Last Wednesday evening, I attended the Celebration of Children in Nature 2009 Awards Presentation and Dinner. The Austin Children in Nature Collaborative is a group that strives to give children in the Central Texas area easy access to nature. Last year, they had Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods, Saving our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder, as the keynote speaker. He has coined the term “Nature Deficit Disorder” and this group is trying to fight this disorder.
I was most moved by the keynote speaker, Andrew Sansom. He is the Executive Director fo the River Systems Institute and Research Professor of Geography at Texas State University in San Marcos. He told some moving stories about taking children out to Bamberger Ranch, a 5500 acre ranch specializing in habitat restoration. The one story that stayed with me was about a group of kids from an East Austin school district that went to spend several days at the ranch. One day they all went to try their luck at canoeing. Andrew said that you should have seen them the first time they stepped into those canoes. They were so unsure of themselves in the little swaying boats on the water. But, in only a few minutes, they were all comfortable and looked like they had been doing it for years. At one point, a little boy noticed a man on the shoreline throwing rocks across the surface of the water. The little boy asked what he was doing? Andrew replied that he was skipping rocks and the little boy asked if he could try it. They went to try it and the little boy learned to skip rocks and just loved it! This really stuck with me. I came from a 200 acre farm and ranch where skipping rocks was part of visiting the river on our property at least once a week. I thought there are children that don’t even know what skipping rocks is? Something has to change. Andrew also talked about the influence of these visits to Bamberger Ranch on the children’s grades. I can’t remember if it was the same class or not, but after a several day visit to the ranch, these kids grades increased significantly – especially in the sciences. Just from being out, learning and playing in nature did their interest increase!
I’m writing about this because the basis of our garden is “learning through play”. Gary Smith, the landscape artist and architect we are working with on this project, wanted to create elements that sparked the children’s interest and made them ask questions and activate their bodies and minds. We don’t have a swingset or a slide at our garden. We have a spiral wall that you can run through. It’s covered with mosaic tilework of plants that makes you stop and look closer and touch. And, the best part is that this entire garden is placed in a natural landscape – with huge trees, plants, animals, water, bugs and all sorts of exciting things. What a great place to learn! And get outside!
Here are some links from my post:
The award winners that night were:
National Wildlife Federation and Texas Wildlife Association
J. David Bamberger – Selah, Bamberger Ranch Preserve
David Matthews – teacher at Small Middle School
McKinney Roughs Nature Park
