The Importance of Building Human-Nature Connections: Fostering
stewardship through childhood nature experiences.
Kaela Christensen
CSUS Dept. of Environmental Studies: ENVS 199 (Thesis)
December 15, 2014
Table of Contents
Abstract and Introduction…………………………………………………................................1
Background………………………………………………………………………………………3
Biodiversity loss…………………………………………………………………………...3
Parental fear………………………………………………………………………………3
Technology………………………………………………………………………………...4
Nature-deficit disorder and environmental generational amnesia………………………..5
Childhood: the crucial time for nature experiences……………………………………………...6
Play in Nature…………………………………………………………………………………….7
Factors That Impact the Way Nature Is Experienced………………………………………...9
Gender differences………………………………………………………………………...9
City vs. rural living………………………………………………………………………10
Parental/peer influences………………………………………………………..………..11
What Makes a Quality Nature Experience?..............................................................................12
Ways to Increase Nature Experience Opportunities in Childhood………………………….13
Nature schools…………………………………………………………………………...13
Nature-based playgrounds……………………………………………………………….14
Backyards and gardens…………………………………………………………………..15
Park restoration and management……………………………………………………….16
Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………………17
References……………………………………………………………………………………….21
Abstract
Childhood nature experience opportunities have decreased due to the loss of nature areas
and an increase in indoor technological activities, which have been driven by both childhood
preference and parental fears. The decline of nature play opportunities has impacted childhood
development, and has caused concern for future generations’ formation of human-nature
relationships. Nature experience opportunities are crucial in early childhood to form human-
nature connectiveness that remains into adulthood as children are intuitively drawn to natural
areas (Aziz and Said, 2012). Play in natural settings provides physical, emotional-social, and
cognitive challenges that give children the opportunity to build on healthy development and a
relationship with the natural world through multi-sensorial interactions. The way nature is
experienced is affected by gender, urban versus rural living, and parental/peer influence,
although more research needs to be performed in order to determine how much of an impact such
factors have on nature experience. Nature-based playgrounds, nature schools, and ecologically
planned parks can help increase childhood nature experiences where opportunities are lacking
and fill the gaps when wild nature is inaccessible, since wild nature experiences are still seen as
the best quality action in the creation of a strong human-nature connection (Wells and Lekies,
2006). More research is still needed to look into the benefits of early childhood nature
experiences and the connection to adult environmental stewardship, as well as the positive role
nature-based playgrounds and alternative park landscape and management practices have on the
development of environmental awareness.
Introduction
Experiencing nature through physical interactions encourages humans to understand and
connect to the natural world, which is the starting point for environmental stewardship that
encompasses pro environmental values (Van der Werff et al., 2013). These experiences are
especially important in early childhood as they aid healthy cognitive, social, and physical
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development (Asah et al., 2012; Taylor, 2002; Wells and Evans, 2001; Wells and Lekies, 2006).
Children directly interact with the natural environment through observation and participation
with multiple senses, while utilizing the natural environment as the main focus of play and
interaction that create long lasting nature connections (Sebba 1991). In turn, adults with these
connections understand the need for preservation and restoration of the natural environment
since they have created an appreciative relationship to the natural world through their
interactions as young children. (Van der Werff et al., 2013; Wells and Lekies, 2006).
Young children today have fewer opportunities to interact with the natural world, and this
reduced amount of exposure can have a negative impact. Many children live within cities where
natural space has been reduced for human needs, and many of these children are kept indoors
driven by either parental fear or an increase in technological entertainment; therefore, missing
out on primary nature experiences (Grimm et al., 2008; Miller, 2005; Staemfli, 2009). Children
with reduced interaction with the natural world may never develop a relationship to the
environment, which could affect future preservation and conservation measures negatively, due
to the lack of human-nature connectiveness.
Reduced interactions can be impacted by many factors that affect the quantity and/or
quality of a child’s nature experiences. Gender differences, nature experiences in urban areas
versus rural areas, and the influence of parental/peer views play a pivotal role in the formation
of a child’s potential human-nature relationship. This paper will examine these factors and
investigate whether nature experiences in childhood influence human-nature connectiveness in
adulthood, while also exploring the positive impacts that nature has on childhood development as
they form a relationship with the natural world through play.
