Developing the Next Generation of Conservationists

A distinct commonality in a majority of conservationist literature emerges upon deeper inspection.  This commonality is that nearly all authors of environmental literature were frequently and consistently exposed to the outdoors during their formative years which had a direct effect on their chosen profession.  They developed a strong and personal attachment to at least one aspect of nature that stayed with them throughout their lives.  This is an important fact, one that cannot be easily overlooked if we as a society wish to pass our own passions of conservation on to the next generation.  Studies show, and our environmentally-minded authors prove, that one must develop a vested interest in the environment from an early age to maintain that passion and drive throughout one’s lifetime.  It is then our responsibility as parents to teach our children to develop an identity steeped in the wilderness around them.  Below is a small sampling of environmental authors and their childhood influences.

Gary Snyder, the Pulitzer-prize winning author of Turtle Island grew up on a stump farm and spent his youth scaling the Cascade Mountains, including a climb to the top of Mount Saint Helens at the age of fifteen. 

John Muir, one of America’s first conservationists, spent the latter half of his childhood on a farm where his only escape from an authoritarian father was his excursions with his brother to explore the Wisconsin fields and woods that surrounded their home.

Wendell Berry, author of over 40 books, including The Unsettling of America: Culture & Agriculture and What Are People For?: Essays, grew up on a tobacco farm that has been in his family for five generations.  He was so influenced by his rural childhood that he spent only about a decade of his entire adult life away from that home.

Edward Abbey, author of eight novels, including The Monkey Wrench Gang, and vocal speaker for the southwestern desert wilderness, spent his childhood hunting squirrels, collecting rocks, and studying plants on frequent hikes through the Appalachian Mountains.

Wallace Stegner, whose 1960 Wilderness Letter aided in establishing the US National Wilderness Preservation System, had his most formative experiences between the ages of 7 and 12 in a rural prairie town in the southwestern corner of Saskatchewan; his memories of this place influenced his writing for the rest of his life.

Rachel Carson, author of the controversial book Silent Spring, spent her childhood on a small farm outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  She was taught a deep love of nature by her mother, who opened her eyes to the tiny lives of insects and birds around local ponds and streams.

William Kittredge, an author famous for his passion for redefining the American West in a way that is more sustainable environmentally, spent his childhood outdoors in southeastern Oregon on his family’s cattle ranch.

Scott Russell Sanders, author of over twenty books, including A Conservationist Manifesto, was heavily influenced by his childhood spent on a farm in Ohio.  His father adored trees and lovingly taught him everything he knew about them.

Aldo Leopold, author of A Sand County Almanac, spent hours each week as a child tramping through the Iowa woods, documenting his bird sightings in the journal he carried with him.  His grandfather inspired him with a love of native flora and birds as soon as he was old enough to toddle after him.

As we have seen in the previous examples, many people, places, and events in childhood will influence us throughout our lives.  What would you have your children learn from you?  As we begin to raise our next generation of Americans, what do we need them to understand most fully?  Of utmost importance is that they recognize our resources are limited.   We have already forced the extinction of numerous species of native plants and animals.  We have sapped the richness from the soil, and built dams that swallowed up entire forests and towns just to continue to propagate our convenient urban or suburban lifestyles.  Industrial factories and massive commercial farms continue to pollute our water supply daily in the name of saving the consumer money.  We must teach our children what we have not yet learned ourselves – respect and stewardship of our natural resources.  If we truly want what’s best for them, we must learn to live sustainably within the confines of resources available to us, and we must show them that treating the environment gently is a long-term investment that will pay off for decades to come. 

Ann Haley Mackenzie wrote an editorial in The American Biology Teacher April 2008 entitled “Call for Action: Life Alerting Environmental Experiences” that discusses this issue at length.  She asks the question, “How can we ensure that [our children] will be responsible adults in regard to the environment?”  Her answer: “Experiences.  Memorable experiences.  Immersion experiences.”  There is no substitute for experiencing something for oneself.  My childhood memories of exploring the fields and waterways behind my grandfather’s house, well out of sight of any adult, are a distant memory.  Now, an entire generation of children are growing up without these free-range experiences, experiences that spurred our imagination, piqued our curiosity, gave us self-confidence, and taught us patience.  Mackenzie quoted a study by Falk and Dierking in 2002 which concluded that only 3-7% of a person’s education is learned at school.  More than 90% of it is learned through experiences, media and “free choice learning.”  It is critical that we, as parents, guide our children to include outdoor experiences in that free choice learning.

