Anecdotal evidence strongly suggests that childhood experiences in nature stimulate creativity. Environment-based education dramatically improves standardized test scores and grade-point averages and develops skills in problem solving, critical thinking, and decision making. Local governments, neighborhood associations, and even organizations devoted to the outdoors are placing legal and regulatory constraints on many wild spaces, sometimes making natural play a crime.As children’s connections to nature diminish and the social, psychological, and spiritual implications become apparent, new research shows that nature can offer powerful therapy for such maladies as depression, obesity, and attention deficit disorder. It’s also their parents’ fears of traffic, strangers, Lyme disease, and West Nile virus their schools’ emphasis on more and more homework their structured schedules and their lack of access to natural areas. But it’s not only computers, television, and video games that are keeping kids inside. “I like to play indoors better ’cause that’s where all the electrical outlets are,” reports a fourth grader. “It rivals Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring.” - The Cincinnati Enquirer “An absolute must-read for parents.” - The Boston Globe The Book That Launched an International Movement
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