Children and Nature Network News

C&NN Natural Leaders will be at the Outdoor Nation Youth Summit and Festival June 19 & 20 in New York's Central Park.

C&NN's Howard Frumkin and other presenters at the 18th national conference of the Congress for the New Urbanism cited data showing an association between development patterns, transportation patterns, and public health.

Sales from custom Montana license plates will help MT organizations dedicated to getting children into nature.

Illinois Governor Pat Quinn has declared June to be "Leave No Child Inside" Month.

How one book sparked a movement to reconnect today’s young people with the outdoors.

A new paperback edition of Richard Louv's New York Times bestseller, Last Child in the Woods was recently published in the UK.

New outdoor nature center in University City, N.C., gives kids an unusual place to play, reflects national trend for parks.

President Barack Obama and nearly all of America’s governors have proclaimed June as Great Outdoors Month.

C&NN's Richard Louv addresses Nature Deficit Disorder while in the UK.

A broad coalition, including C&NN, has formed to ally with Michelle Obama's "Let's Move" campaign to eradicate childhood obesity and encourage unstructured play in nature.

Richard Louv, Sir David Attenborough and others respond to the recent survey by Natural England that revealed that 24 % of children visit a local patch of green weekly, whereas 53 % of their parents did.

June is a special time to celebrate America’s Great Outdoors. Presidential recognition of Great Outdoors Week was begun in 1997 by then-President Clinton and has continued ever since.

The Healthy Choices Act, a bipartisan effort to tackle the country's obesity crisis, was recently introduced in Congress. The proposal includes provisions for improving access to and opportunity for physical activity for adults and children, and providing more opportunities for them to participate in outdoor physical activities.

A report on the efforts of several Malaysian families to reconnect their children with nature has appeared in the Star, one of Malaysia's largest English-language newspapers. The article acknowledges the international impact of Last Child in the Woods, and cites a 2004 study that found that 19 percent of Malaysian teenagers were overweight.

A local initiative in Michigan to get children out in nature is going so well that it could be a model for communities across the country. That was the assessment of the Children & Nature Network's Cheryl Charles on a recent visit to Kalamazoo, where representatives of the Kalamazoo Nature Center are working closely with community leaders to develop a strategic action plan to improve the connections of people with nature and to positively affect the health of children.

A new survey of young people from around the world has found that a much greater percentage of them would rather watch TV or play computer games than save the environment. On a positive note, the results also show that children still enjoy spending time outdoors, with almost a third saying it's their favorite pastime.

Even parents who appreciate the importance of outdoor time for their children find it difficult to prioritize such time. Reporter Melissa Rayworth of the Associated Press offers a number of solutions from overcoming the most common obstacles parents face in finding sufficient outdoor time for their kids.

A growing body of research is showing that Australian children, like their counterparts in the U.S., are suffering as a result of their disconnect from nature. One study of Melbourne children, for example, found that classroom attention scores improve as the amount of schoolyard vegetation increases.

There's a neighborhood in Berlin where children age six through sixteen build their own playground structures, including towers that rise three stories high. Even more impressive: parents technically aren’t allowed in the building area, and staff members only check on the kids intermittently.

Getting children outside ranks high on the list of green parenting tips put forth in a recent commentary by Brita Belli, the editor of E magazine. "Whether hiking and camping as a family, or simply running around the backyard, regular outdoor activity can have huge positive health benefits," writes Belli.