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Background
Biodiversity loss
Opportunities to interact with the natural world have decreased compared to past
generations, in part because urban sprawl has reduced wild spaces, fragmented wildlife corridors,
and decreased flora biodiversity (Grimm et al., 2008; Miller, 2005; Staemfli 2009). As a result
of decades of poor urban planning and development with regards to biodiversity preservation and
conservation, much of the remaining floras and faunas within urban areas are low in species
diversity and includes a variety of invasive species (Miller, 2005). Diverse nature areas, such as
in state parks or wild spaces, are often found in distant patches that may require access via means
of transportation, which may impede children from opportunities to experience such natural
environments.
Urban parks are the closest green spaces children living in cities can experience, but
many parks lack aesthetic and floras and faunas quality provided by wild spaces. Urban
planning and development has flourished, although it has not incorporated concern for the
preservation and conservation of biodiversity (Miller, 2005; Thompson, 2002). As a result, the
majority of urban green spaces have large strips of grass with a few trees that provide the same
aesthetics your-round (Baines, 1999; Thompson, 2002). Children’s experiences within urban
parks are, therefore, less distinct compared to diverse wild spaces where different species offer a
variety of tactile experiences, while offering more opportunities for children to explore and
interact with the natural world.
Parental fear
Opportunities for children to explore the outdoors have declined due to increased traffic
that has risen alongside rising populations within cities. The rise in automobile traffic has created
neighborhood environments that don’t provide a foundation for safe outdoor playtime and has
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increased parental safety fears (Carver et al., 2008; Clements, 2004; Gaster, 1991; Moore, 1997).
Many children are forced to stay indoors by their parents because they fear for their children’s
safety while playing outdoors or walking in the neighborhood unsupervised (Wyver et al., 2010).
Parents want their children to be supervised at all times but parents are often too busy to provide
the supervision they see fit. In turn, children are forced to find activities to do indoors, which
tend to be sedentary activities involving technologic entertainment other than active activities
that incorporates developmental competency as a whole.
In addition, parental fear has also been driven by technology where a wide access to
multiple forms of news media are available that emphasize topics related to crime, violence, and
danger (Altheide, 1997). The news media has helped aid in child abduction fears that has
resulted in children being overprotected; thus, in turn, hindering a child’s freedom to explore
the outdoors independently for fear of abduction (Kitzinger, 2002).
Technology
Parents don’t blame themselves entirely for the increase in indoor activity, but rather
many blame the heightened popularity of technologically driven activities such as television
and video games in playing a large part in lowering outside play opportunities (Clements, 2004;
Miller, 2005). It is unclear if the rise in technologically driven activities was aided by the
increase in parental fear, but what is known is these preferred sedentary activities can have a
negative effect on a child’s development through lowered self-motivation, vision and language
impairment, crippled imagination, and decreased patience and concentration (Cordes & Miller,
2000). Parents lacked the multitude of technologic formats of their children causing a parental
struggle on how to manage and judge a child’s time spent using technology (Plowman et al.,
2010). Ultimately, the increase in indoor technological play is affecting children, whether
children are preferring technological indoor play activities due to increased parental fear or an
increase in preference.
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Impacts caused by increase in technological activities have swayed childhood
opportunities to experience nature and build a human-nature relationship. Current technology,
which is expected to advance in the future, include simulated environments for individuals to
experience nature in their own homes, but these experiences are missing many sensorial
contexts. Real experience in nature provides multi-sensory interactions that simulated technology
has yet to achieve and has degraded the emotional value of real experience. The purpose of
simulated environments is to help promote nature awareness and preservation, but the focus is on
national parks, and, in turn, it has reduced support for local green spaces that are a key to
biodiversity and ecosystem health (Levi and Kocher, 1999). Experience in nature is still the best
means of helping to build human-nature relationships.