In a 1978 study conducted by Thomas Tanner, a professor of environmental studies at Iowa State University, he surveyed staff members and leaders of environmental organizations to determine what their formative influences included.  His conclusion:  “’Far and away the most frequently cited influence was childhood experience of natural, rural, or other relatively pristine habitats’” (Last Child 150).  The majority of environmentalists had daily, unstructured access to natural habitats in which to play and explore.  Environmental psychologist Louise Chowla also surveyed adults conservationists about their childhood and concluded: “’In story after story, activists told about a family member who took the child into woods or gardens and modeled appreciative attention to animals and plants there” (Last Child 151).  From these studies, we may conclude that both free play and adult-guided learning are important to a child developing a lifelong passion for conservation.  Most important is that the child forms a lasting connection with some aspect of the wilderness, whether it be wildflowers, birds, streams, rocks, or weather.

In addition to teaching our children how to enjoy and sustainably utilize the environment, there are various other reasons we should be getting our kids outside on a daily basis.  Richard Louv discusses what he has titled “Nature-Deficit Disorder.”  While not a true medical malady, it simply defines some of the adverse effects that children experience when they suffer from a lack of outdoor interaction.  In today’s society, children average seven hours per day in front of screens, whether it be the television, computer, or smart phone.  As our lives become more sedentary, childhood obesity has skyrocketed.  More children are being diagnosed and prescribed medication for Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, depression, and anxiety than ever before.  Louv discusses studies that show a relationship between the lack of open green spaces and higher crime rates.  His book, Last Child in the Woods spurred a national initiative entitled, “Leave No Child Inside.”  Louv cites numerous studies throughout his book that support the idea that exposing children to free play in a wilderness environment has widely varied emotional and physical benefits, including greater intellectual development, lower stress levels, increased self-confidence, greater creativity, better physical fitness, and an increased ability to concentrate.

Read more about the Children and Nature Movement.

Charter schools are also getting involved in the idea.   Green Woods Charter School in Philadelphia and Oakwood Environmental Education Charter School in Oshkosh, Wisconsin use the outdoors as a classroom as often as possible, even bringing the outdoors inside at times.  Kindergarten students connect with the environment before they learn about its science and ecology.  This enables them to have a foundation on which to build and utilize the knowledge given them.  First grade students learn how to compost food waste.  Fifth grade students might choose a tree around campus to care for and write about throughout the entire school year.  Children from this school have a marked advantage over those who simply learn about the environment by reading a book.  Not only have children at these schools learned the science, they have also experienced it firsthand.

The good news is that getting our children outside is slowly becoming a national movement.  There are so many inherent benefits in free play in the outdoors that many schools and extracurricular groups are trying to make wilderness time a required part of our children’s education.  In the wake of the No Child Left Behind Act, some members of Congress are attempting to pass the No Child Left Inside Act.  Congressman John Sarbanes from Maryland has reintroduced the legislation in every Congress since 2007.

Australia is already ahead of the United States in this respect, as they have previously included environmental principles and practices as a requirement in early childhood education in their Early Years Learning Framework.  Children up to age five are taught about the interdependence between land, people, plants, and animals.  They are taught that human activity impacts the environment, and they are taught how to respect their environment.  Childcare centers seek out the most effective ways to teach conservation and a deeper knowledge of the natural world around them to their youngsters.  Studies conducted in Australia have concluded that experience outdoors is not enough, and simple knowledge is not enough.  Both must be combined in a manner that keeps the child engaged and encourages a personal attachment between the child and the environment.  Brian Wattchow, in The Socioecological Educator: A 21^st Century Renewal of Physical, Health, Environment, and Outdoor Education writes:

At its most basic level, a socio-ecologically inspired educator begins with a sense of attachment, and therefore a desire to sustain, the people, communities, and places where they live and work…As an educator, I think I am working at my best when I can encourage a learner to experience a sense of these connections rather than to have them only think about them.  My hope is that these experiences will be so profound that the student will feel an inevitable call to action to contribute to the unfolding richness of a place and ensure its health into the future (12-3).

Even more good news for us as parents is that we don’t need to wait until our nation passes a law to include experiential environmental education in our children’s curriculum.  We can send our kids outside today, and tomorrow, and every day after.  We can take our kids on a hike to check out an awesome waterfall (one of my personal favorites!).  We can pack a picnic lunch and go to the highest point around to check out the breathtaking view as we eat together.  We can head for the beach and search for shells after a quick dip to cool off.  We can search for fossils in the limestone cliffs.

Would you like more information on how to get your family involved in environmental education or just seek out ideas for playing outside?  Check out the Children and Nature Network website.

