Get your kids out into the wild before age eleven.
Want your kid to grow up caring about the
environment? Offer them plenty of opportunity to play in nature before age
11.
“Although domesticated nature activities — caring for plants and gardens — also have a positive relationship to adult environment attitudes, their effects aren’t as strong as participating in such wild nature activities as camping, playing in the woods, hiking, walking, fishing and hunting,” said environmental psychologist Nancy Wells, assistant professor of design and environmental analysis in the College of Human Ecology at Cornell.
Interestingly, participating in scouts or other forms of environmental education programs had no effect on adult attitudes toward the environment.
“Participating in nature-related activities that are mandatory evidently do not have the same effects as free play in nature, which don’t have demands or distractions posed by others and may be particularly critical in influencing long-term environmentalism,” Wells said.
Couldn’t do any harm either. Maybe even leave the PSP home?
Posted: Wed - March 15, 2006 at 06:12 AM