Earth Day is just around the corner and, as it does every year, it’s got me thinking about my relationship to the planet. When I was a kid growing up in rural Kentucky, some of my best memories are of the hikes my friends and I used to take through the woods and up to the top of the hill behind our house to have picnics. It was a pre-tech world (before computers, cell phones, and Ipods) when kids created their own recreation. Our family vacations often consisted of camping trips to state parks with my grandparents, where we’d sleep in tents and I’d spend the days fishing alongside my grandmother. These experiences gave me a deep appreciation for nature. Are they related to my motivation to do what I can to improve the environment? What does research tell us about this topic?
Nancy Wells, an environmental psychologist in the Design and Environmental Analysis Department of the College of Human Ecology, has researched childhood exposure to nature and adult attitudes toward the environment. In her article Nature and the Life Course: Pathways from Childhood Nature Experiences to Adult Environmentalism, she examined the question of what specific activities or events in a child’s life might set them on a path toward later-life commitment to environmental attitudes and behaviors. Wells and her colleague, Kristi Lekies, examined interviews of 2000 adults living in urban environments who were questioned about their childhood exposure to nature. Results from the analysis of their responses provide insight into the origins of commitment to pro-environmental values.
Wells and Lekies found that exposure to “wild” nature (hiking, playing in the woods, hunting, fishing, etc.) and “domesticated” nature (picking flowers, gardening, etc.) both have a positive relationship to adult environmental attitudes. In addition, they found that “wild nature” participation was positively associated with environmental behaviors, while “domesticated nature” participation was marginally related to environmental behaviors.
So, the take away message is that it’s important to encourage children in every way we can to spend time outside in nature. This is one very concrete thing each of us can do to contribute to the development of healthy children who feel connected to the environment, and, in turn, work to improve it later on in their lives. I’ll always be grateful to my parents and grandparents for giving me this enduring gift. And now, as an adult, I wouldn’t trade it for anything.
Rhoda,
Your post made me remember how all of the children in my neighborhood were basically outside all the time during the summer, with the familiar sound around 5 PM of parents yelling down the street for us to come in for dinner. It never occurred to us that there was anything better to do than spend time outside playing a variety of games, riding bikes, etc. In part, parents felt less inclined to monitor their children’s whereabouts and we had freedom to wander. I wonder to what extent in relatively safe neighborhoods this kind of unorganized outdoor play goes on.
Karl