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Now is a good time to show your support for this effort - here's how:
1. Attend Lobby Day - March 16th, 2011
The Wisconsin League of Conservation Voters (WLCV) has declared the Wisconsin Children's Outdoor Bill of Rights a legislative priority for 2011-12. You can show your support and speak directly with legislators about this issue at WLCV's Lobby Day on March 16th. For more information and to register for this exciting and empowering day, visit: Lobby Day 2011.
You are also invited to attend:
WAEE's Lobby Day Breakfast
Immediately preceding WLCV's Lobby Day
9-10am March 16th, 2011
Monona Terrace Room M/Q
Madison
RSVP to WAEE Advocacy Chair, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
There's more you can do:
2. Sign on as a Children's Outdoor Bill of Rights Supporter.
3. Contact Your Legislator to let them know EE is important in Wisconsin and mention the Children's Outdoor Bill of Rights.
4. Forward this information to your colleagues.
What is the Children's Outdoor Bill of Rights?
Children who have the opportunity to explore, learn and play in Wisconsin's outdoors are more likely to be healthy, to do better in school, to experience improved creativity and concentration, and to discover the rewards of outdoor stewardship. To that end, we believe the children of Wisconsin have the right to experience each of the following (draft) activities during their youth:
Every Wisconsin child has the right to:
• Follow a trail, whether by hiking or biking.
• Visit a working farm.
• Eat healthy and sustainable food.
• Splash, swim and play in a clean Wisconsin lake or river.
• Catch and release frogs, fireflies, and insects.
• Tap a maple tree.
• Explore wild places close to home.
• Eat a fish they catch.
• Discover Wisconsin’s diverse wilderness – prairies, forests, wetlands, and beaches.
• Share a hunting experience with a great mentor or teacher.
Why is it important to get involved?
In order to pass this resolution, we need your help! Over a thousand bills and resolutions come across our legislators desks each year but only about 30% are passed. Those that pass do so thanks to people like you. Legislators tell us they are significantly more likely to consider a bill or resolution if they've heard about it from their constituents.
Is the timing right?
Now is a great time speak up for EE: the Children's Outdoor Bill of Rights is a non-budgetary resolution and may be just what legislators are looking for to stand behind (rather than the politically charged "budget repair" bill). However, in order to be heard above the current turmoil and get legislators' support, it's critical the EE community comes forward to declare "EE in our state is important".
Questions?
Need more information or want to learn more about how this venture got started and where it can take us? Visit the Wisconsin Children's Outdoor Bill of Rightswebsite or contact us - we're happy to discuss this exciting project with you:
WAEE
Betsy Parker, Networking & Advocacy Chair
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
(608) 209.2909
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.
We all know how much fun kids have fishing at summer camp. Well, Just because the snow is flying is no reason to think the fish are not biting.
Northern pike and panfish have been providing good action; walleye have been hard to entice. Vehicles are venturing out now that lakes are frozen over, but ice thickness varies. Check with a local guide or bait shop before venturing out. Photo courtesy of Skip Sommerfeldt
The 5th Annual Big Elk and Musser Lake Association Ice Fishing Contest is being held Sat., January 14, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. in Phillips. There will be prizes for adult and youth (under 12) categories, food and raffles; drawings at 4 p.m. 715-339-3166 / 4277
The Phillips Winter Fest Ice Fishing Contest is being held Sun., January 29, from 6 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Lake Duroy. There will be prizes, food and raffles. 1-888-408-4800
As we near Earth Day 2012 it is important that
we all realize that the planting of 1 tree can make a difference.
Read more about How trees change our life
The information provided is in reference to urban forests, but these benefits and values also apply to rural forests.
Canopy, or tree canopy, is a term used to describe the leaves and branches of a tree or group of trees. In an urban forest, tree canopy is important to the potential benefits the forest may provide. In general, the more area it covers and the denser the canopy, the more benefits the trees can provide. Although one tree is better than none, 100 are better still. Whether the benefits are from one tree or many trees, they are all still real and most can be quantified in some way. Often, forest benefits are divided into three categories: social, economic, and ecologic. It is difficult to divide the benefits that the urban forest canopy provides into these categories because so many benefits fall into more than one.
