Local Well-being and Nature: making the connection

WWF: ‘Living in Harmony with Nature’

Interpreting ‘local well-being’

• ‘Caring for others’• ‘Caring for yourself’• Caring about your local area?• Ofsted’s well-being indicators• ECM: ‘emotional health and well-being’

Please quickly discuss with a partner what your school does with regard to your pupils’ emotional health and well-being. 3 minutes

Nature Deficit Disorder• We suffer as humans if we lack access to nature;

• Children need access to nature in order to fully develop;

• Nature is omitted from the curriculum; in 2002 a study found that British eight-year olds were better able to identify pokemon card characters than species native to their local area.

• Nature-contact develops children’s sense of confidence and teaches them to manage risk;

• Nature-contact calms the hyperactive and improves the mental health of all children.

Some statistics: could Richard Louv be right?

• 10% of all children have a mental disorder (national statistics, 2005): anxiety and depression are most common.

Please discuss whether you think there is some relevance in Louv’s theory for 5 minutes.

The ‘eighth intelligence’

• Howard Gardner’s multiple intelligences:– Linguistic, logical-mathematical, spatial,

musical, bodily-kinaesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal..and….naturalist intelligence.

More thoughts..

“We cannot have well humans on a sick planet… Not only our physical being, but our souls, our minds, imagination and emotions depend on our immediate experience of the natural world.” Thomas Berry

‘In nature, you can just be’. 7-year old

Activities you can do: 1

• Go to a wood, or an area where there are different kinds of trees;

• In small groups, blindfold one child and ask them to choose a tree and ‘make friends’ with it: they should touch it, smell it, feel its bark and leaves;

• Move the child slightly away, turn them around a few times,

• Remove the blindfold and ask them to re-find their ‘friend’ tree.

Activities you can do: ‘tree breathing’

• Sit comfortably with your back to a tree; • Breathe deeply; • Think about inhaling oxygen and exhaling

carbon dixoide; • Think about the tree inhaling carbon

dioxide and exhaling oxygen; • Breathe, and focus on the fact that this is

actually happening, it’s not just your imagination

Activities you can do: sky watching

Lie on the ground with a piece paper or cardboard, with a hole cut in it about 10 - 20 cm squared;

Watch the sky without speaking until you feel very calm indeed

Best done either at night, or on a day with clouds