Kids lose touch with natural world..can't identify common animals

[Liberal_in_LA]

Note: British study. I could not identify a 'Blue tit" either.

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/attenborough-alarmed-as-children-are-left-flummoxed-by-test-on-the-natural-world-882624.html

Attenborough alarmed as children are left flummoxed by test on the natural world

By Sarah Cassidy, Education Correspondent
Friday, 1 August 2008

Children have lost touch with the natural world and are unable to identify common animals and plants, according to a survey.

Half of youngsters aged nine to 11 were unable to identify a daddy-long-legs, oak tree, blue tit or bluebell, in the poll by BBC Wildlife Magazine. The study also found that playing in the countryside was children's least popular way of spending their spare time, and that they would rather see friends or play on their computer than go for a walk or play outdoors.

The survey asked 700 children to identify pictured flora and fauna. Just over half could name bluebells, 54 per cent knew what blue tits were and 45 per cent could identify an oak. Less than two-thirds (62 per cent) identified frogs and 12 per cent knew what a primrose was.

Children performed better at identifying robins (95 per cent) and badgers, correctly labelled by nine out of 10.

[skooooo]

1. More like losing touch with picture books.

[whistle]

2. From Blade Runner (1982)

<snip>
Holden: You're in a desert, walking along in the sand, when all of a sudden you look down...
Leon: What one?
Holden: What?
Leon: What desert?
Holden: It doesn't make any difference what desert, it's completely hypothetical.
Leon: But, how come I'd be there?
Holden: Maybe you're fed up. Maybe you want to be by yourself. Who knows? You look down and see a tortoise, Leon. It's crawling toward you...
Leon: Tortoise? What's that?
Holden: <irritated by Leon's interruptions> You know what a turtle is?
Leon: Of course!
Holden: Same thing.
Leon: I've never seen a turtle... But I understand what you mean.
Holden: You reach down and you flip the tortoise over on its back, Leon.
Leon: Do you make up these questions, Mr. Holden? Or do they write 'em down for you?
Holden: The tortoise lays on its back, its belly baking in the hot sun, beating its legs trying to turn itself over, but it can't. Not without your help. But you're not helping.
Leon: <angry at the suggestion> What do you mean, I'm not helping?
Holden: I mean you're not helping! Why is that, Leon?
<Leon has become visibly shaken>
Holden: They're just questions, Leon. In answer to your query, they're written down for me. It's a test, designed to provoke an emotional response... Shall we continue?

[VWolf]

10. OMG what a great film

My ATF sci-fi flick

[whistle]

18. Mine too, I first saw the film on cable TV in the late 1980s went right out and bought

...the VHS tape which was all they had back then. Later I got a laserdisc player and Blade Runner was part of my early films I got. Then a few years ago I got a European version of the film on DVD which has a completely different ending and is about 8 minutes longer than the U.S. release. It also has Harrison Ford doing the narration. It really is a great movie.

<snip> Blade Runner was based on this science fiction novel:


Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
By Philip K. Dick

Originally published in 1968
Trade paperback published by Del Ray
Currently available

Basis for the 1982 film Blade Runner


Plot Summary:
By 2021, the World War had killed millions, driving entire species into extinction and sending mankind off-planet. Those who remained coveted any living creature, and for people who couldn't afford one, companies built incredibly realistic simulacrae: horses, birds, cats, sheep. . . They even built humans.

Emigrees to Mars received androids so sophisticated it was impossible to tell them from true men or women. Fearful of the havoc these artificial humans could wreak, the government banned them from Earth. But when androids didn't want to be identified, they just blended in.

Rick Deckard was an officially sanctioned bounty hunter whose job was to find rogue androids, and to retire them. But cornered, androids tended to fight back, with deadly results.


http://www.philipkdick.com/works_novels_androids.html

[BrklynLiberal]

3. This is the same generation that cannot imagine the hamburgers they eat were once cows grazing out

in the field.

[hedgehog]

4. Let's see them identify this:

Racoon, my ass!

[Mabus]

5. Looks like McCain forgot his sun tan lotion

and stayed outside a little bit too long. :evilgrin:

[RaleighNCDUer]

7. A shell-less turtle?

That's what it looks like to me.

[hedgehog]

9. Do turtles have teeth?

[RaleighNCDUer]

19. OK, what looks like a beak in that picture looks different

in the picture posted below - and no, I didn't notice the lower teeth in the first pic.