Social Benefits
Just as with a rural forest, an urban forest provides many benefits. Numerous studies have been done about the social
and psychological benefits of “green” in urban environments. The findings of the studies make a strong case for the
importance of urban forests. Urban public housing residents who lived in buildings without trees and grass nearby were
asked about how they cope with major life issues. They reported more procrastination and assessed their issues as more
severe than residents with green nearby.
A study done with children with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) found that children with ADD were better able to focus
and concentrate after playing in natural, green settings, than in settings where concrete was predominant.
Apartment buildings with high levels of greenery have been shown to have approximately half the number of crimes
than those with little or no greenery. The results proved true for both property crimes and violent crimes. A similar study
found that residents living in areas without nearby nature reported more aggression and violence than those living with
nearby green. In addition to these specific studies, access to nature also provides humans with other social benefits.
Parks and other green spaces provide a space for people to play, walk, jog, birdwatch, or just sit quietly. These activities
are good for our physical health in a society that is increasingly sedentary. It is also good for our mental health by
providing a place to unwind. Trees also reduce noise levels.
Economic Benefits
The economic benefits of urban forests are increasingly being documented. Economics often becomes the language
used when it comes to urban forest management. Budgets of municipalities must cover an array of services, and the
benefits of an urban ecosystem must often be proven to secure funding. In a study that considered the costs and
benefits of municipal forests in five U.S. cities, the researchers found that for every dollar spent on trees, the benefits
returned were worth from $1.37 to $3.09. A little math tells us this is clearly a good investment.
Trees save money through reduced energy costs. Cities create what is referred to as a heat island. The concrete, asphalt,
buildings, and other surfaces absorb and hold heat from the sun. During hot summer days, cities can be five to nine
degrees warmer than surrounding areas. Shading, evapotranspiration, and wind speed reduction provided by trees help
conserve energy in buildings. A study conducted in Minneapolis, Minnesota, showed that trees placed in the proper
location can reduce total heating and cooling costs by eight percent.
Homeowners not only reduce costs of heating and cooling their homes, but increase the value of their property by
planting trees. Research suggests that property value can increase three to seven percent when trees are present. Trees
also make homes and neighborhoods more desirable places to live. One economic benefit that urban trees can provide,
but often don’t, is one based on products. Municipalities and tree services across the country have come up with ways
to use the wood that is cut from an urban forest. Products range from specialty furniture, to musical instruments, to
lumber for park shelters, to artwork. The income from selling products from the wood of trees being removed could be used to defray the cost associated with the removal, making trees an even better investment.
Trees and Climate Change
The information about how trees impact climate change is taken from the National Arbor Day website
http://www.arborday.org/globalwarming/treesHelp.cfm, and the American Forest Foundation website
www.americanforests.org/resources/climatechange/
Deciduous trees, planted on the west, east and south sides, will keep your house cool in the summer and let the sun
warm your home in the winter, reducing energy use.
Just three trees, properly placed around a house, can save up to 30% of energy use.
Trees or shrubs planted to shade air conditioners help cool a building more efficiently, using less electricity. A unit
operating in the shade uses as much as 10% less electricity than the same one operating in the sun.
Neighborhoods with well-shaded streets can be up to 6–10° F cooler than neighborhoods without street trees, reducing
the heat-island effect, and reducing energy needs.
Shaded parking lots keep automobiles cooler, reducing emissions from fuel tanks and engines, and helping reduce the
heat-island effect in communities.
Trees absorb carbon dioxide (CO2), the primary gas causing global climate change. Trees retain the carbon (C) from the
CO2 molecule and release oxygen (O2) into the atmosphere. The retained carbon makes up half the dry weight of a tree.
Forests are the world's second largest carbon reservoirs (oceans are the largest). Unlike oceans, however, we can grow
new forests. One acre of forestland will sequester between 150 - 200 tons of CO2 in its first 40 years.
Mom Was Right: Go Outside
- May 25, 2012, 11:26 a.m. ET
- By JONAH LEHRER
Humans are quickly becoming an indoor species.
In part, this is a byproduct of urbanization, as most people now live in big cities. Our increasing reliance on technology is also driving the trend, with a recent study concluding that American children between the ages of 8 and 18 currently spend more than four hours a day interacting with technology.
