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“Digital Culture Makes Us Less Alive – It’s Time To Stand Up And Start A New Outdoors Movement”

Richard Louv wants children to take nature's course, and find a balance between the our tech-driven society and the outside world

Richard Louv
by Richard Louv
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Finding an appropriate mix of technology and reality should be at or near the top of the list of educational priorities at primary, secondary, and higher education. While educators alone can’t change the trajectory of society, the truth is that too many schools and local councils fail to start or support good programmes to get kids outside.

Currently, the force of economics is on the side of technology and standardised efficiency, even for the youngest children. Some preschools promote themselves by providing every child with an iPad. One over-the-top – or, actually, under-the-bottom – product is the ‘digital iPotty with activity seat for iPad’ for potty-training infants. It comes with a built-in iPad stand and can, according to the manufacturers, be used with ‘dozens of helpful potty training apps’.

In 2012, a special report in The Washington Monthly projected that, thanks to artificial intelligence, the need for standardised testing will fade away, replaced by what proponents call ‘stealth assessment’ – non-stop electronic monitoring of students, employing systems similar to ones supermarkets use to track inventory. Most learning will occur through cutting-edge software, ‘often in the form of video games’ – ‘Grand Test Auto’, as the Monthly’s headline writer called it. Or at least that’s the goal.

Today, children and adults who work and learn in a dominating digital environment expend enormous energy blocking out many of the human senses – including ones we don’t even know we have – in order to focus narrowly on the screen in front of the eyes. That’s the very definition of being less alive. What parent wants his or her child to be less alive? Who among us wants to be less alive?

The point here is not to be against technology, but to find balance. When it comes to shaping the future of our schools, there is no economic force as powerful as the technology industry. Therefore, the only force strong enough to effectively stand up for balance in education will be a social one: parents, teachers, paediatricians, psychologists, and other caring adults who are building a new nature movement. Ignite natural learning in your classroom with some of these outdoor ideas.

Read outdoors

Solitary reading outside offers special resonance, perhaps because our senses are more stimulated under a tree than next to a TV. Read books that inspire students to explore nature, or ones specific to natural history – especially the natural history of their own backyard, city, and bioregion.

Make a root viewer

While we know that roots help plants absorb water and nutrients from the soil, they may be more complex than you think.

Plant roots use their hairs to feel around the soil. Recent research from the John Innes Centre showed just how: the hairs absorb nutrients by releasing a unique protein at their tips. When the hairs hit rocks or other obstacles, they stop taking up nutrients, which in turn signals the root to find another path and start creating protein again.

Fill clear cups or bottles about four-fifths full with soil. Plant a seed or two in each cup, close to the edge. Place near a sun source. Water, and observe as roots form and plants sprout. If you get really carried away with this project, you could be like Joe Atherton, who grows his world record–setting carrots in 21 foot-long plastic tubes.

Study bird behavior

This activity is suggested by nature educator Herb Broda. ‘Many common birds such as jays, sparrows and starlings relish table scraps. To test bird feed colour preference, add natural food colouring (eg beetroot juice, carrot juice, blueberry juice etc) to cooked macaroni and offer birds their choice of blue, orange, pink or uncoloured food. Encourage students to generate predictions about how birds will react to the coloured food.’

Experience shades of green

Ask your students to collect small samples of differing shades of green that they find in the school grounds. Task them with finding five to 15 different colours then give each child a cardboard strip.

‘I slice up old manila file folders into two-inch-wide strips’, says Herb Broda, ‘then place a piece of masking tape, sticky side up, along the entire length. Tell your students to look carefully at the collected samples and arrange them on the cardboard strip from lightest to darkest. It works especially well if you limit the search area to a small space’, Herb advises. ‘Emphasise that although it’s OK to collect in school today, we shouldn’t sample anywhere else unless we have special permission.’

Hold a scavenger hunt

Scavenger hunts need no preparation or materials. They can re-energise flagging attention and be related to concepts being taught in school. For example, ask the children to use their senses to find a soft object, something that makes a sound, smells good, is sticky or prickly.

Alternatively, gather an item for each letter of the alphabet, find geometric shapes in nature (eg circles, squares, triangles), or look for a bird, squirrel or insect home (be sure to stress that homes are not to be disturbed).

Other possibilities include finding ten examples of weathering or camouflage, something funny, sad, tired, old or young. Seek out things that will not be here next year, next month, tomorrow. The Woodland Trust has comprehensive scavenger hunt downloads on its website, as does the RSPB.

Start a wonder bowl

Kids, particularly the younger ones, like to fill their pockets with natural wonders – acorns, rocks, mushrooms. ‘Wonder bowls’ are useful in classrooms, particularly in the early years.

In addition to facilitating the child’s desire to hunt and gather, they are a good way to collect items for show-and-tell and further study. To polish prized stones, use an inexpensive rock tumbler.

Play poohsticks

Herb Broda suggests an activity that comes directly from The House at Pooh Corner by AA Milne. The perfect setting is a small bridge over a slow-flowing stream, although the activity could be done from the riverbank if there is no bridge nearby.

The activity is simple: two or more players drop their sticks at the same time from the upstream side of the bridge. The challenge is to see whose stick first appears on the other side. It’s amazing how a simple challenge like this can engage children (and adults) for quite a long time.

‘Of course you can ‘schoolify’ the activity by talking about rate of flow or stick trajectory’, says Herb. ‘But this really is an activity to do just for fun – to share a moment of exuberance with a group of children.’


Richard Louv is the author of seven books, including Vitamin N: The Essential Guide to a Nature-Rich Life (£12.99, Atlantic Books).

For more information, visit richardlouv.com.


Author image credit: Eric B Dynowski

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