Promoting youth nature appreciation
August 16, 2009 by Jennifer
Kids aren’t simply born loving nature. You’ve got to help them to develop an appreciation for nature, so in turn they want to protect this planet. Good ways to do this include:
- Hold a family hiking day once a month.
- Encourage more outdoor minded field trips at your child’s school.
- Plan games and activities that encourage outdoor time such as bird watching, rock collecting, plant identification, nature scavenger hunts, and more.
- Get involved in your local community garden, or if you have the means, planting a garden at home.
- Plan green travel – i.e. for family vacations, plan a camping trip vs. a trip to a resort.
- Get the kids involved in nature minded art projects and crafts.
- Check out books from the library on nature topics.
- Do a family community clean-up day in a local park or other outdoor area.
Lastly, get involved with a group or program that supports a life-long love of nature and outdoor activities such as…
Brilliant feature, and those organisations are all excellent, i’m going to keep my eye out for some UK ones. I am passionate about this for my son, my hubby & I both come from farming/countryside family backgrounds and it was a staple part of our childhood and something i want my son to experience and appreciate, luckily we live in such a beautiful place that nature is all around us, but i know for a lot of children that just isn’t the case sadly.
Ah yeah, I tend to stick to US organizations, just because, well, here I am. But I should focus on some other countries sometimes. In my blogroll, in the Where You Live section there are some UK orgs.