Camping, hiking and fishing in the wild as a child breeds respect for environment in adults

Cornell University ^ | March 13, 2006 | Susan S. Lang

[fgoodwin]

Camping, hiking and fishing in the wild as a child breeds respect for environment in adults, study finds

http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/March06/wild.nature.play.ssl.html
http://tinyurl.com/ljnj3

By Susan S. Lang
March 13, 2006

If you want your children to grow up to actively care about the environment, give them plenty of time to play in the "wild" before they're 11 years old, suggests a new Cornell University study.

"Although domesticated nature activities -- caring for plants and gardens -- also have a positive relationship to adult environment attitudes, their effects aren't as strong as participating in such wild nature activities as camping, playing in the woods, hiking, walking, fishing and hunting," said environmental psychologist Nancy Wells, assistant professor of design and environmental analysis in the College of Human Ecology at Cornell.

Wells and Kristi Lekies, a research associate in human development at Cornell, analyzed data from a U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service survey conducted in 1998 that explored childhood nature experiences and adult environmentalism. The Cornell researchers used a sample of more than 2,000 adults, ages 18 to 90, who were living in urban areas throughout the country and answered telephone questions about their early childhood nature experiences and their current adult attitudes and behaviors relating to the environment.

The findings will be published in the next issue of Children, Youth and Environment (Vol. 16:1).

"Our study indicates that participating in wild nature activities before age 11 is a particularly potent pathway toward shaping both environmental attitudes and behaviors in adulthood," said Wells, whose previous studies have found that nature around a home can help protect children against life stress and boost children's cognitive functioning.

"When children become truly engaged with the natural world at a young age, the experience is likely to stay with them in a powerful way -- shaping their subsequent environmental path," she added.

Interestingly, participating in scouts or other forms of environmental education programs had no effect on adult attitudes toward the environment.

"Participating in nature-related activities that are mandatory evidently do not have the same effects as free play in nature, which don't have demands or distractions posed by others and may be particularly critical in influencing long-term environmentalism," Wells said.

Unlike previous studies that have looked at the effect of childhood experiences of adult environmentalists, this study looked at a broad representative sample of urban adults. By examining individuals' pathways to environmentalism, the study also took a "life course" perspective, that is, a view that looks at individual lives as sets of interwoven pathways or trajectories that together tell a story.

The study was supported by the Bronfenbrenner Life Course Center and College of Human Ecology, both at Cornell.

[fgoodwin]

Interestingly, participating in scouts or other forms of environmental education programs had no effect on adult attitudes toward the environment.

Ouch!

[yobid]

And attending Cornell breads liberalism.

[yobid]

breads? geez.

[HungarianGypsy]

Interestingly, participating in scouts or other forms of environmental education programs had no effect on adult attitudes toward the environment.

I beg to differ. My son came home from Scout Camp insisting that his siblings do a plot study in our back yard.

[fgoodwin]

That's great, but the question posed by the Cornell Study is, will your son's appreciation for the environment stay with him into adulthood, as a result of Scouting?

As a Scouter myself, I can say that Scouting has very much increased my awareness of environmental issues (altho I still think Algore is full of hot air!).

But, in my own case, I don't think I developed that awareness as a child in Cub Scouts -- it came about due to my involvement as an adult.

I hope your son sticks with it!

[HungarianGypsy]

Perhaps you're right. Come to think of it, he has always been this way. He helped a dove out of our old Arizona room and was fascinated when it let him hold it. We found a nearly featherless baby sparrow on our back porch and could not find a nest. When we called his dad and told him about it, he said it was probably going to die. He took care of it all night, then it was sent to a bird rescue home. We were told if it made it through the night it would survive. He also helped nurse a 4 week old kitten back to health, who was one of the homeliest cats in the world, but is now one of the prettiest since her fur grew back and her eyes are open. He also likes to study different bugs and identifys a lot of desert animals.

I guess I never thought of it, since we haven't had a chance to camp or hike in the wild in years.

He thought it was excited to go scout camp and find out that Arizona has robins.