News
Summer Camp and Connecting Kids with Nature
Canada Camps for Parents - March 02, 2010
By Mellisa Yollick
Is it blackberry or BlackBerry? In today’s world, since we have fewer and fewer direct experiences with nature in our daily lives, chances are most children today will be more familiar with the latter, rather than the former.
Even the Junior Oxford English Dictionary has been modified over the years replacing a collection of nature-focused words with ones that more accurately reflect today’s school curriculum and general language. Words such as raven, cheetah and blackberry have disappeared, only to be substituted with blog, MP3 player and yes, BlackBerry.
The dictionary is just one piece of evidence that children are slowly losing their connection to the outside world. Although most school curricula include environmental education, they do so in a very different way than in years before, by teaching children about global warming and pollution instead of establishing a true connection and love for the outside world by providing first-hand experiences with nature. This is where a summer camp experience in the great outdoors comes into play.
“When children get to bond with nature in their everyday lives, then they will grow up to care about it,” says Cheryl Charles, president of the Children & Nature Network, an American-based organization that stresses the importance of children experiencing nature and the outdoors. “That’s just the way it has worked throughout all of human history. And what’s important about this now is that in the last 30 years, and escalating in the last 10 years, this disconnect has been occurring.”
There is an abundance of research to support the benefits of children experiencing nature. Findings include healthy development, better concentration and understanding about the world around us.
In addition to the Children & Nature Network, many other associations have popped up to promote the importance of bringing children back in touch with nature. In Canada, The Robert Bateman Get to Know Program is one example, and its website lists research to support its cause. According to a 2006 study, children who spend time in natural areas while growing up will likely become adolescents who appreciate and value the multiple benefits of wildlife.
Another study, circa 2004, found that increasing children’s environmental literacy and providing them with skills and knowledge helps them develop into good stewards of the natural communities where they play and live.
Simply experiencing nature in a natural setting teaches children about their environment and the importance of caring for the outside world in a way that is not possible inside a classroom.
The Centre for Urban Ecology at the Humber Arboretum in Toronto runs a year-round nature camp that focuses on teaching children about nature through first-hand experience. Vicki Griffiths, its nature interpreter and camp director, promotes the benefits of outside experiences as they allow for unanticipated learning. At the centre, children get to see wildlife in their own habitat, and they use these encounters to connect children to nature.
“[Children] need to see what’s happening in order to make a connection. You can be told something a hundred times, but especially with younger kids, they need those hands-on experiences to understand,” explains Griffiths.
Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ont., also runs an eco-literacy adventure camp. “When children get the opportunity to experience something first-hand it becomes more real to them as they can relate to it because they saw it with their own eyes. When the majority of childrens’ senses are being used, including touch, they feel it is real,” says Connie Anzew, administrative assistant in the Faculty of Education, Department of Lifelong Learning at Lakehead. “Children who have experienced nature first-hand are more aware of their surroundings, therefore they are more conscious of what they are doing to the environment.”
Twelve-year-old Meriel Lepra has been a camper at Humber’s nature camp for the past few years. She loves the experience and all the wildlife she gets to see that she never knew existed. “One time we were walking and we came a cross a deer, a fawn and a mother, and they were probably one metre in front of us,” she recalls. “I think I could have touched them if I wanted to but I didn’t want to scare them. They went behind a bush and got another baby and ran across, and that was a really great experience. I really can’t describe it. I was looking at them and they were looking at me. It was just incredible.”
Looking towards the future, what would happen if today’s generation becomes detached from the natural world? Becs Hoskins, the executive director of The Child and Nature Alliance, a virtual network of organizations working to connect children to nature, cautions that without direct experiences with nature, children can’t understand why they would need to protect our environment.
“We are in jeopardy of building a generation of kids who don’t understand why they need to care about their environment,” says Becs. “If there’s a generation that misses being able to connect with nature, then they are less likely to inspire their own children to spend time in nature.”
The first step in nurturing environmental champions is to allow children to love and appreciate nature, and the best way to do this is to simply let them go outside and explore. And what better place than summer camp for this to happen — a place where children can develop a strong connection with nature
and spend day after day in a safe, natural setting, learning how to share this environment with their “wild neighbours.”
Eight-year-old Luca Bidini had his first experience at Humber’s nature camp last summer, and he was exposed to things he had never seen before. “I actually got to see a grasshopper shed out of his skin and I found one and got to touch it and carry it around,” he says. “We saw deer, turtles, frogs and groundhogs. I was just amazed because I never saw a deer before. We also saw a beaver. I used to be afraid of animals but now because I know what they all are, I’m not afraid. It makes me feel way better that I know all about animals.”