As a result, there's no longer time for nature: From 2006 to 2010, the percentage of young children regularly engaging in outdoor recreation fell by roughly 15 percentage points.
This shift is occurring even as scientists outline the mental benefits of spending time in natural settings. According to the latest research, untamed landscapes have a restorative effect, calming our frazzled nerves and refreshing the tired cortex. After a brief exposure to the outdoors, people are more creative, happier and better able to focus. If there were a pill that delivered these same results, we'd all be popping it.
Consider a forthcoming paper by psychologist Ruth Ann Atchley and her colleagues at the University of Kansas. To collect their data, the researchers partnered with the nonprofit Outward Bound, which takes people on extended expeditions into nature. To measure the mental benefits of hiking in the middle of nowhere, Dr. Atchley gave 60 backpackers a standard test of creativity before they hit the trail. She gave the same test to a different group of hikers four days into their journey.
The results were surprising: The hikers in the midst of nature showed a nearly 50% increase in performance on the test of creativity, and the effect held across all age groups.
"There's a growing advantage over time to being in nature," says Dr. Atchley. "We think that it peaks after about three days of really getting away, turning off the cellphone. It's when you have an extended period of time surrounded by that softly fascinating environment that you start seeing all kinds of positive effects in how your mind works."
This latest study builds on a growing body of evidence demonstrating the cognitive benefits of nature. Although many of us find the outdoors alienating and uncomfortable—the bugs, the bigger critters, the lack of climate control—the brain reacts to natural settings by, essentially, sighing in relief.
In 2009, a team of psychologists led by Marc Berman at the University of Michigan outfitted undergraduates with GPS receivers. Some of the students took a stroll in an arboretum, while others walked around the busy streets of downtown Ann Arbor.
The subjects were then run through a battery of psychological tests. People who had walked through the natural setting were in a better mood and scored significantly higher on tests of attention and short-term memory, which involved repeating a series of numbers backward. In fact, just glancing at a photograph of nature led to measurable improvements, at least when compared with pictures of cities.
This also helps to explain an effect on children with attention-deficit disorder. Several studies show that, when surrounded by trees and animals, these children are less likely to have behavioral problems and are better able to focus on a particular task.
Scientists have found that even a relatively paltry patch of nature can confer cognitive benefits. In the late 1990s, Frances Kuo, director of the Landscape and Human Health Laboratory at the University of Illinois, began interviewing female residents in the Robert Taylor Homes, a massive housing project on the South Side of Chicago.
Dr. Kuo and her colleagues compared women who were randomly assigned to various apartments. Some had a view of nothing but concrete sprawl, the blacktop of parking lots and basketball courts. Others looked out on grassy courtyards filled with trees and flower beds. Dr. Kuo then measured the two groups on a variety of tasks, from basic tests of attention to surveys that looked at how the women were handling major life challenges. She found that living in an apartment with a view of greenery led to significant improvements in every category.
Cities are here to stay; so are smartphones. What this research suggests, however, is that we need to make time to escape from everyone else, to explore those parts of the world that weren't designed for us. It's when we are lost in the wild that the mind is finally at home.
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Catching frogs from camps own beaver pond is a huge camp sport at Swift Nature Camp. it is a challenge too. The big Bull Frogs put up a big battle to free them selves. We even have a favorite bull from the biggest meanest frog of them all JIMBO. Yes he is our mascot and is pictured on this page.
Catching frogs is one of favorite things to do at this children’s summer camp. One of the best hunting spots is the lamp poles at night. You see the frogs come up from the pond at night looking for food and all the bugs hanging around the light will do just fine.
One might wonder are you eating all these favorite catches. Nope they gan spend on night up at the Nature Center Zoo where they hang with the other animals anc catches then its back to where they were caught at. Next summer, join us for some serious frog catching..
When Swift Campers think of camp they think of playing outdoors in Nature but they automatically think of the animals in our camp zoo and Nature Center. Our campers are crazy for critters and nature and critters. Not only do we have animals at camp we have guest speakers bring in some animals to camp that we all can appreciate. We have lots of animal related activities and offer the opportunity to interact with animals. Plus, you can even bring your own pet from home. How cool is that? An animal camp that lets you bring your own pets!
click to see more photos
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