It is a weird picture, in any case.

[XemaSab]

37. I think it's the broken off bones in the nose

:shrug:

[JHB]

14. A better photo has turned up

See thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3713903

[blindpig]

6. television, electronic games, over-organized activities....

small wonder.

Even growing up in a large, rather blighted city, I could walk down to the railroad tracks and right of way and see critters, plants. Too dangerous now, little Johnny must be SUPERVISED.

Today's children will be the perfect citizens of the authoritarian, ecocided future, where all sensory input will be manufactured, edited and approved safe, with your mind in mind.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

8. Pretty stupid test.

Most of the questions even an adult could have guessed "toad" instead of "frog," "salamander" instead of "newt," "elk" instead of "deer," "jay" instead of "magpie," and any number of trees instead of "oak."

And that robin and goldfinch look nothing like the North American birds.

[malakai2]

20. Of course they look nothing like North American species

This was targeted at British children. Therefore the species used were local species like red deer (not elk), magpie (not jay), and so on. Those birds (and many others) look superficially like the new world species, so colonials sometimes called the new world species "American such and such," like American robin and American goldfinch. When we say robin, we almost always mean American robin, same for goldfinch, but it's clear enough when we are talking to other people from the same area who understand the same colloquial speech. As for the oak tree, that would be like showing a pine to children from the American intermountain west, southeast up through New England, and the Great Lakes region. Most would say pine, not cedar or spruce or hemlock.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

22. Nevertheless, it remains a stupid test.

[Odin2005]

29. American Elk and European Red Deer are considered different populations of the same species, IIRC.

n/t

[malakai2]

38. I don't think so

That was the common view not so long ago, I think the current view is that European red deer and wapiti split from an ancestral group in central Asia, and that the remaining Asian red deer are more closely related to the European red deer than to wapiti. Of course, your answer will depend on how you define a species. If the ability to produce fertile offspring is all that matters, you would call them the same species...although technically they are (or were) geographically separate until we created artificial conditions under which they could interbreed. If phylogenetics matter more, and the European populations are all neatly clustered over in one region, the Asian populations are all clustered centrally, and the American populations are neatly clustered far away in some other region, and the distances between them are sufficiently large, you would call them different species.

That's beside the point, though. Show that picture to an American child in Colorado or Wyoming, and he'll call it an elk because it superficially resembles an animal that is called elk in the common local speech. Show it to a European child, and he'll call it a deer for the same reason. Very much like asking a Chicagoan, a Texan, a New Englander, and a Californian what they call a carbonated beverage that comes in a bright metal can.

[pitohui]

46. that's because they are not north american birds

there's a reason why we're the new world and they're the old world, we have a different ecology because we're in different hemispheres imagine that!

their robin is a very common, VERY bold and cheeky small bird nowhere near the size of the american robin

[Javaman]

11. Ask any kid where an acorn comes from. you will be surprised by the answer. nt

[hedgehog]

12. True story: my daughter was out locating manholes with

another kid. In the middle of a vacant lot owned by the county, they found the manhole and a bush covered with ripe raspberries. Being from the country and well trained, my daughter started eating the raspberries. Being from the suburbs where all food is wrapped in plastic and comes from the grocery store, the other kid said "Uh, shouldn't those be washed or something?" and left them all for her.

[MJW]

13. the point is

we are losing communion with nature.I told my grandson to "go out and play" a few years ago , and he said "There is nothing to do out there"


There was a bike in the shed

There was a lake across the road and with fishing equiptment in the shed

and a small woods right next to my property

still , there was nothing to do; He wanted to stay tethered to the nentendo

heck--there were bird feeders right outside the window , but he didn't care , he was locked into his electronic world

[Lorien]

16. I can't imagine spending a childhood without nature

a friend of mine waited until her first child was three to allow him to watch TV, and he still loves playing outdoors. I didn't have a television for much of my childhood and spent my most memorable times out in the forest and streams of a nearby park with my best friend, or camping with our class (we when to a hippie run private school). There isn't much that we can't identify!

PBS did those two shows on "Affluenza". In them they talked about studies on human happiness. they found that three activities contributed the most to human happiness: 1). being with friends and loved ones, 2). contact with nature, and 3). personal creativity (which could include things like organizing volunteer efforts in the community, not just arts and crafts). "Getting and playing with stuff" didn't make the list.

