For the second quarter of our readings, I read 7 chapters, which consisted of 85 pages. The ninth chapter was on what happens when a kid is pushed too hard too fast. A lot of the kids interviewed in the book said they have pretty busy schedules with practice of sports and music, so they rarely have time to play. If they do have time to play, it's only about an hour and often times they are too tired to do anything. With pushing kids to do too many activities at a young age, it creates expectations, making them feel like they have to do everything. This has lead to major problems such as suicide, which the suicidal rates in children has increased tremendously over the past couple decades. Some of the kids' best memories were when they were on their own doing what they wanted, instead of a scheduled event or forced activity. However, parents seem to have a hard time letting their kids go off and explore things on their own, which was covered in chapter 10. So it's almost a 'catch 22.' I also found an interesting quote in this chapter and it said that studies have shown that indoor air has more pollutants than outdoor air! This fit very well into the video we watched on Monday. This chapter's focus was on how kids are stuck inside involving themselves with technology versus being outdoors, but if the air inside is said to be worse, why haven't kids gotten that message? On the flip side, in the video Green it depends where you are in the US and being outside with having clean air. Chapter 11 goes over how schools don't have the natural setting in them anymore and it's more technology based. How are kids supposed to get interested if they aren't in surroundings that could interest them? It also went over how universities need to start offering more classes pertaining to the natural outdoors. Getting kids to study these topics would be a great way to get them outside with nature! I learned in chapter 12 that the Girls Scouts and Boy Scouts of America has even changed a lot by heading in the direction of more technology based. They aren't outside as much anymore, which has caused them to negatively go away from what the focus was on when it was invented. With all this being said, chapter 13 expresses how important it is that parents introduce their kids to nature and do so by setting example. Parents have to deal with the "Third Frontier" so in order to fix it, they must deal with it. The really cool thing I like that the author did in chapter 14 was he used examples on how kids can learn life lessons by being in nature. For example, a parent went out with his daughter and walked on thin ice and teach her the thick and thin areas so she knew what to do in those circumstances. Same goes for life; if you are on thin ice, you might fall in, but when it's thick, you should be just fine. Another example is going out in the woods and building self-confidence by taking risks. Such a good way to present examples for life! In chapter 15, he basically uses his own life's experiences with himself and his family and how important nature has been in their lives.
I learned
I knew air inside had more pollutants than outside, but it's almost like I completely forgot about it and was ignorant to it until I read it. It was a great reminder to me how important it is to really get fresh air outside! I keep learning the importance of being outside each time I open up this book. I thought about it and I remember a lot of times my best friend growing up, her sisters, and I would go outside and play! We were outside a lot, and never occurred to me how important that was! It's fun thinking back on the memories I made with them, and knowing how good it was for me to do that then. There wasn't any new terminology presented, the author just used the same phrases or words such as "Third Frontier".
Implications and Affects
The main point is the same as it was in the first eight chapters, and that is that it's so important to involve nature in people's lives. Reading this book makes a person realize that nature is very detrimental to our well-being, but it's not presented to the public. Again, everyone should incorporate nature in their lives if they care about their health. The public needs to address the issue with kids at young ages just like the author suggested with having classrooms decorated with natural settings, and offering older students classes of nature. Even the woman in the video Green claimed how peaceful it is to be outside gardening and planting flowers! It's crazy to think how many people in our past, such as Teddy Roosevelt, utilized nature, but we forget about how that has affected us today!
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