Saving the Earth

Nature Education

Children who have spent unsupervised time in nature grow into more confident adults – adults who feel at home in the world. As children play, they make no distinction between the natural world and themselves; they have an innate sense of themselves as belonging to and part of Nature.
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Nature is always around us and within us: the books in this section point to the importance of educating children (and adults) of their place in the natural world. This breeds self-confidence, wholeness, a sense of community. Knowing that we belong to the natural world changes how we behave. Children who are “ecologically literate” enjoy recycling and taking care of the environment.

Recommended Books Nature Education

Developing Ecological Consciousness: Paths to a Sustainable World
Christopher Uhl

This book offers an ecology-based, wonder-filled initiation to the universe and the planet earth. It examines the ways in which humans are damaging the earth as well as their bodies and spirits. It gives the reader new paradigms, values, and tools essential for both planetary and personal transformation.
2003, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Ecological Education in Action: On Weaving Education, Culture, and the Environment
Gregory A. Smith and Dilafruz R. Williams, eds.

This book celebrates the work of innovative educators in North America who explore ecological issues in school and non-school settings. These educators aim to engender the experience of connectedness that lies at the heart of moral action --demonstrating how to reshape the thinking of children and adults to affirm the values of sustainability, mutual support and community.
1998, State University of New York Press

Ecological Literacy: Educating our Children for a Sustainable World
Michael K. Stone and Zenobia Barlow, eds.

Reorienting the way human beings live on the Earth and educating children to their highest capacities have much in common, say the thinkers and educators behind this ground-breaking book. Both endeavors must be viewed and pursued in the context of systems: familial, geographic, ecological, and political. Our efforts to build sustainabile communities cannot succeed unless future generations learn how to partner with natural systems to their mutual benefit.
2005, Sierra Club Books

Ecological Literacy: Education and the Transition to a Postmodern World
David W. Orr

Professor Orr sees sustainability as being about the terms and conditions of human survival, and states that "this crisis cannot be solved by the same kind of education that helped to create the problems." He offers educators and parents an encompassing vision of how to teach and nurture children to be a thriving, responsible part of the natural world.
1992, State University of New York Press

The Geography of Childhood: Why Children Need Wild Places
Gary Paul Nabhan and Stephen Trimble

More than half of American children get their environmental information from the media. The authors, both seasoned naturalists, earnestly convey their love of the land and their experiences in imparting that love to their young children. They clearly show the necessity of wild places for childhood exploration and adventure.
1995, Beacon Press

Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder
Richard Louv

Today's kids are increasingly disconnected from the natural world. A 2002 British study reported that 8-year-olds can identify Pokemon characters far more easily than they could name "otter, beetle and oak tree." The author of this stimulating book argues for a return to an awareness of and appreciation for the natural world. Not only can nature teach kids science and nurture their creativity, he says, nature needs its children: where else will its future stewards come from?
2006, Algonquin Books

Learning Toward an Ecological Consciousness: Selected Transformative Practices
Edmund O'Sullivan and Marilyn M. Taylor, eds.

Sullivan and Taylor highlight the pedagogical practices that foster transformation from our current way of thinking about our place in the world to an underlying ecological way of seeing and acting. They offer the reader a selection of transformative practices that demonstrate the complex journey and contextual conditions that move us towards a deeper realization that we are a part of the world around us.
2004, Palgrave Macmillan

Reconnecting With Nature
Michael J. Cohen

Most of us have been conditioned to ignore our 53 natural sensitivities that connect us with Nature's beauty, health, and regenerative ways. This omission leads tor unhealthy stress and physical disorders. Author Cohen's Organic Psychology offers approaches to help the reader embrace natural systems, finding personal, environmental and spiritual well-being.
2007, Ecopress