Outdoor Education Commons^™

How Nature Shapes Childhood, Will Nixon

Taproot: A Journal of Outdoor Education

Pyle 's intuitions have been borne out by psychological study. In Place Attachment, a collection of academic essays, Kentucky State University professor of psychology Louise Chawla writes that formal studies of environmental activists have found that "most respondents attributed their commitment to a combination of two sources: many hours spent outdoors in a keenly remembered wild or semi-wild place in childhood or adolescence, and an adult who taught respect for nature." In public interviews, environmental leaders may ascribe their motivations to such weighty matters as saving the planet for future generations, but at bottom they may owe their drive to …

The Single Most Important Thing To Know About The Earth, Mike Weilbacher

Taproot: A Journal of Outdoor Education

On the list of 50 simple things kids should know, what's item number one? Is there a single most important thing a kid or anyone should know about the earth?

If we posed this question to a random sample of environmental educators, typical responses might be:

"Humans can profoundly alter ecological systems."

"All of us need to take swift and immediate action to restore the environment to health."

"The Earth is in trouble, and all people must rally to save her."

Or perhaps one would choose the immortal closing lines of Dr. Seuss' The Lorax: "Unless each of us cares …

Contents, Coalition For Education In The Outdoors

Taproot: A Journal of Outdoor Education

The Coalition for Education in the Outdoors is a non-profit network of outdoor and environmental education centers, nature centers, conservation and recreation organizations, outdoor education and experiential education associations, institutions of higher learning, public and private schools, fish and wildlife agencies, and businesses that share a mission the support and furtherance of outdoor education and its goals.

From The Editor, Charles Yaple

Taproot: A Journal of Outdoor Education

Your editors are very pleased to publish this special issue of Taproot. Its focus on children and the outdoors is in response to numerous requests for reprints of related titles in the past issues of Taproot. Now subscribers have the best Taproot articles on children and the outdoors in one collection.

Moral Education And Outdoor Education, Coalition For Education In The Outdoors

Taproot: A Journal of Outdoor Education

Character development and moral education have always been integral parts of outdoor education. Currently, there's been a resurgence of interest in teaching children ethical values that build good character. Taproot Associate Editor Carol Skawinski interviewed one of the leading proponents of character education in the world: Dr. Thomas Lickona, Director of the Center for the 4th and 5th Rs (Respect and Responsibility), at the State University of New York, Cortland. Dr. Lickona is the author of Educating/or Character: How Our Schools Can Teach Respect and Responsibility and Raising Good Children. He discusses the urgent need for character education and the …

Building Connections, Bruce E. Matthews

Taproot: A Journal of Outdoor Education

Alan Gussow suggests that a place is a piece of the environment claimed by our feelings. In outdoor and environmental education we often talk about the importance of building a sense of place, because we believe that building a sense of connection with places ultimately leads to the valuing of and consequent caring for these places. I'd suggest also that we need to extend the concept of building this sense of connectedness to include people, and communities of people, and particularly communities of people in their places.

Preserving A Child's Sense Of Wonder In Nature, Deb Matthews

Taproot: A Journal of Outdoor Education

Discovery and exploration come naturally to little ones, spurred on by their innate curiosity. Caregivers and teachers of young children should provide daily forays into the natural world - where the classroom is masterfully prearranged and equipped with an aura of enchanting, stimulating "toys."

The outdoors is a magical place for children where a sense of wonder takes wings. As early childhood teachers, caregivers or parents then, the challenge becomes even more vital in this setting to respond meaningfully rather than interfere mindlessly with their discovery process.

Resources, Coalition For Education In The Outdoors

Taproot: A Journal of Outdoor Education

This section contains a listing of teaching resources of all types for those who work in outdoor education field at time of publication. Some items highlighted include: "Earth Child 2000, Earth Science for Young Children" (textbook), and "The National Tree Trust" (The Growing Together Program).

Education In Blossom, Marcia Eames-Sheavly

Taproot: A Journal of Outdoor Education

Gardening is an exciting, approachable way to teach kids about plants. A good gardening program doesn't need to be one more thing thrown on your plate; by integrating it into the curriculum, gardening can be easy and interdisciplinary. Interdisciplinary projects enhance young peoples' ability to make connections among isolated facts, and to find meaning among those arbitrary facts. A U.S. News and World Report article (January 1993) pointed out that some interdisciplinary pilot projects in New York and Los Angeles schools even improved school attendance, and decreased drop-out rates.

