What effect does outdoor nature play have on children?

What current researchers are saying:

- Contact with the natural world can significantly reduce symptoms of attention deficit disorder in children as young as five years old. (Kuo and Taylor, 2004)
- Access to green spaces for play, and even a view of green settings, enhances peace, self-control and self-discipline within inner city youth, and particularly in girls. (Taylor, Kuo and Sullivan, 2001).
- Nature is important to children’s development in every major way–intellectually, emotionally, socially, spiritually and physically. (Kellert, 2005)
- Play in nature is especially important for developing capacities for creativity, problem-solving, and intellectual development. (Kellert, 2005)
- Proximity to, views of, and daily exposure to natural settings increases children’s ability to focus and enhances cognitive abilities. (Wells, 2000)
- Positive experience in the out-of-doors and being taken outdoors by someone close to the child–a parent, grandparent, or other trusted guardian–are the two factors that most contribute to individuals choosing to take action to benefit the environment as adults. (Chawla, 2006)

Watch the video
Richard Louv, Nature Clubs on Today Show
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Richard Louv is chairman of the Children & Nature Network and the author of seven books, including his most recent, “Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder” (Algonquin). He is the recipient of the 2008 Audubon Medal. Past recipients have included Rachel Carson, E.O. Wilson and Jimmy Carter. He has served as an adviser to the Ford Foundation’s Leadership for a Changing World award program, is a member of the Citistates Group, appears often on national radio and television programs, and speaks frequently in the United States and overseas. He has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other newspapers and magazines, and was a columnist for The San Diego Union-Tribune and Parents magazine.


For More Information
home.howstuffworks.com/easy-nature-activities-for-kids.htm
familyfun.go.com/parenting/learn/activities/feature/FGP_nature/


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