Some key references from Randy White’s research for White Hutchinson. Randy White, Young Children’s Relationship with Nature, 2004 White Hutchinson Leisure Group.
“With children’s access to the outdoors and the natural world becoming increasingly limited or nonexistent, child care, kindergarten and schools, where children spend 40 to 50 hours per week, may be mankind’s last opportunity to reconnect children with the natural world and create a future generation that values and preserves nature.”
References – Susan Herrington & Ken Studtmann, Landscape Interventions: New Directions for the Design of Children’s Outdoor Play Environments 1998. Karen Malone & Paul Tranter, Children’s Environmental Learning and the Use, Design and Management of Schoolgrounds, 2003.
Research is clearly substantiating that an affinity to and love of nature, along with a positive environmental ethic, grow out of children’s regular contact with and play in the natural world.
References – T. Bunting, Environmental dispositions among school-age children, 1985. Louise Chawla, Children’s Concern for the Natural Environment 1988. Ruth Wilson, Fostering a sense of wonder during the early childhood years, 1993. Robert Pyle, The thunder trees: Lessons from an urban wildland, 1993. Raymond Chipeniuk, Naturalness in Landscape: An Inquiry from a Planning Perspective, 1994. David Sobel, Beyond Ecophobia: Reclaiming the Heart of Nature Education, & others 1996, 2002 & 2004. Roger Hart, Children’s Participation, 1997. Robin Moore & H. Wong, Natural Learning: Rediscovering Nature’s Way of Teaching, 1997. E. Kals et al., Emotional affinity towards nature as a motivational basis to protect nature 1999. Robin Moore & Nilda Cosco, Developing an Earth-Bound Culture Through Design of Childhood Habitats 2000. Stephen Kellert, Experiencing Nature 2002. Robert Bixler et al., Environmental Socialization 2002. Elisabeth Kals & Heidi Ittner, Children’s Environmental Identity, Indicators and Behavioral Impacts, 2003. Phenice & Griffore, Young Children and the Natural World, 2003. P. Schultz et al., Implicit connections with nature, 2004.