
This study is the first to document systematic changes in higher-level cognitive function associated with immersion in nature. There is clearly much more research to be done in this area, but the current work shows that effects are measurable, even in completely disconnected natural environments, laying the groundwork for further studies. Much about our cognitive and social experience has changed in our current technology-rich society and it is challenging to fully assess the health costs associated with these changes. Nevertheless, the current research establishes that there are cognitive costs associated with constant exposure to a technology-rich, suburban or urban environment, as contrasted with exposure to the natural environment that we experience when we are immersed in nature. When our research participants spent four days in a natural setting, absent all the tools of technology, the surrounding natural setting allowed them to bring a wide range of cognitive resources to bear when asked to engage in a task that requires creativity and complex convergent problem solving.
A limitation to the current research is the inability to determine if the effects are due to an increased exposure to nature, to a decreased exposure to technology, or to other factors associated with spending three days immersed in nature. In the majority of real-world multi-day hiking experiences, the exposure to nature and technology are inversely related and we cannot determine if one factor has more influence than another. From a scientific perspective, it may prove theoretically important to understand the unique influences of nature and technology on creative problem solving; however, from a pragmatic perspective these two factors are often so strongly interrelated that they may be considered to be different sides of the same coin. We suggest that attempts to meaningfully dissociate the highly correlated real-world effects of nature and technology may be like asking Gestalt psychologists whether figure or ground is more important in perceptual grouping.
In principle, a 2×2 factorial study with high or low levels of nature (N+ or N−, respectively) and high or low levels of technology (T+ or T−, respectively) could shed light on the issue of dissociating the effects of nature and technology on complex problem solving. In the majority of real-world urban environments, T+N− is the norm whereas T−N+ is more common in the outdoor settings. Our research demonstrates that interacting for three days in T−N+ environments (i.e., the in-hike group) results in significant improvements in creative problem solving compared to T+N− environments (i.e., the pre-hike group). The T+N+ condition reflects an interesting situation where the interloper brings technology with them on the hike (assuming there is service and power) and, based on ART, we predict that interacting in this sort of environment would not benefit creative problem solving. The T−N− condition reflects a different scenario in which people interact in urban settings without the use of technology – a condition that is becoming increasingly rare in the modern world. Based upon ART, which places an emphasis on natural environments for maximal restoration, we predict that T−N+ condition would result in superior creative problem solving compared to T−N−condition (assuming that we could convince people to part with their digital technology for three full days). Future research will be required to evaluate these latter predictions.
Acknowledgments
We wish to thank Mr. Jon Frankel and the Outward Bound Organization for their valuable contributions to this work and for their willingness to collaborate with us on this project.
Author Contributions
Conceived and designed the experiments: RAA DLS PA. Performed the experiments: RAA DLS PA. Analyzed the data: RAA PA DLS. Wrote the paper: RAA DLS PA.