Nature-deficit disorder and environmental generational amnesia
The impacts on children from the lack of nature connections and experience opportunities
have decreased due to increased technological activities and safety concerns have affected many
children through the U.S. A childhood with little experience to nature has negative affects to the
wellness of the child causing a negative correlation between decreased outdoor play and
increased diagnoses for childhood obesity and ADHD that has been termed nature-deficit
disorder. Nature-deficit disorder is not a registered medical diagnosis, but is used as an over-all
label to be brought to society’s attention to emphasize that children are experiencing a loss from
the lack of nature experiences and, subsequently, a further loss to the environment as these
children grow into adults who lack nature connectiveness (Louv, 2008).
Experiences with the environment a child has through their growth into adulthood creates
a lasting view to which will be compared to as an adult. Environmental generational amnesia, in
which the experience a child has with the environment around them becomes the normal,
acceptable base standard for all future comparisons (Kahn Jr., 2002). If children are used to
having fairly large quantities of pollution, or small quantities of wild areas, then these will be the
5
base standards in which pollution can increase or wild areas can decrease, instead of putting the
base standard at zero pollution or quantity of wild areas before settlement. Increasing a child’s
experience with the environment to provide a variety of views, while also including past
knowledge of what was before, can help lower environmental generational amnesia impacts.
The impacts from both nature-deficit disorder and environmental generational amnesia
start in early childhood, and both are related to experiences associated with the environment.
Increasing childhood opportunities to play and explore the outdoors can help to create a
relationship to the natural world, increase physical activity, and improve base standards for
pollution and wild areas. Future preservation and conservation advocates will need to have a
lowered pollution base standard, a higher wild areas standard, and a good human-nature
connection to carry out these measures to fulfill environmental needs.
Childhood: the crucial time for nature experiences
Early childhood is the prime time to start the formation of empathic abilities and human-
nature connections that are carried into adulthood. Children begin to observe the world
around them at birth, and these multi-sensory experiences help stimulate the brain and form
connections. Nature provides an array of multi-sensory experiences, and provides children the
opportunity to engage with an environment that interacts during cause and effect
experimentations; thus, helping to understand causal effects through multi-sensory evidence
(Chawla, 2007; Gopnik and Schulz, 2004). Children learn best through experience as they form
hypotheses and experiments when trying to figure out the world on their own. In experiencing
nature through contact and interaction children are able to form engraved memories and a
human-nature relationship.
Childhood experiences have a lasting impact on adult behavior and are the building
blocks that make an individual, which is why experiences weigh heavier on the formation of
behavior than knowledge (Hunt, 1944; Rutter, 1984). In the early 1970’s, early linear models
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show environmental knowledge can increase environmental attitudes that consequently increase
pro-environmental behavior, but these models have been debunked (Kollmuss and Agyeman,
2002). Increasing an individuals’ environmental knowledge alone won’t have an increase on
their pro-environmental attitude or behavior (Cheng and Monroe, 2012). For this reason, the
formation for adults’ positive relationships, attitudes, and behaviors with the natural world is
rooted in past experiences with the environment (Hinds and Sparks, 2008). Experience is needed
before knowledge can proceed, and experience can aid in understanding and awareness during
the educational processes.
Individuals having childhood experiences involving play in nature develop positive
attitudes and memories towards nature, which leads to environmental activities in adulthood
(Bixler et al., 2002). In fact, individuals who never visit wild places as children have a decreased
chance of visiting as adults (Thomspson et al., 2008; Yoesting and Burkhead, 1972). Adults
revisiting their favored nature spots bring their children with them to have the same experiences
as they had, which can help reinforce future generations of adults having positive environmental
attitudes towards nature to form lasting human-nature connectiveness.
Play in Nature
Play in nature provides a setting where healthy child development can take place,
and is one of the most beneficial learning experiences in early childhood, especially when it is
child directed (Ailwood, 2003). Risk play is an example of one of the many different types of
play a child can experience while playing in natural settings. Risk play involves surroundings
where children have the potential to injure themselves or be injured by an object(s), which gives
children the opportunity to encounter risky situations that provide them a chance to build better
judgment (Hansen Sandseter, 2009; Wyver et. al., 2010). Natural settings accommodate many
opportunities for play involving risk compared to modern playgrounds, and children are drawn to
play areas that provide challenges (Aziz and Said, 2012; Brussoni et al., 2012). These
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challenging and risky opportunities have been shown to provide many benefits to physical and
cognitive development. Having a good sense of risk judgment helps children build on their
perceptual abilities and through cause and effect learn how to regulate their play in dangerous
play environments or activities, since children who injure themselves learn from their ill
judgment (Brussoni et al., 2012).