Environmental education starts by exposing children at an early age to nature, learning to love it on their own terms. It doesn’t have to include formal education. The connection to nature can begin by satisfying a curiosity of the world around them. At summer camp, nature abounds and environmental learning can be absorbed, so children can have their blackberries, and eat them too.
© Canada Camps for Parents
posted February 10th, 2010
See below for Environment Canada’s Nature Matters! contest to celebrate the International Year of Biodiversity! Tell them why you love nature!
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Environment Canada is celebrating 2010 International Year of Biodiversity (IYB) with a national contest on why nature matters to Canadians. IYB 2010 is a celebration of life on earth and of the value of biodiversity for our lives. To help raise awareness of the importance of biodiversity, we would love to hear from Canadians between the ages of 9 and 35.
We encourage you to take part in these exciting celebrations by telling us why nature is important to you! Entries can be EITHER video essay OR written essay.
Contest dates
Submissions must be made through this webpage between January 28, 2010 and February 28, 2010 at 11:59PM EST. Winners will be notified the week of April 19, 2010 and announced on International Biodiversity Day, May 22, 2010.
Awards
One winner and two runners up will be selected from each age group, in each of the two categories.
- The six grand prize winners will be invited to Ottawa to attend the Grand Re-opening Event of the Canadian Museum of Nature on International Biodiversity Day, May 22, 2010 where their achievement will be announced.
- Grand prize winning essays will be enlarged to poster size and displayed in public art panels outside Environment Canada’s premier museum, the Biosphere in Montreal
- Grand prize winning video essays will be projected for Canadian and international visitors at the Biosphere in Montreal during 2010
- Grand prize winning and runner-up essays will be published to the website of the Canadian Biodiversity Information Network, a shared public resource of our Federal, Provincial, and Territorial governments
- Grand prize winning and runner-up essays will be announced through Environment Canada’s network of national education and environment organizations, reaching well over two million people
Competition rules, terms and conditions
One entry per person.
Open to Canadian citizens and permanent residents of Canada. Employees of Environment Canada and their immediate family members and any persons involved in judging the contest entries are prohibited from entering the contest.
Submissions will be accepted in either official language.
Written essay evaluation criteria:
- Good understanding of the theme
- Clarity of expression, ideas and content
- Originality/Creativity
- Writing style and grammar
- Clarity, legibility and organization
- Length (for entrants in the 9-13 age group)
250-500 words
(maximum 3000 characters including spaces)
- Length (other age groups)
500-750 words
(maximum 5000 characters including spaces)
Video essay evaluation criteria: Good understanding of the theme
- Clarity of expression, Ideas and content
- Originality/Creativity
- Composition and visual effectiveness
- Duration (for entrants in the 9-13 age group) 1 to 2 minutes
- Duration (other age groups) 2 to 3 minutes
Click here to APPLY.
posted February 9th, 2010
Honourary Chair, Richard Louv, renowned author of Last Child in the Woods and leader in the worldwide movement to reconnect children to nature, will be on CBC’s Metro Morning (Toronto) with host Andy Barrie at 6:50 am (ET) on Wednesday, February 10. Click this link for a live feed: http://www.cbc.ca/metromorning/
posted February 6th, 2010
When you’ve seen a child’s drawing inspire an architect to greatness, you know the truth: kids are play experts if given half a chance. This is why Georgia Tech and the Atlanta Taskforce on Play (ATOP) are joining together to put on PLAYABLE 2010: INTERNATIONAL DESIGN COMPETITION.
PLAYABLE KIDS is the first phase of the competition and where they’re asking kids to draw pictures of what fun and play feel like and look like to them. The deadline is February 26, 2010, so they hope you’ll get your children involved soon! The drawings will be presented to the architects, industrial designers, landscape architects, artists, etc. who enter the grownup phase of the competition. Just as the architect in the treehouse above (Amy Leathers, Lord-Aeck & Sargent, Atlanta) took her cue from Michael’s drawing, so will the new competitors.
Please encourage any children you know to enter PLAYABLE KIDS! It will be fun and they’ll be able to have an effect on the future of play.
posted February 4th, 2010
Child and Nature Alliance Director Dr. Mark Tremblay (Director, Healthy Active Living and Obesity Research Group (HALO) &Scientist and Professor, Department of Pediatrics, University of Ottawa) discusses Canada’s concerning physical health and obesity trends with Peter Mansbridge on One-on-One. Mark builds the case for active outdoor play for children, families and adults as an answer to Canada’s pressing physical health and activity problems. For more information on the trends, go to our previous blog post.