Do you live in the Dayton, Ohio area?  By far, our best local resource for outdoors adventures is Five Rivers MetroParks.  Check out their website for a list of current programs, directions to the various MetroParks, trail maps, and ways to get involved in conservation in the community.  Here are a couple of excellent articles on why it's important to expose your children to nature early, and how to get them out there.

As a model for successful conservation education, Five Rivers MetroParks excels.  Their Conservation Kids program includes all the elements of an immersive, personal experience in the natural world with hands-on projects that get children actively involved in the outdoors.  Each tier of the program builds on one another.  First, they start with simply interacting with wild flora and fauna.  Kids get to play in the creeks, catch frogs, or go on an owl expedition at night.  Next, they learn how to protect and monitor the wilderness.  They might count hatchlings in their nests, plant seeds, or check the health of the river.  Finally, they learn how to encourage their friends to get involved with nature, and are shown how to become a conservation leader among their peers.  The program is completed when the child hosts their own naturalist expedition or party for their friends, then returns to the MetroParks to share their experience with others.  Once they have fulfilled all the requirements, they will receive an age-appropriate reward as a reminder of their participation.  What a brilliant way to not only get kids outside, but to instill in them a vested interest in the world around them!

Hey, have your sent your kids outside today?

Works Cited

7yorks.  “Conservation Kids by Fiver Rivers MetroParks.”  Youtube.com.  N.p.  22 Oct 2014.  Web.  21 April 2015.  <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54cYIvX9KaY>.

Anderson, Lorraine, Scott Slovic, and John P. O’Grady.  Literature and the Environment: A Reader on Nature and Culture.  New York: Addison Wesley Longman, 1999.  Print.

Brinkley, Douglas.  Introduction.  The Monkey Wrench Gang.  By Edward Abbey.  New York: Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2000.  Print.

Children & Nature Network Website.  Web.  21 April 2015.  <http://www.childrenandnature.org/>.

Cleaver, Samantha.  “Classrooms are Going Green: How Green Classrooms Are Connecting Kids with Nature.”  Instructor Magazine Nov/Dec 207.  ERIC.  Web.  21 April 2015.

Cutter-Mackenzie, Amy and Susan Edwards.  “Toward a Model for Early Childhood Environmental Education: Foregrounding, Developing, and Connecting Knowledge Through Play-Based Learning.”  The Journal of Environmental Education 44(3), 195-213 (2013). Web.  21 April 2015.

“John Muir: A Brief Biography.”  Sierra Club.  Sierra Club, n.d.  Web.  28 April 2015. <http://vault.sierraclub.org/john_muir_exhibit/life/muir_biography.aspx>.

JunkDrawermedia1.  “Green Woods Charter School.”  Youtube.com.  N.p.  19 May 2010.  Web.  2 May 2015.   <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9g3NDupyMc>.

Leopold, Aldo.  A Sand County Almanac & Other Writings on Ecology and Conservation.  Ed. Cut Meine.  New York: Literary Classics of the United States, 2013.  Kindle file.

“Louv, Richard.”  American Environmental Leaders: From Colonial Times to the Present.  Amenia: Grey House Publishing, 2008.  Credo Reference.  Web.  21 April 2015.

Louv, Richard.  “Children and Nature Movement.”  28 Mar 2007.  Web.  21 April 2015. <http://richardlouv.com/books/last-child/children-nature-movement/>.

---.  Last Child in the Woods.  Chapel Hill: Algonquin Books, 2008.  Kindle file.

Mahoney, Linda.  “Rachel Carson (1907-1964).”  National Women’s History Museum, n.d.  Web.  1 May 2015.  <https://www.nwhm.org/education-resources/biography/biographies/rachel-carson/>.

NCLICoalition.  “Get ‘Em Outside.”  Youtube.com.  N.p.  9 April 2008.  Web.  21 April 2015.  <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRR1feHqZPY>.

Oakes, Elizabeth.  “Berry, Wendell.”   American Writers.  New York: Facts on File, Inc., 2004.  E-book.

Sanders, Scott Russell.  “Biography.”  Scottrussellsanders.com.  N.p.  30 Dec 2013.  Web.  1 May 2015.

“Saskatchewan’s Environmental Champions: Wallace Stegner, 1909-1993.”  Web.  1 May 2015.  <http://econet.ca/sk_enviro_champions/stegner.html>.

Wattchow, Brian, Ruth Jeanes, Laura Alfrey, Trent Brown, Amy Cutter-Mackenzie, and Justen O’Connor, eds.  The Socioecological Educator:  21^st Century Renewal of Physical, Health, Environment and Outdoor Education.  Dordrecht, Netherlands: Springer, 2013.  Adobe Digital Edition file.

www.metroparks.org.  Web.  1 May 2015.