Risk play is often associated with independent play that provides children the chance to
explore their surroundings independently from adults and develop a sense of place. Just as
infants and toddlers are encouraged to explore their surroundings to help build their
independence, exploration outdoors as children get older can help further build independence
(Bixler et al., 2002; Passini, 1980; Webley, 1981). Independent play in nature helps children
acquire the knowledge of how they fit in their surroundings, and having a good sense of how one
fits into the natural world is correlated with individuals who have positive environmental
attitudes (Schultz, 2000).
Providing the most opportunities for children to experience nature can have a positive
influence on their development. Play in nature promotes pretend play, which has a multitude of
cognitive benefits including joint planning, self-regulation, problem solving, and goal seeking, as
well as enhancing social and linguistic skills (Bergen, 2002). It is theorized that pretend play
triggers many parts of the brain and that is why it is so beneficial to child development.
Another beneficial aspect of developing strong ability to pretend is being able to take
a different perspective and build on abstract thought (Bergen, 2002). Helping children build
abstract thought and a strong imagination can help in the formation of empathy, because the
ability to take perspective is needed to acquire empathy. Children who acquire a higher
perspective intelligence have an increased chance of becoming environmentally concerned
adults, since they would have greater empathetic capabilities to be able to take perspectives that
are different from their own (Schultz, 2000).
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Factors That Impact the Way Nature Is Experienced
Gender differences
There are often gender differences in childhood play. Girls tend to play in mainly fantasy
scenarios, single role play (ie. riding a bike), unstructured play, and in small groups, while boys
tend to play in large groups, have team coordination with rules to the play, and are more likely
than girls to pretend to be objects (Carlson and Taylor, 2005; Lever, 1978).
One important difference the way nature is experienced is that girls are more likely to
take part in fantasy play, physically using little to no objects to help assimilate their play
experience, while boys are more likely to use and manipulate objects during play and have
utilitarian views for imaginary animals. As a result boys may incorporate more materials from
the environment than girls during nature play and may use these materials to build and
manipulate their surroundings. Girls would more likely use nature as their backdrop for their
fantasy play imagining trees and rocks to be something else, participating in flower picking, and
imagining to be an animal (Nabhan and Trimnle, 1994).
Society has had an impact on the freedom of play for boys and girls, which can impact
their degree of exploration. Males tend to have more independent play, and explore farther from
home than girls. Males have this increased freedom due to many parents stereotyping that boys
will be safer while girls are more vulnerable so they need to stay closer to home to be protected.
Nature can be experienced close or away from home if the home has a yard or garden, but girls
are hindered in their development for spatial awareness from not being permitted to go on
explorations far from home (Aziz and Said, 2012; Nabhan and Trimnle, 1994). In this way,
society treats boys and girls differently on their independence to explore the natural world
causing nature experiences to differ; therefore, girls are forced to interact with what the garden
offers and boys are filled with a sense of freedom to find a nature experience they are in search
of.
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Men and women’s attitudes towards nature are similar to childhood attitudes of play
within the natural environment. For instance, men in general tend to have a more utilitarian view
towards the environment, while women tend to have a more moral view as their play involves
much fantasy that includes pretending to be an animal that enables them to have heightened
empathy. Men and women never outgrow their unique ways of viewing and interacting with the
environment, but adulthood education can help to increase an individual’s knowledge and
attachment towards nature (Kellert and Joyce, 1987; Nabhan and Trimnle, 1994). As adults, our
views and attitudes towards nature can be positively changed through environmental education,
but the childhood experience still plays a crucial role in the formation of human-nature
relationships.
