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Earth Day 2010: What’s love got to do with it?

By Katie Slivovsky, Exhibit Developer, Chicago Children’s Museum

I thought I knew a thing or two about connecting young kids with nature. After all, I was a mother of two, a wildlife biologist, and a professional nature educator. When I led nature-related camps and classes, I sometimes concluded them with puppet shows about rain forest destruction. I felt it was my responsibility to communicate the latest news about the state of the environment to my young participants—especially around Earth Day.

My approach to nature education, both professionally and personally, took a pretty sharp turn when I encountered the work of professor and author David Sobel, who said, “Let us allow children to love the earth before we ask them to save it.” Those words seemed so true and so right--yet not exactly what I had been doing. In his book, “Beyond Ecophobia: Reclaiming the Heart in Nature Education,” Sobel defines ecophobia as “the fear of nature young kids can develop when their primary contact with the natural world is hearing doom and gloom about the environment.” I began to fear that talking to small kids about big problems was doing more harm than good—turning them off to nature just when they should be enjoying it most.

Once Sobel opened my eyes to this new perspective, I discovered an entire community of professionals dedicated to taking a more age-appropriate approach to connecting kids and nature. One of these experts, Dr. Louise Chawla of Colorado State, had interviewed adults who considered themselves to be environmentally responsible. She found two things to be most common in their childhoods: free time exploring wild or semi-wild places and the presence of an adult who showed nature “appreciative attention.” Hearing bad news about the environment didn’t make the list.

Three-Step Plan to Avoiding Ecophobia:

Step One: Back Off the Bad News
Shield young children from potentially overwhelming news. Sobel writes, “No tragedies before 4th grade.” When it comes to the environment, some marketers, well-meaning educators, and children’s book authors don’t take an age-appropriate approach. Screen books to ensure they don’t focus on potentially overwhelming topics, such as pollution, mass habitat loss, or global warming.

Step Two: Enjoy Nature
As Robin Moore and Herb Wong point out, “Children have a natural affinity towards nature. Dirt, water, plants, and small animals attract and hold children’s attention for hours, days, even a lifetime.” It can be a relief for parents to realize that a simple walk around the block or trip to the local park not only helps kids connect with nature, but lays a foundation for future environmental stewardship. If you’re a nature lover, chances are you were doing some of these things when you were a child. As Sobel writes, “Talking to trees and hiding in trees precedes saving trees.

Nature activities can be very simple and follow children’s interests. Many kids love to search, collect, match, and sort. Take an egg carton on your next walk and invite your child to place different items in each section. Look for pebbles, sticks, seeds, pine cones, leaves, flowers, etc. Suggest gluing them onto cardboard—like the back of cereal box—to make a nature collage.

You could also take along crayons or paint-sample cards. Look for things in nature that closely match the different colors.

Make nature part of everyday life: Go outside together. Lie in the grass; look under a rock; listen for birds; sit in a tree; plant a seed, watch butterflies, get a birdfeeder.

Step Three: Use Environmental “Good Manners”
What about recycling and composting? Young children can certainly learn such environmental “good manners” as sorting recyclables, turning off the water when brushing teeth, shutting off lights when leaving a room, and carrying table scraps to the compost pile. The point is to do these things out of habit, not fear. It’s okay to save lessons about the consequences of wasting resources for middle school and high school, when kids have formed a connection to nature and can take some meaningful action to protect the environment.

So, want to know the best way for young children to celebrate Earth Day 2010 on April 22? Have fun in the great outdoors!

Resources
Chawla, Louise, “Childhood Experiences Associated with Care for the Natural World: A theoretical Framework for Empirical Results,” Children, Youth, and Environments, 17 (4): 144-170, 2007.

Louv, Richard, “Last Child in the Woods: Saving our children from nature-deficit disorder,” Algonquin Books, 2008.

Slivovsky, Katie, “Avoiding Ecophobia: Redefining Conservation Messages for Kids”, Journal of the International Zoo Educators Association, 2004.

Sobel, David, “Beyond Ecophobia: Reclaiming the Heart in Nature Education,” Nature Literacy Monograph Series No. 1, Great Barrington, MA: The Orion Society, 1996.

Wilson, Ruth, “Fostering a Sense of Wonder During the Early Childhood Years,” Greydon Press, 1993.

Especially for Teachers
Sobel, David, “Childhood and Nature: Design Principles for Educators,” Stenhouse Publishers, 2009.

Chalufour, Ingrid and Karen Worth, “Discovering Nature with Young Children,” Redleaf Press, 2003.

Quotes
“It is not half so important to know as to feel when introducing a young child to the natural world.”
–Rachel Carson, scientist and author of Silent Spring and “The Sense of Wonder”

“Hands-on experience at the critical time, not systemic knowledge, is what counts in the making of a naturalist. Better to be untutored…for awhile, not to know the names or anatomical detail. Better to spend long stretches of time just searching and dreaming.”
–E.O. Wilson, author, scientist, and professor, Harvard Universit

© 2010 Chicago Children's Museum

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