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ON ANGEL MOUNTAIN: In a Place Beyond Facebook, Time Stops
On the night before the roundup, the professor stood out under the river of stars. He watched satellites and listened to the coyotes. He said something quietly to the dog, and the dog padded back up to...
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GRAND IDEAS! 21 Great Ways Grandparents and Grandfriends Can Connect Kids to...
What’s a grandparent to do? Marti Erickson makes a practice of keeping two collapsible chairs in her car trunk. If she’s having a particularly stressful day, she drives to the closest patch of nature,...
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WHAT IF WE TRULY GREENED AMERICA? Five Ways to Build a Botanical City: Part 2.
What if we truly Greened America? The Botanical City is an old idea whose time finally may have come. But it needs a boost, a convener, an institution to plant the seed and nurture it. Botanical...
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THE BOTANICAL CITY: Could Where You Live Become the Most Nature-Rich City in...
A couple of years ago, I had lunch with Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Cooked (his most recent) and other books about our relationship with food and nature. (Culinary hint: when...
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THE FOLLOWING STARS: A Nighttime Adventure and Thoughts for Father’s Day
Your child can say something to you, just one small thing, and suddenly the universe expands. One evening I walked with Matthew to the library and back. He was about to turn five. I see him then. He...
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TOWARD A NATURE-RICH URBAN FUTURE: Five Ways Houston or (Insert Your City...
Houston is well situated to become a leading city – perhaps the leading city — to envision its future through the unique prism of the natural world. “If you were to say that around here,” one...
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USING THE BULLY PULPIT TO CONNECT PEOPLE TO NATURE: Looking Ahead with U.S....
As the new U.S. Secretary of the Interior, Sally Jewell intends to use her “megaphone,” as she calls it – or the bully pulpit, as Teddy Roosevelt used to describe the persuasive power of office – to...
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ON THE POND: Sharing a Sense of Wonder is a Powerful Gift to Every Child
One day, when my boys were still boys, we decided to go fishing in the pond near the local library. Rex the Wonder Dog threw himself in front of the van, so we opened the door and he got in. He made...
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TIME FOR YOUR VITAMIN ‘N’: Ten ways pediatricians and other health...
Time spent in nature isn’t a panacea, but as therapy and prevention, it’s gaining respect among many health professionals. “Connecting with nature has always been an important part of my life and now I...
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BRING DOWN THE BARRIERS! Five Causes of Nature-Deficit Disorder; Five...
In the 21st Century, our Great Work – as Thomas Berry put it – must be the creation of a new, restorative relationship with the rest of the natural world. It’s time to envision that future. It’s time...
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THE “EXTINCTION OF EXPERIENCE”— Is Education Dumping Reality?
This morning’s New York Times carried an excellent op-ed by Aaron Hirsch about the need to connect education to real world experiences. Hirsch, chairman of the Vermilion Sea Institute and the author of...
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HOPE BY DESIGN: Five Great Examples of Nature-Rich Places to Live, Learn,...
By any reckoning, biophilic design is catching on. As the word suggests, the idea is to incorporate many more elements of the natural world into the design of schools, homes, workplaces, places of...
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HIGH TECH HIGH NATURE: How Families Can Use Electronics to Explore the Outdoors
Young citizen naturalists are bound to have a different attitude about technology than many older people do—and for them that could be an advantage. A few years ago, in longer form, I told this story:...
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THE FROG WHO FELL THROUGH TIME
In the mid-1960s, in Kansas, my best friend Pete and I would often walk over to Red Hoth’s house. Red, who was in his 60s, had suffered a stroke in 1952, while fishing. He was paralyzed from the neck...
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THE CONSERVATION OF CONSERVATION — and the Rejuvenation of Conservationists
At a dinner one night in 2006 at Royal Roads University in British Columbia, Bob Peart, a well-known wildlife biologist, spoke to a group of conservationists and scientists from around the province. He...
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A MOMENTOUS WEEK FOR THE CHILDREN & NATURE MOVEMENT: Big Pediatric and Public...
Beginning October 29, the children and nature movement experienced one of its best weeks yet, though the public may have thought otherwise. All week the tweetisphere buzzed with alarm about a Toys “R”...
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THE HYBRID MIND: The More High-Tech Schools Become, the More Nature They Need
On Nov. 16, at the annual Learning & the Brain conference in Boston, Mass., I offered some of the following remarks in a keynote address. My topic was “The Hybrid Mind.” This was drawn in part from...
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WHY KATHY AND I SUPPORT THE CHILDREN & NATURE NETWORK
In 2006, I helped to found the Children & Nature Network to address the need for a backbone organization for the movement to bring down the barriers between children and nature, to combat...
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WAY GOOD GIFT BOOKS: A Few Dangerous Suggestions for Your Consideration
I‘m on a dangerous mission here. By serving up a list of 16 suggested gift books for the holiday season, I’m guaranteed to offend someone — including any of those great authors I know and love whose...
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EVERY CHILD NEEDS NATURE: 12 Questions About Equity & Capacity
Every child needs nature. Not just the ones with parents who appreciate nature. Not only those of a certain economic class or culture or gender or sexual identity or set of abilities. Every child. If a...
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