City vs. rural living
Nature experience in childhood can be impacted by the place in which one grows up and
resides. Individuals who live within a city have been shown to be aware of their environmental
responsibility, but have decreased positive environmental attitudes and connections, while
individuals who live in rural environments have an increased chance of having good
environmental values, an increase in positive environmental attitudes, a stronger nature
connection, and tend to act in an environmentally conscious way (Berenguer et al., 2005; Hinds
and Sparks, 2008). Perhaps being surrounded by wild nature helps reinforce the importance of
nature and gives a better sense of one’s role within the environment; thus, improving their
human-nature relationship. City residents tend to have an out-of-site and out of mind way of
living, in which the environmental consequences caused by the actions one takes are not directly
seen, and wild places are viewed as a recreational activity or retreat.
Additionally, urban neighborhoods have provided fewer supportive foundations for safe
outdoor play for children and, in turn, have lowered urban childhood access to the outdoors
within their neighborhood (Gaster, 1991). The decline in outdoor playtime is a large factor in
10
why urban children score lower than rural children in having positive attitudes and values
towards nature (Bunting and Cousins, 1985). Rural children have more opportunities to have
access with the outdoors, due to lower traffic density around their homes, and the proximity to
wild nature at or near their homes gives greater chance for fostering nature relationships.
Parental/peer influences
Children’s opportunities to experience nature are heavily influenced by their parent’s
attitudes and values toward the natural environment, as well as their peers’ attitudes and views,
and rural children tend to uphold their family values much more than children who live in urban
areas (Bunting and Cousins, 1985). Rural children have far less outside influences, such as
advertisement, than urban children, where streets, schools, buses, stores, and homes are filled by
advertisements that may favor technological activities, or activities that don’t involve nature
experiences such as movie theaters or amusement parks.
Opportunities for outdoor play can be further impacted if parental preferences are for
sedentary activities or if parental views toward nature are negative (Bixler et al., 2002; Gronhoj
and Thogersen, 2012). Parents who don’t have a relationship with nature, or fear it, don’t spend
time in the outdoors and parents are children’s first teachers. Parental comments made toward
the natural world, or even the lack of acknowledgment, are seen and heard by the child who
grows to assume this is the norm.
As children get older they start to spend more time away from their parents and with their
peers, so if parents have a negative view towards the environment children can still have a
positive attitude towards nature through the positive influence of their peers (Bixler et al., 2002;
Chawla, 1992; Gronhoj and Thosersen, 2011). Peers can help provide outdoor play opportunities
for children coming from a family background that lacks positive environmental attitudes.
During pre-adolescence and even adolescence, children want to be just like their friends and
have a strong yearn for group conformity, which is why childhood peers are highly influential on
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social rules and values (Lombardi, 1963). Peers can help fulfill nature experience opportunities
for children who are severely lacking due to low parental involvement, to include nature
experience opportunities such as joining friends’ family camping trips or even just playing in
their backyard.
What Makes a Quality Nature Experience?
For children to get a quality nature experience, the environmental setting should have
certain qualities. To start, the area should have variation and diversity in both topography and
vegetation, which helps provide a complex experience. With a complex environment there are
more opportunities for children to play and challenge themselves, in which aids in cognitive,
physical, and emotional-social development. Included within a diverse environment are more
chances for children to encounter risk play where they are able to challenge themselves
physically and cognitively (Fjortoft and Sageie, 2000). Secondly, diverse floras structures that
vary in topography can provide a multitude of options for children to play, such as climbing
trees, pretend play, and construction play. Nature settings that provide quality experiences
provide a multitude of play opportunities and stimulating experiences that capture all types of
interactive interests and early childhood developmental growth.
Lastly, a setting that provides a quality nature opportunity is one that provides a positive
experience (Borge et al. 2003). Providing a positive experience makes the development of the
human-nature relationship grow because it was enjoyable and pleasant, brings fond memories
of attachment, and gives a child a sense of place (Schaffer and Kistemann, 2012). A child who
grows up to fear components of the natural world will avoid environments where such fearful
components are present. Having positive views helps to encourage an individual to explore the
outdoors, to discover their place within the natural world, and to form a human-nature
connection.
