This tree house became our galleon, our spaceship, our Fort Apache...Ours was a learning tree. Through it we learned to trust ourselves… — Richard Louv Copy Share Image
Reconnection to the natural world is fundamental to human health, well-being, spirit, and survival. — Richard Louv Copy Share Image
A lot of people think they need to give up nature to become adults but that's not true. However, you have to… — Richard Louv Copy Share Image
The future will belong to the nature-smart...Th e more high-tech we become, the more nature we need. — Richard Louv Copy Share Image
There's a generation now that didn't grow up in nature. Some of these adults are parents and they know that nature is… — Richard Louv Copy Share Image
Studies of children in playgrounds with both green areas and manufactured play areas found that children engaged in more creative forms of… — Richard Louv Copy Share Image
Nature has been taken over by thugs who care absolutely nothing about it. We need to take nature back. — Richard Louv Copy Share Image
When you're sitting in front of a screen, you're not using all of your senses at the same time. Nowhere than in… — Richard Louv Copy Share Image
We are telling our kids that nature is in the past and it probably doesn't count anymore, the future is in electronics,… — Richard Louv Copy Share Image
“Our sensitivity to nature, and our humility within it, are essential to our physical and spiritual survival. Yet, our growing disconnection from… — Richard Louv Copy Share Image
The children and nature movement is fueled by this fundamental idea: the child in nature is an endangered species, and the health… — Richard Louv Copy Share Image
An environment-based education movement--at all levels of education--will help students realize that school isn't supposed to be a polite form of incarceration,… — Richard Louv Copy Share Image
“Joni Mitchell had it right: "They paved paradise / and put up a parking lot." But perhaps, in the near future, we… — Richard Louv Copy Share Image
Nature-the sublime, the harsh, and the beautiful-offers something that the street or gated community or computer game cannot. Nature presents the young… — Richard Louv Copy Share Image
Now, my tree-climbing days long behind me, I often think about the lasting value of those early, deliciously idle days. I have… — Richard Louv Copy Share Image
The future will belong to the nature-smart-those individuals, families, businesses, and political leaders who develop a deeper understanding of the transformative power… — Richard Louv Copy Share Image
Nature is imperfectly perfect, filled with loose parts and possibilities, with mud and dust, nettles and sky, transcendent hands-on moments and skinned… — Richard Louv Copy Share Image
Natural play strengthens children's self-confidence and arouses their senses-their awareness of the world and all that moves in it, seen and unseen. — Richard Louv Copy Share Image
There is a real world, beyond the glass, for children who look, for those whose parents encourage them to truly see. — Richard Louv Copy Share Image
We can conserve energy and tread more lightly on the Earth while we expand our culture's capacity for joy. — Richard Louv Copy Share Image
Numerous studies document the benefits to students from school grounds that are ecologically diverse and include free play areas, habitats for wildlife,… — Richard Louv Copy Share Image
In our bones we need the natural curves of hills, the scent of chaparral, the whisper of pines, the possibility of wildness. — Richard Louv Copy Share Image
What would our lives be like if our days and nights were as immersed in nature as they are in technology? — Richard Louv Copy Share Image
If a child never sees the stars, never has meaningful encounters with other species, never experiences the richness of nature, what happens… — Richard Louv Copy Share Image
“This principle holds that a reconnection to the natural world is fundamental to human health, well-being, spirit, and survival.” — Richard Louv Copy Share Image
We tend to block off many of our senses when we're staring at a screen. Nature time can literally bring us to… — Richard Louv Copy Share Image
Children need nature for the healthy development of their senses, and therefore, for learning and creativity. — Richard Louv Copy Share Image
Children who played outside every day, regrdless of weather, had better motor coordination and more ability to concentrate. — Richard Louv Copy Share Image
Each of us-adult or child-must earn nature's gift by knowing nature directly, however difficult it may be to glean that knowledge in… — Richard Louv Copy Share Image
Nature introduces children to the idea—to the knowing—that they are not alone in this world, and that realities and dimensions exist alongside… — Richard Louv Copy Share Image
“There is a canyon within a reasonable distance of nearly every school in the city," [Elaine Brooks] pointed out. What an exciting… — Richard Louv Copy Share Image
It takes time--loose, unstructured dreamtime-- to experience nature in a meaningful way. Unless parents are vigilant, such time becomes a scarce resource,… — Richard Louv Copy Share Image
Stress reduction, greater physical health, a deeper sense of spirit, more creativity, a sense of play, even a safer life-these are the… — Richard Louv Copy Share Image
A widening circle of researchers believes that the loss of natural habitat, or the disconnection from nature even when it is available,… — Richard Louv Copy Share Image
Progress does not have to be patented to be worthwhile. Progress can also be measured by our interactions with nature and its… — Richard Louv Copy Share Image
The dugout in the weeds or leaves beneath a backyard willow, the rivulet of a seasonal creek, even the ditch between the… — Richard Louv Copy Share Image
Nature-deficit disorder describes the human costs of alienation from nature, among them: diminished use of the senses, attention difficulties, and higher rates… — Richard Louv Copy Share Image
If getting our kids out into nature is a search for perfection, or is one more chore, then the belief in perfection… — Richard Louv Copy Share Image
Research suggests that exposure to the natural world - including nearby nature in cities - helps improve human health, well-being, and intellectual… — Richard Louv Copy Share Image
An indoor (or backseat) childhood does reduce some dangers to children; but other risks are heightened, including risks to physical and psychological… — Richard Louv Copy Share Image
“She was one of those exceptional children who do still spend time outside, in solitude. In her case nature represented beauty - and refuge.… — Richard Louv Copy Share
Children need nature for the healthy development of their senses, and therefore, for learning and creativity. — Richard Louv Copy Share
As the young spend less of their lives in natural surroundings, their senses narrow, physiologically and psychologically and this reduces the richness of human… — Richard Louv Copy Share
No other youth group like the Scouts has trained so many future leaders while at the same time being a nature organization with its… — Richard Louv Copy Share
In medieval times, if someone displayed the symptoms we now identify as boredom, that person was thought to be committing something called acedia, a… — Richard Louv Copy Share
Rather than accepting the drifting separation of the generations, we might begin to define a more complex and interesting set of life stages and… — Richard Louv Copy Share
This seems clear enough: When truly present in nature, we do use all our senses at the same time, which is the optimum state… — Richard Louv Copy Share
Reconnection to the natural world is fundamental to human health, well-being, spirit, and survival. — Richard Louv Copy Share
“Most scientists who study human perception no longer assume that we have five senses: taste, touch, smell, sight, and hearing. The current number ranges… — Richard Louv Copy Share
Nature is often overlooked as a healing balm for the emotional hardships in a child's life. You'll likely never see a slick commercial for… — Richard Louv Copy Share
In nature, a child finds freedom, fantasy, and privacy: a place distant from the adult world, a separate peace. — Richard Louv Copy Share
Something else was different when we were young: our parents were outdoors. I’m not saying they were joining health clubs and things of that… — Richard Louv Copy Share