[MJW]

17. in the 40s and 50s when I was a kid

we shed our shoes and headed outdoors after breakfast ! We climbed trees, ate wild berries, played tag etc .We did not go indoors till mom called us in to eat .

actually that is about the only GOOD thing I can recall about "the good old days"


My kids were the same --but the grandchildren seem to have lost touch with nature. It is a very sad thing

[hedgehog]

21. LOL, you're lucky you didn't get reported for child neglect!

Allowing a kid to be near water, unsupervised! Playing in the woods, unguarded from kidnappers!

We've taught our children to be afraid. No wonder they stay indoors!


(I wouldn't let a 3 year old out of my sight around water, but an older child should be OK provided they'd been taught properly.)

[MJW]

30. this kid was no 3 yr old

and I would have been happy to supervise if he could have been pried from the video games

[Odin2005]

31. I'm only 22, but I fortunately escaped that nonsense.

I was shocked when my co-worker said his 11-year-old son GOES TO DAYCARE! 11-year olds at frigging DAYCARE? I was a "latch-key kid" that around the woods when I was 9. City people are such scaredy-cats.

[seabeyond]

15. my kids know. but then they know so much more than animals and what we knew in our day

at our age. i have found that a LOT of kids know way more than we did in our day. i think we find it easy to sell our children short. there are a lot of kids that dont know shit and dont care to because the family doesnt embrace knowledge, education ect... yes, being stupid is the "in" thing. but in my childrens world with their friends, they are so beyond us in knowledge.

[kwolf68]

25. You and me both.

yes, we are losing touch with nature, but that doesn't mean every kid is going to grow up to be a mind-numbed robot.

We went to the National Zoo last year and we were standing in front of the elephant house listening to the interpreter and my son (10 at the time) was answering questions asked by the other people and was offering all this information on the animal. I was shocked he knew so much about elephants, because his interest is reptiles and amphibians and my interest is felids/canids, and we rarely talked about elephants, but he knew so much about them.

All 3 of my kids will have a deep appreciation and understanding of nature. We play 'dinner games' all the time, most often focused on animals.

They have their video games too, but they also LOVE to be outside, LOVE going camping, love seeing animals in their natural habitat, going to the zoo (i always explain to them the zoo is not the optimal place for animals, but they can and do serve a positive purpose)...they are so inquisitive and Im sure other kids are too OR have the capacity to be such. We just need to get them inspired.

[hootinholler]

23. I've only seen blue tits when it's really really cold!

It is fun to warm them!

-Hoot

[Evoman]

24. This test says more about the testers than the testees (giggle).

This is just a test version of "When I was a kid".

The world changes....children adapt to it. I bet you my great great great grandparents were lamenting that their 12 year old kids didn't know the first thing about burning witches. They couldn't identify the 12 different kinds of Evil Eye.

[pitohui]

47. no, evoman, you don't get the context (because the study is set in britain)

the world has not changed so much that blue tit is a rare bird, it is a bold little chickadee like thing that is found on every feeder and outside every window, even in the city parks, it's common

the magpie actually has huge bulky nests right there on the street in london and i mean DOWNTOWN london

i am not talking about, "isn't it sad our kids have don't know what we knew?" in that case, the test would be asking them to ID house sparrow -- the former symbol of london which has been extirpated since the 1990s

a kid who doesn't know what a blue tit is or a magpie is probably doesn't know what a PIGEON is

in other words they are talking about kids so blinkered they don't go outside at all, they don't even look out the WINDOW

they recognize the robin because their robin is a tiny species so bad-tempered that it will come right up to you and kick your ass if you don't recognize it!

[SmokingJacket]

26. Kids didn't know anything when I was a kid, either.

We spent all day outside, and an oriole or a jay was just a "bird" and wildflowers were just weeds.

It is very hard to get a kid to play outside these days, though. I don't let my kids watch TV, and limit their computer time, but they still don't play outside as much as I want them to. All the other kids are inside, is why.

[SoCalDem]

27. Small children rarely have Moms who take them places

and show them stuff.. They get shuttled to the day care, and once there with dozens of kids, their activities are regimented..