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Ways to Increase Nature Experience Opportunities in Childhood
Nature schools
Nature schools, or forest kindergartens, are popular in European countries such as
Germany, Norway, and Britain, where early childhood nature experiences are seen as vitally
important in the building of positive human-nature connections. These schools, often preschools
and kindergartens, are based in national parks where every day, rain or shine, the children walk
or hike to a different nature spot. These schools are child-directed schools where the curriculum
is based on childhood interests and questions, and often the natural environment provides many
opportunities for new questions and curriculum ideas. (Borge et al., 2003; O’Brien and Murray,
2007; Schaffer and Kistemann, 2012).
The reason why nature schools function so well for early learning is because the learning
takes place within the natural environment. These schools are based on constructivist theory
learning in which children learn as they interact and try and make sense of their surroundings.
This learning process is much more socially involved in that interactions between child and
teacher, and child and child, take place in higher quantities (Savery and Duffy, 2001). This way
of learning helps aid in building human-nature relationships as children acquire their
understanding and knowledge through a multi-sensory experience within wild nature as they
begin to receive answers to their questions to form a personal experience through each’s own
differential understanding.
The special and spiritual way that nature schools provide knowledge can help provide
more opportunities for U.S. children to have nature experiences, although it may not be an option
for every family. To start, parental involvement is much higher than in a regular school, and
many parents are asked to help the teacher in supervision. Since many are in wild areas, a low
child to adult ratio is needed in case of emergencies where one or more adults may need to leave
to get help, while the other(s) stay behind with the children. Since many parents work they may
13
not be able to volunteer their time, which may have an economic stigma in that only certain
families will be able to take advantage of this kind of school (Schaffer and Kistemann, 2001).
Nature-based playgrounds
Nature-based playgrounds in traditional school settings, or even neighborhood parks, can
be another option to help increase childhood opportunities to experience nature, while gaining
the positive developmental benefits from nature play for children who don’t have the luxury to
attend a nature school. Nature-based playgrounds include a compilation of trees, grass, sand,
water, dirt, rocks, and shrubs, which provide opportunities for nature to be incorporated into a
child’s daily routine. Incorporating natural material opens up a chance for living organisms
to make their way into the play setting, which provides opportunity to observe, wonder, and
explore the diverse living organisms present.
In this way, nature-based playgrounds help to mimic a multi-sensory experience with the
incorporation of different tactile experiences found in natural settings, while children acquire
benefits such as increased socialization, increased physical development such as coordination
and balance, and an increase in imaginary play (Black, 2006). Traditional playgrounds don’t hold
a child’s attention for long, and play is often interrupted, while children who play in nature-based
playgrounds play the same thing for longer periods that can continue over into the next day
(Fjortoft, 2004; Louv, 2008). Just like natural play settings, nature-based playgrounds are
experienced in much the same way in that they provide multi-functional opportunities to enhance
a child’s interest and keep them occupied for long periods of time.
Nature-based playgrounds are slowly becoming popular in schools and neighborhood
parks, since more and more adults are becoming aware of the negatives associated with young
children’s lack of nature experience opportunities. Portland, Oregon’s Westmoreland Park was
refurbished into a nature-based playground in efforts to help increase childhood opportunities to
experience the natural world. The park incorporates environmental science for children to learn
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as they play, such as the addition of a concrete channel with water pumps for children to
manipulate the water flow. Nature-based playgrounds offer great nature experience
supplementation to children within cities, but the cost to build such a park is costlier than a
traditional one due to the materials and maintenance (Anderson, 2014). The quality of nature-
based playgrounds is much higher, and more highly beneficial to child development and to
fostering human-nature connectiveness than traditional playgrounds.
Backyards and gardens
Childhood experience in wild nature is still the most effective influence on adult
environmental attitudes, but other forms of nature (i.e. backyards, gardens, parks, etc.) still can
play a small part to help replace missing wild nature experience opportunities (Wells and Lekies,
2006). Not every household has a backyard, but the ones that do can have an opportunity to
experience nature every day. Although many backyards may resemble poorly planned landscape
parks, they can still provide a chance for children to have a multisensory experience with grass,
dirt, leaves, trees, rocks, bugs, birds, etc. Experiencing nature through a backyard can help many
children whose parents are overprotective, have work obligations, or who are low income and
have little access to transportation.