Follow this link and click on ‘watch the episode’ - http://www.cbc.ca/mansbridge/2010/01/mark_tremblay.html
Tell us your thoughts on this video - what can we do do get all Canadians, particularly children and youth, active and healthy? How can we build the politcal will?
posted February 4th, 2010
posted February 2nd, 2010
In response to the alarming trends in obesity in the US, the Surgeon General just released a vision for a healthy and fit nation. The vision includes specific recommendations for spending time outside. Working with our sister organization in the US, the Children and Nature Network, we are striving to help Canada take quick and substantial action to increase active outdoor play in all Canadian communities. This vision set forth by the US Surgeon General can serve as a great example of what it possible.
Link to press release.
The Surgeon General’s Vision for a Healthy and Fit Nation Fact Sheet
Today’s epidemic of overweight and obesity threatens the historic progress we have made in increasing American’s quality and years of healthy life. The hard facts:
- Two-thirds of adults and nearly one in three children are overweight or obese.
- 70% of American Indian/Alaskan Native adults are overweight or obese.
- The prevalence of obesity in the U.S. more than doubled (from 15% to 34%) among adults and more than tripled (from 5% to 17%) among children and adolescents from 1980 to 2008.
- An obese teenager has over a 70% greater risk of becoming an obese adult.
- Obesity is more common among non-Hispanic black teenagers (29%) than Hispanic teenagers (17.5%) or non-Hispanic white teenagers (14.5%).
To stop the obesity epidemic in this country, we must remember that Americans will be more likely to change their behavior if they have a meaningful reward- something more than just reaching a certain weight or dress size. The real reward has to be something that people can feel and enjoy and celebrate. That reward is invigorating, energizing, joyous health. It is a level of health that allows people to embrace each day and live their lives to the fullest – without disease, disability, or lost productivity. To be a nation that is Healthy and Fit.
Key actions outlined in The Surgeon General’s Vision for a Healthy and Fit Nation include:
Individual Healthy Choices and Healthy Home Environments - Change starts with the individual choices Americans make each day for themselves, their families and those around them. To help achieve and maintain a healthy lifestyle, Americans of all ages should: reduce consumption of sodas and juices with added sugars; eat more fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and lean proteins; drink more water and choose low-fat or non-fat dairy products; limit television time to no more than 2 hours per day; and be more physically active.
Creating Healthy Child Care Settings - It is estimated that over 12 million children ages 0–6 years receive some form of child care on a regular basis from someone other than their parents. Child care programs should identify and implement approaches that reflect expert recommendations on physical activity, screen time limitations, good nutrition, and healthy sleep practices. Parents should talk with their child care providers about changes to promote their children’s health.
Creating Healthy Schools - Each school day provides multiple opportunities for students to learn about health and practice healthy behaviors such as regular physical activity and good nutrition. To help students develop life-long healthy habits, schools should provide appealing healthy food options including fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains, water and low-fat or non-fat beverages. School systems should also require daily physical education for students allowing 150 minutes per week for elementary schools and 225 minutes per week for secondary schools.
Creating Healthy Work Sites - The majority of the 140 million men and women who are employed in the United States spend a significant amount of time each week at their work site. Because obesity reduces worker productivity and increases health care costs, employers are becoming more aware of the need to help promote health within the workplace. Employers can implement wellness programs that promote healthy eating in cafeterias, encourage physical activity through group classes and stairwell programs and create incentives for employees to participate.
Mobilizing the Medical Community - Doctors and other health care providers are often the most trusted source of health information and are powerful role models for healthy lifestyle habits. Medical care providers must make it a priority to teach their patients about the importance of good health. When discussing patients’ Body Mass Index (BMI), providers should explain the connection between BMI and increased risk for disease and, when appropriate, refer patients to resources that will help them meet their physical, nutritional, and psychological needs.
Improving Our Communities - Americans need to live and work in environments that help them practice healthy behaviors. Neighborhoods and communities should become actively involved in creating healthier environments. Communities should consider the geographic availability of their supermarkets, improving residents’ access to outdoor recreational facilities, limiting advertisements of less healthy foods and beverages, building and enhancing infrastructures to support more walking and bicycling, and improving the safety of neighborhoods to facilitate outdoor physical activity.
posted January 28th, 2010
On February 12 - 15, join a network of North American bird-watchers, young and old, in the Great Backyard Bird Count! What a great way to get outside this winter! For more information and to participate go to: http://www.birdsource.org/gbbc/
posted January 28th, 2010
ANDRE PICARD
From Friday’s Globe and Mail - January 15, 2010 at 8:35 AM EST - Link to article here.