Kids no longer wander around with jars, catching stuff,that later on gets identified and released back into nature..Kids used to pick "bouquets" of wild flowers & weeds to surprise Mom with:)..My kitchen table used to have all kinds of varying floral "arrangements" from my boys :) & we usually had a shoe box with a horned toad, or lizard or some weird bug..under inspection for a day or two, before I insisted that it be let go :)

[Odin2005]

32. Hahaha, one spring when I was a kid I broke off a small floweing branch of a...

...raspberry bush and gave it too my mom for mother's day! :)

[SoCalDem]

33. My boys would strip my forsythia almost bare

and then I would chase bugs off the table all morning :)

[Odin2005]

28. As a person who grew up in a rural area I find this very sad.

How the hell could someone mistake a deer for an antelope?

No wonder so few people care about nature, it's not even a part of people's conception of reality (or else it a highly distorted part), it seems. This ignorance even occurs among my fellow liberals in the form of the PETA nuts and the people who bash hunters and anglers. There is no better ally of conservationists then us hunters. Waterfowl hunting organizations do a lot of work towards preserving wetlands, for example.

just north of the little town I grew up in there is a beautiful area of river-side forest. I loved exploring the place when I was a kid.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

34. Maybe it's more a lack of parents spending time with children and taking

them out into nature instead of driving them around from indoor activity to indoor activity.

[XemaSab]

35. Most ADULTS I know are hard pressed to identify common American birds

Much less trees, herps, leps, or anything else beyond a handful of the commonest ones.

Even big, general categories such as loons, grebes, cormorants, herons, egrets, storks, cranes, ducks (and I don't mean "Is it a Mallard or a Canvasback," I mean "Is it a duck or a loon"), sandpipers, gulls, terns, hawks, eagles, vultures, and so forth, and most people don't even look at the little perchy birds at all.

And getting down to the species, I'd guess the 30 most common, everyday, identifiable-with-the-naked-eye species throughout California are the Double-crested Cormorant, Great Blue Heron, Great Egret, Turkey Vulture, Canada Goose, Mallard, Red-tailed Hawk, American Kestrel, California Quail, American Coot, Killdeer, American Avocet, feral Pigeon, Mourning Dove, Anna's Hummingbird, Northern Flicker, Black Phoebe, Western Scrub Jay, American Crow, American Robin, Northern Mockingbird, European Starling, Spotted Towhee, White-crowned Sparrow, Dark-eyed Junco, Red-winged Blackbird, Brewer's Blackbird, House Finch, Lesser Goldfinch, and House Sparrow.

If pressed, I'd bet the average adult could identify less than 10. Or they'd call the scrub jay a "Blue Jay." :banghead:

A few years ago I was working at an environmental consulting firm with this dude who was a WILDLIFE BIOLOGIST, and the dude asked me what this little yellow bird was outside the office. He'd NEVER HEARD of a goldfinch. And then we had nesting Pacific-slope Flycatchers nesting on the porch, and my one other wildlife biologist colleague at the time had NEVER HEARD OF THOSE! This is basically telling me, their colleague, that were they to see a RARE or ENDANGERED bird such as the Yellow Warbler or the Willow Flycatcher, they'd be standing there like tools and they'd never know it. (And the boss wonders why I had problems with taking what they said at face value. :eyes: )

I'm going to go climb back in bed now. :(

[XemaSab]

36. And to sound less snotty

I believe that until I took dendrology in 2001, I would not have been able to identify a douglas-fir, a cottonwood, a willow, an alder, an ash, a true cedar, or virtually any other tree besides "oak," "maple," and "pine," and I would have called a lot of things "oaks," "maples," or "pines" that weren't. I don't think I'd ever heard of a ceanothus before then.

The same semester I took intro to range, and there I learned my basic grasses and forbs.

I am still crushingly hard-pressed to identify small plants outside the very basics. x(

[Odin2005]

49. I was able to identify trees around here very accurately since I was in jr. high

For example, the needles of the Eastern White Pine comes in bunches of 5 while Red Pine needles come in bunches of 2

I never cease to get annoyed when people call spruces, firs, and hemlocks "pines." I can see people mixing up spruces, firs, and hemlocks, all three look very similar, but pines look quite different from those 3 genera because their needles are longer and come in bunches. Also, in the Spring the emerging branches of pines, sometimes compared to candlesticks, look very distinctive.

[malakai2]

39. Fun times

Regarding the loon-duck distinction that fools people, I know of one instance where a couple guys who had never hunted before went duck hunting and shot a loon thinking it was a duck. They took it home and apparently ate it, and the taste put them off duck hunting thereafter.