Having a backyard garden can also help increase the quality of nature experience within
a home. Gardens have the potential to help foster connections to nature, and create a connection
that is unique to each individual (Bhatti and Church, 2001). Gardens are seen as a child-friendly
activity that can help develop better social skills, and gain a better sense of how humans fit into
and affect the ecosystem (Laaksoharju et al., 2012). As children watch their plants grow from
seed they discover many ecological processes which further aids in the child’s understanding and
curiosity of their placement within the system. In a way, a garden is a miniaturized opportunity
for a nature school within a home and with enough parental involvement to help guide the child’s
questions and concerns a quality nature experience is provided.
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Park restoration and management
The increase in urban development has had a negative impact on the quality of most
urban ecosystems, even though the ecosystems in urban areas are just as important to
protect and restore as the ones found in wild nature (Niemela et al., 2010). Implementing a new
form of landscape design for urban green spaces that can help increase biodiversity as well as
support local ecosystems through sustainable management and conservation biology practices,
can help increase quality nature opportunities within urban areas (Deardorn and Kark, 2009;
Niemela et al., 2010). Providing diverse, sustainable, and native natural green spaces within the
city provide human and ecological benefits, such as noise reduction, micro climate regulation,
and air filtration, along with quality nature recreation (Bolund and Hunhammer, 1999). Restoring
urban parks to a diverse area close to its natural state is the best option, although there are many
difficulties in the restoration and implementation process associated with stakeholder issues:
landscape design, habitat protection, recreation, and individuals who yearn for full restoration to
an exact pre-settlement landscape (Gobster, 2001).
Parks today need to include multi-use attributes due to such diverse stakeholder
expectations, and individuals within cities have multiple uses and needs from parks that involve
cultural, ecological, and human wellness criteria. Recent park planning and management
knowledge has come to a better understanding involving urban planning needs to incorporate
ecological roles, and better planned and managed parks to help increase a city’s ecological
services, as well as to represent the natural world in which human beings are an integral part of
(Boland, 2001). Many cities are taking the lead in creating ecologically sound landscape parks,
and are turning abandoned railway yards into multi-functional parks, which serve as wildlife
corridors, safe pedestrian and bicycling routes, art and cultural facilities, and a place to foster
healthy well-being and human-nature connections. In Queens, New York, the city plans to turn a
3.5 mile long abandoned rail line into such a parks, and plans on keeping many of the already
existing flora that have established themselves during succession (Foderaro, 2014). Development
16
of the new park, called “QueensWay”, will consist of keeping a “wild” feel to the park, which
will also provide a safe pedestrian path that is linked to many other parks within the area.
Chicago also plans to turn their 2.5 mile elevated abandoned rail lines into an ecological park,
called “Bloomingdale Trail”, that will serve as a nature refuge for locals as well as a trail that
leads to other city parks, and a wildlife corridor that will consist of 125,000 newly planted trees
and shrubs (Rotenberk, 2013). Both of these examples are implementing a new park planning
and management regime where parks are being built to represent native wild areas and floras are
being planted that require little management. These parks offer a prime opportunity for quality
nature areas for city children, and individuals of all ages, to connect with the natural world close
to home.
Conclusion
The need for an increase in nature experience opportunities for children to develop a
relationship to nature is crucial in the formation of human-nature connectiveness that is carried
with them into adulthood. It is clear that children today are lacking in opportunities to experience
nature and access to the outdoors to begin their path in building their own human-nature
relationship. Increased fear for childhood safety and technology-based activities both play central
roles in hindering children’s opportunities for nature experiences, especially for children living
in urban areas where the increase in human population has caused a decrease in quality nature
experiences and an increase in automobile traffic and child abduction fears (Carver et al., 2008;
Moore, 1997; Clements, 2004; Gaster, 1991; Wyver et al., 2010; Altheide, 1997; Kitzinger,
2002). This decrease in nature experience opportunities has brought about negative
developmental impacts on children that has been brought to attention through such labeling
terms as nature-deficit disorder (Louv, 2008).
