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Five-year-olds Madeline and Jaden crawl among the plants in the garden of their early childhood program's outdoor classroom. "Look," Madeline says, "it's a ladybug. It's a crawling ladybug on a leaf." Jaden, an active, inquisitive child, reaches out to grab the insect. "Be careful," Madeline cautions softly. "Be very, very careful." In response to Madeline's urging, Jaden gently strokes the ladybug's back. "It's beautiful," he whispers.
MADELINE AND JADEN are learning about much more than ladybugs. Together they are learning to be gentle with other living creatures and with each other. As young children discover the wonders of nature through direct hands-on experiences, they develop a reverence for life that cannot be fostered as profoundly in any other way. Reading about insects in books or watching nature videos is never as compelling as seeing a real butterfly emerge from its chrysalis or tasting the first tomato to ripen on a plant you've watered yourself.
Deep bonds can form between children or child and adult when they share experiences with nature. When children have daily opportunities to care for plants and trees, animals and insects, they practice nurturing behaviors that help them interact in kind and gentle ways with people as well. Sadly, though, many young children today do not have such opportunities.
Children's disconnection from the natural world
Much has been written about children's disconnection from the natural world, not only in the United States but all over the globe. In The Geography of Childhood: Why Children Need Wild Places, Nabhan and Trimble suggest that "to counter the historic trend toward the loss of wildness where children play, it is clear that we need to find ways to let children roam beyond the pavement, to gain access to vegetation and earth that allow them to tunnel, climb, or even fall" (1994, 9).
Natural green spaces for children to enjoy are giving way to development at an alarming rate, and media coverage of issues such as child abductions make families more and more fearful of allowing children to explore freely outdoors. Add to that the indoor seductions of TV, video, computer games, and DVDs and it is no wonder that young children are growing up more familiar with wireless BlackBerrys than wild blackberries.
Researchers say the...