The 34th annual 101 Alternatives to the Chalkboard\” 2009 Educators’ Conference Presents: I Got the Kids Outside, Now What? Opportunities, activities and challenges in a post Last Child in the Woods world
September 10, 2009Early Education newsletter focuses issue on Nature Education
September 10, 2009From the National Wildlife Federation:
Dear Colleagues,
As American childhood has steadily moved indoors in the past 12 to 15 years, outdoor play is increasingly rare. The weekly indoor-outdoor time ratio is now about 10 to one on the indoor side. We wondered what effect this modern “indoor childhood” is having on the quality of K-12 education and the average student’s readiness to learn in the classroom.
In this back-to-schools time period — Research shows children are less fit, have shorter attention spans and are less ready to be high-performance learners without a greater emphasis on regular outdoor time such as a daily Green Hour.
Our new NWF report: Time Out: Using The Outdoors to Enhance Classroom Performance is available at:
Best,
Kevin C.