Was the wildlife biologist educated within the California region? I'm not a bird expert by any means, but I learned all my local fauna in the northern plains and western Great Lakes, so though my title might be wildlife biologist, I'd need a little time to familiarize myself with species in other regions I had never seen before. Especially the rare stuff. But I guess if someone was supposed to be generally familiar with birds and didn't know about, say, the Empidonax complex, that it even exists, I would have a hard time taking that person seriously.

[XemaSab]

43. They were both born and raised within two counties of the office

(Cough, cough, Fresno, cough, Stockton, cough... Damn, the air quality must be bad today! x( )

Having both tried to rehabilitate and having dissected a loon, boy... I'm surprised they got anywhere NEAR eating that thing. The worst thing I have ever smelled in my WHOLE LIFE--worse than the dog rolling in a dead salmon by the river--was loon shit. Good GOD. I seem to recall actually tearing up because the smell was so bad. And though loons and grebes aren't the same :P, the day the freezer broke down with a dead grebe in it was one of the more memorable days of my life.

As far as identification goes, I'd guess that if you were somewhat familiar with the species of one area, you'd at least have a starting place for identifying species of another area. Like, you'd probably be able to look at a little yellow bird and guess that it was a finch as opposed to a warbler or a vireo or something. And at the very least, you'd know where to start looking in the field guide, instead of flipping randomly through the wrens or thrushes or something. :P

[BreweryYardRat]

48. Scrub jay/blue jay difference...

Scrub jays have kind of gray-brown-green plumage, don't they? That or it's a duller blue than blue jays?

[XemaSab]

51. It's a duller blue

They only have "white" (really a dirty gray-white) on the chest, and they don't have crests.

[alarimer]

62. There are plenty of gaps in my knowledge and I am a biologist

I know shorebirds and water birds pretty but I have to look up a lot of the smaller ones in the book.

Though I can identify most fish and inverts at least to family. Plants I know next to nothing about, except that some water plants are fish food. LOL.

[Maestro]

40. I completely agree.

Kids today do not know what it is like to be outside or at least be outside and appreciate what is around them. I'm teaching my children to appreciate the environment, flora and fauna. My kids, especially my son, are already getting pretty good at identifying common and not so common birds. Just this past November, I took them to the Texas coast to see the original wild flock of whooping cranes. All other whooping cranes in the US derive from this flock.

This is a good site to help kids get reconnected to Nature.

[YankeyMCC]

41. It isn't just the kids although perhaps it is more important

that the children re-establish the connection with the natural world and the land they live on that so many of us have lost.

The more connected we feel to the land that we are in fact Very connected to (meaning dependent on no matter how separated we appear to be in our conditioned homes and offices and cars) the more likely we are to take care of it and create a sustainable, healthy society.

[BlooInBloo]

42. A "blue tit"? Get the fuck out.

[Firespirit]

44. It's not part of the NCLB testing guidelines and can't help them to become

a "productive member of the workforce"; therefore it must be useless information that doesn't need to be taught.

:sarcasm:

[pitohui]

45. a british kid not being able to ID "blue tit" is like you not being able to ID a sparrow

the house sparrow is extinct in london and many parts of england but the blue tit is a bold and common bird that you would have to recognize pretty much if you had eyes in your head and ever looked out the window



sorry to spoil the fun but "tit" in this context in british-speak just means "chickadee-like"

was it churchill who said america and england were two countries divided by a common language? SIGH -- it isn't just the british kiddies who are coming out looking like idiots here

[Odin2005]

50. That's a very pretty bird!

Seems like the British equivalent of our American Robin, a common bird that is well known because of it's distinctive appearance.

[XemaSab]

52. Sparrow, you say?

Most Americans wouldn't know a sparrow from a hole in the ground.

And what might this be? :P

[Codeine]

53. So what?

These same kids are capable of dealing with technology far more effectively than most adults and are developing the necessary skillsets to operate in their modern environment. Knowing the difference between a finch and a sparrow is of little consequence to a modern urban dweller.

[Lorien]

56. Unless peak oil makes everyone get in touch with nature the hard way

humans are animals and part of the natural world. Losing touch with it diminishes us, and ultimately makes us miserable. Americans watch more TV and play more video games than anyone else, but they also pop many more antidepressants than any other country.

