Author Archives: Miles

The UK is a ‘smartphone society’ with 68% of adults owning a smartphone. Excessive use can give rise to social, behavioural and affective problems – 10% of British adolescents have been reported to exhibit problematic levels of smartphone use. It … Continue reading →

The University of Derby’s annual Nature Connections conference will take place on 20 June 2018 and the call for abstracts is open until 8th April 2018. Details and booking are available here: https://www.derby.ac.uk/enterprisecentre/events/nature-connections. It’s the fourth in the series and a … Continue reading →

Nature is in decline and there is a need to promote a new relationship with the natural world. A closer relationship based on an emotional attachment where nature has meaning in our lives. Where we sense and appreciate nature’s everyday … Continue reading →

The publication of the Government’s 25 Year Environment Plan includes policies related to connecting people with nature for wellbeing, urban nature and nature’s beauty – all themes of our nature connections research at the University of Derby. In the foreword Michael … Continue reading →

A fundamental component of environmental education, and a traditional aspect of nature engagement is environmental knowledge. Knowledge of nature is seen as being indispensable to the promotion of sustainable behaviour – surely to know is to care? A recent research … Continue reading →

There have been several interesting research papers published recently, this blog takes a brief look at six of them. We start with trees and children’s play, briefly consider “Millennials” before moving on to the physiological responses to trees and roses, … Continue reading →

Research into sense of place, like nature connectedness, has grown rapidly in resent years and there are meaningful connections between the two to be explored. A sense of place is broadly about human connection to places, nature connectedness is about … Continue reading →