Oct
20
I love reading about studies like this: Researchers at the University of Illinois evaluated 17 children with attention deficit disorder, who all took part in three 20-minute walks, in a park, a residential neighbourhood and a downtown area. After each walk, the children were tested for attention and concentration. The results: The children able to focus better after the “green” walks.
For more about the study, read this post on the New York Times “Well” blog. And for more about kids and nature, you might want to pick up a fantastic book that we excerpted in the health section back in July…
Here’s the excerpt we ran in the magazine:
“A newborn calf; a pet that lives and dies; a worn path through the woods; a fort nested in stinging nettles; a damp, mysterious edge of a vacant lot — whatever shape nature takes, it offers each child an older, larger world separate from parents. Unlike television, nature does not steal time; it amplifies it. Nature serves as a blank slate upon which a child draws and reinterprets the culture’s fantasies. It inspires creativity in a child by demanding visualization and the full use of the senses. Given a chance, a child will bring the confusion of the world to the woods, wash it in the creek, turn it over to see what lives on the unseen side of that confusion. Nature can frighten a child, too, and this fright serves a purpose. In nature, a child finds freedom, fantasy and privacy: a place distant from the adult world, a separate peace.”
Makes you want to go out with a jar and collect ladybugs, doesn’t it? Two of my favourite class trips, as a child, were to the Kortright Centre and the Humber Arboretum (where we learned that chickadees sing their name: “Chick-a-dee! Chick-a-dee!”).
