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 draft programme is now available. Details and booking are available here: https://www.derby.ac.uk/enterprisecentre/events/nature-connections. It’s the fourth in the series and a popular forum for bringing together … 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 →