Letting Nature Shape Childhood, Will Nixon

Taproot: A Journal of Outdoor Education

In recent years, some naturalists, teachers, psychologists, and others have grown concerned that children no longer play very much at all in nature, whether inside or outside of school. "American children's freedom for freewheeling play once took place in rural fields, and city streets, using equipment of their own making. Today, play is increasingly confined to back yards, basements, playrooms and bedrooms, and derives much of its content from video games, television dramas and Saturday morning cartoons," explains Brian Sutton Smith of the University of Pennsylvania in Richard Louv's book, Childhood's Future.

A Kinship With Trees, Mary Ann Elliot

Taproot: A Journal of Outdoor Education

The childlike feeling of kinship with trees occurs again and again in the literature of spirituality. Sherry Ruth Anderson and Patricia Hopkins noted this connection often during the five years of interviews and research they did for their book The Feminine Face of God (Anderson and Hopkins, 1991, pp. 35-37). "Trees, there was something about trees. Over and over we heard stories about trees as companions, comforters, confidantes, and best friends in our discussions with the women about their childhoods. One of our favorites was told by a friend in her fifties ...

Thoreau's Legacy, Charles Yaple

Taproot: A Journal of Outdoor Education

Thoreau believed that human well-being on the personal and cultural level would prosper if individuals planted one foot in natural surroundings and the other in civilization. He saw wildness "as the source of vigor, inspiration, and strength," and "to the extent a culture, or an individual, lost contact with wildness it became weak and dull" (Nash, 1967, p. 88). He cited the breakdown of civilizations (the Roman Empire) as historical evidence of what could happen when humans forgot their origins and source of spiritual, mental, and physical sustenance. What might outdoor educators learn from Thoreau that can help them deal …

A Magical Garden For Children, Jane L. Taylor

Taproot: A Journal of Outdoor Education

Gardening activities can provide wonderful opportunities for families ... and what better way for a child to learn more about where their food comes from than to grow some of their very own vegetables. And it's REAL! That's what one first grade child wrote to us after a visit to the 4-H Children's Garden. "I learned plants were real. The flowers were real. The Garden was real." Today's children are wired to Nintendo, TV, computers ... a garden provides a real life experience. We owe it to our children to give them a real experience and bring some joy into …

The Scripture Of Maps, The Names Of Trees, Stephen Trimble

Taproot: A Journal of Outdoor Education

By forging connections with plants, animals, and land, by finding ways to experience some relationship to the Earth, individuals can gain a sense of worth. Herein lies security. Edith Cobb, in analyzing the roots of creativity in great thinkers, found that many had experienced a pivotal childhood "discontinuity, an awareness of [one's] own unique separateness and identity, and also a continuity, a renewal of relationship with nature." Cobb marveled at what can grow from this paradox: " ... a delighted awareness that knowing and being are in some way coincident and continuous ... and that this kind of knowing is …

News Briefs, Coalition For Education In The Outdoors

Taproot: A Journal of Outdoor Education

This section contains multiple brief news items related to conservation, environment or outdoor education. Some titles include:

Avalanches and Mountain Wildlife

Himalayan Forest Restoration

Wolf Reintroduction Battle Continues

Another Model Of Outdoor And Environmental Education, Clifford E. Knapp

Taproot: A Journal of Outdoor Education

After reading Charles Yaple's article, ''Envisioning Environmental and Outdoor Education" in the May, 1997 issue of Taproot , I decided to offer my definitions and diagrammatic concept model in order to continue the "conversation:

Outdoor education is a set of planned and unplanned experiences related to the formal school or college curriculum which take place outsi4e the school building. The selection of these experiences is based on the educational objectives judged • to be best met through unmediated (direct and in context) interaction with local community and surrounding 6 Taproot Summer 1998 areas. The study topics include a variety of …

Resources, Coalition For Education In The Outdoors

Taproot: A Journal of Outdoor Education

This section contains a listing of teaching resources of all types for those who work in the outdoor education field at the time of publication. Some items highlighted include: ACA Offerings (a list of books available through the American Camping Association Bookstore), Water Quality Video (a 30 minute documentary about nonpoint source pollution and its impact on local water quality), and Music to Learn By (a collection of songs by singersongwriter Remy Rodden).

Table Of Contents, Coalition For Education In The Outdoors

Taproot: A Journal of Outdoor Education

The Coalition for Education in the Outdoors is a non-profit network of outdoor and environmental education centers, nature centers, conservation and recreation organizations, outdoor education and experiential education associations, institutions of higher learning, public and private schools, fish and wildlife agencies, and businesses that share a mission the support and furtherance of outdoor education and its goals.

