Treesearch

Urban people encounter wildlife in various ways. One of the most important is the vicarious encounter with animals in children's stories. The surprising number of children's animal stories can be divided into three categories, each of which affects children's beliefs, attitudes, and preferences for wildlife. Because children's stories may have such a lasting effect, we need to consider the ways in which animals are portrayed in them.

A modified semantic differential was developed to measure environmental attitudes of sixth-graders. Classes were selected to represent different socioeconomic and residence backgrounds and degrees of previous exposure to structured environmental programs. Results indicate that: exposure to environmental education fosters favorable environmental attitudes; socioeconomic background and exposure to environmental education do not influence attitudes toward familiar, nonwater natural elements; urban students from low socioeconomic neighborhoods are unfamiliar with natural processes involving...

This paper reports the preliminary findings of an extensive bibliographic search that identified studies or urban children in camp and outdoor education programs. These studies were systematically abstracted and classified qualitative or quantitative. Twenty-five percent of the abstracted studies were quantitative. The major findings, techniques of study, and policy suggestions of the studies are summarized. In general, the qualitative studies report considerable positive influence for urban children involved in camp and outdoor education experiences. The quantitative studies find only...

The study tests the hypothesis that the recreational preferences of urban teenagers differ with age, sex, ethnicity, and measurable attributes of activity and environment. Photos of activities are used to measure preferences, and the photos are scaled for content by a detailed appraisal. The results show that sex and ethnicity modify the preference process, and that choices are sensitive to attributes of the activity and of the environment in which the activity takes place. Several additional propositions are suggested by the data.

An appreciation of the positive attributes of the inner city environment, where most of the population of the country lives and works, can lead to its use as a learning environment. Through proper training we can help the teacher reach out into the community and to bring the community into the classroom. A positive attitude toward the values of the urban environment can increase the self-esteem of the inner-city child and make his education more relevant. Rural and suburban environments should not be presented as utopian, for the stimuli they provide are different but not necessarily...

With neighborhood organization, program flexibility, and child participation in the planning and implementation of activities, the Girl Scout program is designed to be highly responsive to the varying needs of individual groups of girls. There is no fixed agenda or focus on a single aspect of environmental education. Instead, the Girl Scout concept of total environment encourages activities that place equal emphasis on projects fostering development of self, community involvement, and a variety of outdoor experiences. The Girl Scout movement has both strengths and weaknesses as a vehicle...

Modern life fosters confusion and encourages passivity, and youth suffer most from this pattern. The Outdoor Challenge Program enables young people to experience the active roles and the clarity of purpose called forth by a wilderness opportunity. The experience appears to enhance their mental health during and after the program.

In a study of the benefits of various summer programs, especially those involving wilderness experiences, the use of pretests for all the groups made possible evaluation of the degree of self-selection as well. Similar tests 6 months later showed the influences of the summer programs themselves. The results suggest that even a relatively short encounter with the out-of-doors results in pervasive changes, the most striking of which relate to increased competence in skills required in the woods.

Straightforward observation of children in their everyday environments is a more appropriate method of discovering the meaning of their relationships to nature than complex methodologies or reductionist commonsense thinking. Observational study requires an explicit conceptual framework and adherence to procedures that allow scientific inference. Error may come from those being studied, the investigator, or the sampling procedure. Systematic observation is one of the most useful ways of learning about the complex interrelationships of a child's world.

A young child has keen senses, but his world is not thereby more filled with sensory values than that of an adult. To enjoy the physical environment fully the mere capacity to experience stimuli is not enough; it must be complemented by appreciation, which is an intellectual activity. A young child's experiences of nature are often more intense than those of an adult. Among the reasons for this are synesthesia and the child's ability to isolate experience from its distracting social, theoretical, and practical contexts. However, the isolation also causes impoverishment. Remembrance, which...