[NuttyFluffers]

59. i still don't see how knowing the difference between tit or sparrow would matter

if i'm hungry after peak oil i care about the difference between good soil for growing potatoes and good soil for growing corns/squash/beans. outside of beating away these little birds who might want to get at the crop seeds i could care less what's their name. if they eat insects, good; if they look pretty, even better; if they eat my grain, bad; if they warble from the crack of dawn 'til noon, they are better off away from me before i turn them into cat food. if i need to know any more about them i'll walk to the local library and open the book on birds (assuming we don't have solar to power computers by then) and see whether they are of any greater nuisance or use. other than that, what do i care of such nuances?

some information just gets outdated from daily life, and that's OK. outside of poetry and decorative feathers little birds like these never really made such a crucial impact upon the daily lives of Europeans (or any other continent) just about ever -- outside of maybe over breeding and eating their grain, carrying a disease, or being lynchpin to an ecosystem so fragile that humans shouldn't have settled there in the first place. some things just don't warrant that much critical attention. tit, thrush, warbler, sparrow, starling, whatever... they're all "pretty little tiny birds" to most people's daily lives throughout the ages. not telling them apart rarely meant the difference between joy, misery, or death. i'm not surprised the UK kids don't care; i'd be hard pressed to think even most industrial revolution age kids cared, especially those slaving it out in the factories or fields.

[killbotfactory]

54. But they can probably identify every brand-name logo within a 50 mile radius

I guess that's something.

[Lorien]

57. If they want to be good, obidient little consumers, I guess that's

a good thing, at least from the corporate perspective.


"Own our crap! You'll be miserable and unpopular without it"!


:banghead:


Yeah, nature; who needs it.



http://michaelpsilva.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/Giant%20Oak%20Tree,%20North%20Tisbury%201969.jpg

[minnesota_liberal]

55. A Blue Tit? I saw one in "X-Men" or "X2"

Actually it was a pair.

[NuttyFluffers]

58. oh for the love of god, barely anyone would know what an 'exaltation of larks' is either...

or a murmuration of starlings or piteousness of doves...

some stuff gets sideline because it's just not relevant in contemporary lives. i can say the word "ruby-crested thrush warbler" or some such thing, but i can't point one out if my life depended on it. but i can find you a "carrot" or "arugula" or "habanero" or "free 802.11n wifi connection", y'know, stuff that's actually useful for my life. i bet if you had to ask Victorians about the various varieties of millet and rice and pepper they couldn't do it unless they were involved in some sort of East Indian Trading Company or Botanical Collection Societies. but i sure as hell could bet they could give you a litany about sumptuary guidelines and tailoring terms -- stuff we'd be completely baffled by today.

seriously, some things just go in and out of relevance. so what if kids can't detect a hydrangea from a heliotrope, it's not practical information right now. i'd rather they learn money management, computer operation, multiplication with decimals, and reading comprehension. if they later have a yearning about the natural world, more power to them. but really, so much of the gritty details about the natural world is wholly irrelevant in daily urban/suburban/exurban/rural life. not even farmers piddle away their time worrying about "parliaments of owls" or whether it's nasturtiums over delphiniums. please, this is an utter waste of time.

[orleans]

60. this is why it is important for kids

i read about a study that was done in--i think--germany. kids were given lessons in the environment, told how to protect it, why it is so important, and what will happen if we don't start taking care of the environment/the planet, etc, etc. the government implemented this into the school curriculum.

after graduation (and i forget either high school or jr high) the study was conducted in which it was found that kids who got this eco training in classrooms were LESS interested in protecting/conserving the environment than the prior generation of students.

it was found that this was due to a couple reasons. first--these students felt helpless (there is nothing that i--just one person--can do to fix this--they felt overwhelmed by the problems we face and powerless to bring about change) and also because they did not experience the outdoors as the prior generation (building forts/tree houses--going down by the creek, playing in a meadow, etc) and so they had not learned to LOVE the environment and bond with it. therefore, there was no urgency they felt in preserving it.

i recently read that we cannot ask children to save the environment before they learn to love it. (naturally i forget who wrote that, but i thought it was brilliant and the absolute bottom line for our environmental future)

and parents (myself included) have become terribly overprotective, not letting our kids out to go exploring, go off on their own, take long bike rides with a friend, find their secret places in nature. we are afraid they will be kidnapped/killed/disappear, we are afraid they will be exposed to drugs or violence, etc etc. so we keep them inside, in a protective bubble, out of fear. and that fear is depriving their ability to bond with nature. it's very sad.

[orleans]

61. k&r (see my post 60) n/t