Childhood play in nature can help to reverse symptoms caused by lack of earlier nature
experiences, while also aiding in healthy cognitive, social, emotional, and physical development
17
(Bergen, 2002; Hansen Sandseter, 2009; Staempfli, 2009). Play in nature is a multi-sensory
experience and it provides a variety of play opportunities that support the full spectrum of child
developmental needs. Through increased physical challenges, risk play, increased socialization,
and increased imaginary play children begin to practice using mental abilities needed for future
academic achievement (Acredola, 1982; Bixler et al., 2002; Kaplan, 1976; Passini, 1980;
Webley, 1981).
Gender plays a role in providing opportunities to experience nature, and also impacts
the way nature is experienced through play. Boys tend to have a utilitarian approach to play in
nature using materials around them, while girls become a part of nature through their pretend
play (Nabhan and Trimnle, 1994). The way boys and girls play in nature is carried into
adulthood, and forms adult environmental views. There is a correlation to boy utilitarian
play to man utilitarian attitude towards nature, as well as girl pretend play building perspective
ability that enables them as women to have strong empathetic abilities; thus, forming positive
environmental morals and attitudes (Schultz, 2000).
Outside influences, such as parental fear and gender bias, urban versus rural living, and
parental/peer influence, impact the type and opportunity of nature experience. In general boys
are allowed to explore far from home and girls are told to stay close, female opportunities for
nature exploration are limited (Aziz and Said, 2012; Nabhan and Trimnle, 1994). Rural children
have wild nature close to home, and have frequent access that helps in the formation of positive
environmental attitudes and human-nature connectiveness, while urban children have little
access to wild nature, and their nature opportunities are very limited to domestic areas, such as
backyards and parks (Bergenguer et al., 2005; Hinds and Sparks, 2008). Parental values impact
environmental views and nature opportunities for children but can be redirected by peer
influence (Bunting and Cousins, 1985; Chawla, 1992). Quality experience in nature is full of a
variety of opportunities, which is why it is understandable for there to be a variety of outside
influences on how childhood nature experiences are obtained.
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Quality nature experiences can be found in areas other than wild nature, such as
backyards, nature-based playgrounds, or neighborhood parks that were built with landscape
ecology in mind. Quality nature areas must have a variety of tactile experiences available,
involve multiple senses, provide opportunities for exploration and freedom, and have a diverse
floras topography (Borge et al., 2003; Fjortoft and Sageie, 2000) . Play in backyards, nature-
based playgrounds, or a quality neighborhood parks should be seen as gap filling opportunities
for children to experience nature when they don’t have the opportunity to experience wild nature
settings, due to that fact that experiences within wild areas have a larger impact on the formation
of human-nature experiences than more domesticated nature settings (Wells and Lekies, 2006).
Domesticated nature experiences are complimentary to wild nature experiences by providing a
chance to connect with nature to keep consistency in the formation of human-nature
connectiveness.
Although there has been research on the positive benefits nature has on childhood
development and nature relationships through a child’s experience and interaction in these
settings there still needs to be more research; specifically research that investigates the children
of the U.S., since many studies involving the benefits of childhood nature experiences take place
in European nations (Chawla, 1998; Cheng and Monroe, 2012; Hinda and Sparks, 2008; Kahn
and Kellert, 2002; Moore, 1997; Wells and Lekies, 2006; Yoesting and Burkhead, 1972). Also,
continued research on the benefits of nature-based playgrounds and how they can help fill in the
gap in nature experience opportunities should be examined as nature-based playgrounds are a
relatively new concept and there are few data on the topic.
Continued stewardship in the form of protection, preservation, and restoration of wild
areas is crucial for future generations to form quality human-nature relationships. For these
measures to be carried out throughout the generations children need to obtain substantial
opportunities involving outdoor play and exploration experiences, while also providing chances
to engage and interact within wild nature settings to ensure human-nature relationship formation.
19
Early childhood is the starting point for the formation of human-nature connectiveness and
efforts should be made to enlighten educators and parents to the benefits nature play and
experiences have on child development and the human-nature relationship that are pathways to
adult environmental stewardship.
20
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