By Joanna Miller, Staff Writer

Children are going outside less than previous generations, and Martha Erickson, Ph.D., will talk to parents about the impact when she visits Prior Lake this November.

Erickson will present “Healing the Broken Bond Between Children and Nature,” from 6-8 p.m. Nov. 3, at Twin Oaks Middle School, 15860 Fish Point Rd. SE, Prior Lake.

“I think we can say, without equivocation, definitely children are going outside less than they once did,” she said.

Erickson said “free exploration” that children once experienced outdoors has been reduced.

“I really want to make the case for why this is important,” Erickson said, “to really highlight benefits to connecting children to nature.”

Erickson will present concrete tips for parents on how to incorporate the outdoors into their lives.

Erickson is a Senior Fellow at the University of Minnesota, where she is Director of the Irving B. Harris Training Programs in the Center for Early Education & Development and Co-Chair of the President's Initiative on Children, Youth & Families.She is a developmental psychologist who specializes in parent-child attachment, child abuse prevention and children’s mental health.Erickson became interested in nature’s impact on children when she worked with author Richard Louv while he published“Last Child in the Woods: Saving our children from nature-deficit disorder.”

“This is really a movement that has just taken off like wildfire,” Erickson said.

Previously, there hadn’t been much research about the difference more time spent indoors was making on children.

“People were just coming out in droves…People were really getting whipped up about the facts that kids were not going out,” she said.

Louv asked Erickson if she would help him. In continuing that idea, the Children & Nature Network began.

“It was kind of an overlooked area. There’s been more research developed in recent years,” she said

Erickson said one impact is children have little time to experience nature and “act on their own curiosity.”

The No. 1 reason for this? The advent of technology. “Technology is really seductive,” Erickson said. She said parents can set limits on time with technology for children. The “high-intensity” stimulation of lights and sounds from technology do have an impact on how children function.

Erickson said other components play into less  time outdoors – such as the idea of stranger danger.

“That’s interesting to me, because when you look at data [incidents are] the same or less than in the 1970s; the perception of danger is much greater today,” she said. “When one child is harmed, we see it and hear it thousands of times.”

When it comes to prevention, the vast majority of cases of abuse happen with a friend or family member, not with harm from strangers, she said.

“I think it relates to our fear and perceived sense of danger,” she said.

While children need structured activity, Erickson said time on sports teams and in activities has reduced time spent outdoors, as well.

The Prior Lake-Savage Area Schools have worked on melding structured activity and time in natural environments with Cara Rieckenberg, environmental education coordinator.

Rieckenberg said the local programs have received statewide and national attention from environmentally-related agencies.

The Prior Lake-Savage program is unique in that it is entirely grant funded, and that Rieckenberg and Naturalist Andrea Swanson are employed full-time with the district.

Rieckenberg said even the school district’s strategic plan focuses on environmental learning by stating, “We will engage learners in multiple opportunities to become responsible stewards for the care and management of the natural environment.”

Rieckenberg said a teacher survey last year taken in fall, winter and spring showed that the frequency of students getting outdoors has increased through the programming.

All schools participate in the junior naturalist program which promotes leadership, environmental stewardship and awareness. It provides students with hands-on opportunities for experiential learning, she said.

Two years ago, the elementary-level science curriculum was rebuilt with environmental elements embedded, she said.

“During the 2007-08 school year, the 136 elementary teachers were provided with the frameworks and lessons for this altered science curriculum as well as several staff development training opportunities,” she said.

The science teachers at the middle and high schools have also incorporated earth science and ecology lessons.

The district’s strongest partner in environmental education has been the Jeffers Foundation, which has provided the school district a grant of $150,000 a year for five years, she said.

The 2008-09 school year will be the fourth year of the grant.

Erickson said there must be a balance between structure and nature in children’s lives.

“There’s a huge benefit to structured activity. With too much unstructured time, kids get in trouble,” Erickson said. But, when children are over structured, “too much of a good thing becomes a bad thing.”

The reason? “Are these kids learning how to structure their own time?” Erickson asked. “To innovate things, to create, to problem solve?

“I think the outdoor environment is a particularly inviting place. Whether it’s building a tree house or looking for frogs.”

There’s nothing wrong with kids having time for “a slow, lazy bike ride,” she said.

Parents should look at the weekly calendar and seek balance – which may include family time melded with the outdoors.

“Nature is a wonderful place for families to engage together,” she said.

She suggests families might plan a weekend day or one evening a week to do something in the outdoors together.

“These are really precious times for families to be together. The benefits of that are many,” she said.

The health of children is also linked to keeping them active, and the outdoors lends itself to activity.

The rise in childhood obesity and type II diabetes go with an inactive lifestyle.

“The outdoors invite activity in a way the indoors doesn’t,” she said. “When kids are in more natural, outdoor environments, they tend to move more continuously.” They also tend to play more cooperatively.

Studies show students concentrate better and perform better academically after being in outdoor environments.

A study through the University of Illinois showed a benefit to children even being able to see nature.

“Inner city kids – even being able to see more natural environments outside the window – had reduced levels of anxiety and depressive symptoms,” she said.

Children who interact with the environment area also more likely to care for it in the future.

Erickson said children who spend time outdoors are more likely to be good stewards of the environment in the future.

 

Joanna Miller can be reached at (952) 345-6375 or jmiller@swpub.com [2]. 

 

To go

Martha Erickson will present “Healing the Broken Bond Between Children and Nature,” from 6-8 p.m. Nov. 3, at Twin Oaks Middle School, 15860 Fish Point Rd. SE, Prior Lake.

Registrations are requested by Wednesday, Oct. 29. The event costs $8 per person or $12 per couple. (Admission will cost an additional $2 at the door.)

Register online at www.priorlakesavagece.com [3] or call the family center at (952) 226-0950 for more information.

Child care for the event is $5 per child/$10 per family, with registration ending Friday, Oct. 24.

The event is sponsored by Community Education Services Family Center and Community Education.