The numbers are in and they are, predictably, ugly: Canadians are heavier, wider and weaker than they were a generation ago.
According to Statistics Canada, we are packing on the pounds at an alarming rate, and that weight is accumulating principally around the belly, where it has the most potential to damage our health.
What is noteworthy about the new data is that researchers went out and weighed, skin-pinched and exercised thousands of Canadians instead of relying on traditional self-reported data (known colloquially as little white lies).
The most troubling revelation in the measures was the decline in the fitness of Canadian children and youth between 1981 and 2009.
The numbers tell us that members of Generation Wii Flabby can barely muster a few sit-ups, they are left breathless by couple of minutes of step-ups, and their average grip strength is barely enough to hang on to a Big Gulp.
The Canadian Health Measures Survey was a big undertaking (excuse the pun). In the months and years to come, there will be much more research published – on blood pressure, cholesterol and exposure to metals and chemicals – that will offer even more insight into the health status of Canadians.
The sole job of Statistics Canada – one it does extremely well – is to measure. They have catalogued a duel epidemic of obesity and inactivity, one that we know will have vast consequences for our economy, our health system and various other aspects of life.
What we need now is a response: We need action from politicians, policy-makers, community groups and individuals.
Yet, leadership has been sorely lacking in this area. We simply don’t take the issue seriously.
Instead we trot out lame excuses like “Canadians aren’t fatter, they’re just bigger” and we hide behind rhetorical notions like “people’s weight and fitness are personal choices.”
Nobody chooses to be fat, and nobody wants to be unfit. It’s unpleasant and it invariably leads to sickness, social limitations and hefty costs.
The blame for our current Fat Nation lies with all of us. We have built an obesogenic society – one that facilitates and encourages inactivity and weight gain at every turn (or, more accurately, at every sit).
We have engineered activity out of our daily lives. Everything has a button, from the TV remote control to the pepper grinder.
So determined are we to see our children succeed that we sit them on their behinds in a classroom seven hours a day and pretend that is a complete education. After-hours, there is homework and a bevy of regimented activities, from music lessons to hockey games. Free time is sitting at home in front of the TV, chatting on Facebook, or playing Xbox.
As we grapple for solutions, we too often forget that the solution to inactivity is not exercise (structured, regimented, goal-oriented), and it is not a token gym class crammed into a hectic schedule, it is making activity an integral part of everyday life.
Running, jumping, skipping, tobogganing, playing tag, walking to school, taking the stairs – that’s what children need to be healthy, physically and mentally. (Adults too.)
But in the age of terrorists-around-every-corner, we have developed a strange set of phobias and misplaced priorities.
There is a pervasive fear about the safety of children, so we don’t let them walk to school, or play in the park or ride their bikes. But we let them sit in front of the TV for five hours eating processed foods.
Parents mean well but seem to have lost sight of what really matters. To have money to give their children everything they need and then some, they work themselves to the bone and move to the long-commute suburbs for a “better life.”
Hence, they have no time to play with their children, no time to cook at home (so take-out and processed food becomes the daily diet) and no time to care for themselves.
Stranger danger – the fear a child will be harmed by a stranger – is exceedingly rare. But the danger done to our children’s health by modelling unhealthy and unsustainable lifestyles is very real.
The new Statistics Canada data scream out a sad reality: Our children have learned the lessons we have modelled all too well.
Twenty-six per cent of children aged 6 to 11 are overweight or obese, and that number rises to 28 per cent in teens. Then the inactivity really begins to show.
Sixty-one per cent of Canadian adults are overweight or obese. And don’t forget they didn’t have the head start on weight accumulation that their children have.
Collective and individual action is required. Falling to act will have dire consequences.
Are we prepared – as one researcher said – to mortgage our children’s future? If so, choose inaction, and inactivity.
Otherwise, we need to, individually and collectively, recalibrate – get our priorities straight by putting the health of children at the top.
It starts with a little action, some activity and play, glorious play.
posted January 26th, 2010
From the Globe and Mail, January 25th, 2010:
Technology is enslaving a generation of children and teenagers, and parents are capitulating to it. They do not know where the Pied Piper of video games, cellphones, Wii games, iPods and TVs is leading their children. And there is little evidence that they care to know. Childhood is now an agglomeration of screens, rather than being given over to free play.
To read more - click below.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/editorials/mesmerized-by-screens/article1442650/