The Doctor Is Out, Erin Quinn

Taproot: A Journal of Outdoor Education

So she had decided to do her dissertation on the impact of environmental experiences on children's art, sense of self, cognitive and emotional abilities. She posed herself the question: Is experience in nature "good" for children? Or was it simply "great fun" to be outdoors? It was the 'thank-you' drawings that children had sent her that first sparked her interest in this subject-artworks which, in her words, "provide a fascinating lens through which to view children's mental and emotional development."

From The Editor, Coalition For Education In The Outdoors

Taproot: A Journal of Outdoor Education

Smorgasbord may best describe this issue of Taproot. Unlike the last edition, which focused heavily on school gardening, this version provides something for the interests of varying kinds of environmental and outdoor education professionals.

Professional Opportunities, Coalition For Education In The Outdoors

Taproot: A Journal of Outdoor Education

This section included numerous opportunities for professional development related to outdoor education and environmental or conservation education. Some of the options included were: the 6th World Wilderness Congress, North American Hunting Heritage, and the Love Canal University (a training institute dubbed Love Canal University in honor of the knowledge it has passed on since the Love Canal Homeowners Association was first organized).

Reviews, Coalition For Education In The Outdoors

Taproot: A Journal of Outdoor Education

This section reviewed three books. These reviews included:

Effective Leadership in Adventure Programming by Cheryl A. Estes.

Teamwork and Teamplay by Todd Miner.

The Spell of the Sensuous by Clifford E, Knapp.

Affiliate News, Coalition For Education In The Outdoors

Taproot: A Journal of Outdoor Education

This section contains updates from the Coalition for Education in the Outdoors as well as news about related organizations across the country. This issue included the titles Agroforestry at the Cayuga Nature Center, Bilingual Project Wild, and Sharing Nature Foundation Offers U.S. Workshops.

Significant Learning Curves, Kate Cassidy, Mark Lacey

Taproot: A Journal of Outdoor Education

In explaining to a potential client what issues could be accomplished in a weekend program you find yourself stumbling over why there are limitations to what could be addressed in such a short time frame.

When training new facilitators you are asked how to select- out of such a wide range of possibilities - the activity or initiative that is most suited to the needs of a specific group and builds appropriately on their previous experiences.

Intuitively adventure programmers know the answer to these two scenarios. The difficulty arrises when we are asked to explain our reasoning to people not …

Conference Calendar, Coalition For Education In The Outdoors

Taproot: A Journal of Outdoor Education

This section provides a list of conferences in the field of outdoor education including AEE (Association for Experiential Education), ANCA (Association of Nature Center Administrators), and Bradford Woods Outdoor Education Center.

Conference Calendar, Coalition For Education In The Outdoors

Taproot: A Journal of Outdoor Education

This section provides a list of conferences in the field of outdoor education including the ACCT (Association for Challenge Course Technology) and AEE (Association for Experiential Education).

Resources, Coalition For Education In The Outdoors

Taproot: A Journal of Outdoor Education

This section contains a list of teaching resources of all types for those who work in the outdoor education field at the time of publication. Some items highlighted include: the National Peace Garden Foundation and the People-Plant Council.

Contents, Coalition For Education In The Outdoors

Taproot: A Journal of Outdoor Education

The Coalition for Education in the Outdoors is a non-profit network of outdoor and environmental education centers, nature centers, conservation and recreation organizations, outdoor education and experiential education associations, institutions of higher learning, public and private schools, fish and wildlife agencies, and businesses that share a mission the support and furtherance of outdoor education and its goals.

Making Interdisciplinary Connections To Your School Gardening Program, Marcia Eames-Sheavly

Taproot: A Journal of Outdoor Education

Gardening is an exciting, approachable way to teach kids about plants. A good gardening program doesn't need to be one more thing thrown on your plate; by integrating it into the curriculum, gardening can be easy and interdisciplinary. Interdisciplinary projects enhance young peoples' ability to make connections among isolated facts, and to find meaning among those arbitrary facts. A U.S. News and World Report article (January 1993) pointed out that some interdisciplinary pilot projects in New York and Los Angeles schools even improved school attendance, and decreased drop-out rates.

Educational Gardening, Sharon Lovejoy

Taproot: A Journal of Outdoor Education

My husband and I have a family business where we work together to put in public gardens that have touched the lives of hundreds of thousands people. Today my husband asked, "Why did we do that?" And I said, "Because I don't care about clothes, and I don't care about fancy cars. But, I love to buy plants and work with kids, and I like to buy a few books once in a while." So, all it really takes is hard work and creative imagination, and wonders can be accomplished.