Excerpts
Last Child in the Woods
Saving Our Children from Nature-deficit Disorder


A fourth-grader in San Diego: “I like to play indoors
better, ‘cause that’s where all the electrical outlets are.”

by Richard Louv


Nature-deficit disorder describes the human cost of alienation from nature, among them: diminished use of the senses, attention difficulties and higher rates of physical and emotional illnesses.

Today, kids are aware of the global threats to the environment but their physical contact, their intimacy with nature is fading. That’s exactly the opposite of how it was when I was a child.

A kid today can likely tell you about the Amazon rain forest –but not about the last time he or she explored the woods in solitude, or lay in a field listening to the wind or watching the clouds move.

Copious studies show a reduced amount of leisure time experience by American families, more time in front of the TV and computer, and growing obesity among adults and children because of diet and sedentary lifestyles.

In 2002, a British study discovered that the average eight-year old was better able to identify characters from the Japanese card trading game Pokémon than native species in the community where they lived.

. . . new studies suggest that exposure to nature may reduce the symptoms of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), and that is can improve all children’s cognitive ability and resistance to negative stresses and depression.

. . . long-standing studies show a relationship between the absence, or inaccessibility, of parks and open space with high crime rates, depression, and other urban maladies.
In the United States, children ages six to eleven spend about 30 hours a week looking at TV or computer monitor. This study also found that the amount of TV that children watched directly correlated with measures of body fat . . . The obesity epidemic has coincided with the greatest increase in organized sports for children in history . . . The physical and emotional exercise that children enjoy when they play in nature is more varied and less time-bound than organized sports.

Between 2000 and 2003, there was a 49 percent increase in the use of psychotropic drugs – antipsychotics, benzodiazepines, and antidepressants. For the first time, spending on such drugs, if medications for attention disorders are included, surpasses spending on antibiotics and asthma medications for children . . . In fact, new evidence suggests that the need for such medications is intensified by children’s disconnection with nature.

With a sense of urgency, some health professionals say that we should act now on the available knowledge.

As one scientist puts it, we can now assume that just as children need good nutrition and adequate sleep, they may very well need contact with nature.

Now for some good news. Studies suggest that nature may be useful as a therapy for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) . . . Nearly 8 million children in the U.S. suffer from mental disorders and ADHD is one of the more prevalent ones. The disorder often develops before age seven, and is usually diagnosed between the ages of eight and ten . . . Children with the syndrome are restless, and have trouble paying attention, listening, following directions, and focusing on tasks. They may be aggressive, even antisocial, and may suffer from academic failure.

Our brains are set up for an agrarian, nature-oriented existence that came into focus five thousand years ago . . . Neurologically, human beings haven’t caught up with today’s over stimulating environment.

If, as a growing body of evidence recommends, “contact with nature is as important to children as good nutrition and adequate sleep, then current trends in children’s access to nature need to be addressed.”

Time in nature is not leisure time; it’s an essential investment in our children’s health.

The Environmental Protection Agency now warns us that indoor air pollution is the nation’s number one environmental threat to health – and it’s from two to ten times worse than outdoor air pollution.

So where is the greatest danger? Outdoors, in the woods and fields? Or on the couch in front of a TV?

The works of John Muir, Rachel Carson, or Aldo Leopold are seldom if ever taught to children in public schools.

We must reinstate nature science courses in all our academic institutions to insure that students experience nature first-hand and are instructed in the fundamentals of natural sciences . . . Not only is there a huge elitist prejudice against natural history and for microbiology, [but] simple economics almost rule out a change, because good natural history classes must be small. [Paul Dayton]

If we are going to save environmentalism and the environment, we must also save an endangered indicator species: the child in nature.

When it comes to reading skills “the Holy Grail of education reform,” says [David] Sobel, place-based or environment-based education should be considered “one of the knights in shining armor.” Students in these programs typically outperform their peers in traditional classrooms.

As an added bonus, the students in these programs demonstrate better attendance and behaviour than students in traditional classrooms . . . students in the environment-based program had 54 fewer suspensions than other ninth-graders. At Hotchkiss Elementary, teachers had once made 500 disciplinary referrals to the principal’s office in a single year. Two years later, as the environment-based program kicked into gear, the number dropped to 50.

As could be expected, place-based education increases students’ sense of stewardship and environmental consciousness and adds to their sense of attachment to place.

Schools should begin to build significant relationships with nature centres, environmental organizations, and bird sanctuaries, rather than using them for one-shot visits.

I again urge parents, primary and secondary educators, environmental organizations, and policy-makers to weigh the meaning of this loss [ie lack of study of biology and natural history] to education, to creativity and to the natural environment.

Studies of outdoor-education programs geared toward troubled youth – especially those diagnosed with mental health problems – show a clear therapeutic value.