Finding Nature

I’m on a train to London writing this blog post, heading to the city to discuss our connection with nature, because nature matters. Coincidentally, while driving to the station Lucy McRobert from The Wildlife Trusts was on BBC Radio 4 Today programme talking about the new #EveryChildWild campaign, because nature matters.

Few people on the train are gazing out of the windows, for me that is one of the pleasures of a train journey. There’s a background of papers rustling, keyboards being tapped and a bit of screen time. The landscape leaving a foggy Derby station is modest, hardly a compelling view, but there’s nature to be found in the form of scrubby hedgerows and trees, their remaining leaves hanging forlornly.

This reflection on our nature, and the nature ‘out there’, is part of our connection to it. Those with a trait for open curiosity tend to have a more embedded place in nature – a greater connection to it. This brings me onto the topic of this post, what leads to a connection with nature, and why does nature connection matter?

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Oddly, it was getting a smartphone back in 2010 that led to my reconnection with nature. I began writing on foot, using the phone to note nature, simple sentences about the natural stimuli and my response. Through 200+ walks in 2011, the writing grew from attentive observation to 50,000 words celebrating nature and a personal reconnection to it.

After 5 years of use, over 100,000 words and two books, the phone has been forced into obsolescence, becoming slower and slower as the software leaves the hardware behind. So this week I’ve had to get a little more up to date and the new phone has brought slow motion video. Naturally, the first thing I did was to use it to engage with nature.

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I was wandering past a newsagents yesterday and noticed an ad (it was very large) for a celebrity magazine with the strap line “The stars you care about”. After thinking that it’s  more important to care about the state of nature, I wondered what a celebrity lifestyle magazine for nature might look like. It actually looks better and more appealing than I imagined! Although a bit of fun, this is an important point, we need to frame and communicate the benefits of nature in a way that appeals to a wider audience.

Nature! The wild celebrities you should care about

Although meant to be a spoof, the cover captures some of the research into our connection to nature. Firstly the benefits, how contact with nature makes us happier and lowers anxiety. Then the importance of noticing urban nature as most people live in towns and cities. Finally, a few of the pathways to nature connection, experiencing emotions such as awe, an appreciation of nature’s beauty and compassion – caring about nature.

The main focus of my research is finding the best ways to connect people with nature, because it’s good for nature’s and human wellbeing. As the interest in our connection to nature is relatively recent, most of the previous research has been aimed at understanding its benefits – for example, we now know a connection to nature predicts wellbeing to a similar extent as established factors such as income and education. Research on the types of activity that best increase nature connection is now emerging, and this post focuses ‘Getting to know nature’ by Bruni and colleagues – published a few weeks ago in Environmental Education Research. The paper evaluates the effects of three activities on children’s nature connectedness. These activities were part of a ‘Get to Know Nature’ program.

One study of three in the paper focussed on a 45-minute outdoor nature trail using an activity map that directed visitors to clues in order to find impression stations where the children created rubbings of plants and animals – I’ve done several of these with my children. The trails were designed to provide time in nature while learning about the environment. Children were rewarded for completing all the clue solutions. The impact of this on the connection to nature of 35 school children was evaluated using the Implicit Association Test, completed pre and post trail on the same day. Analysis showed no increase in connection to nature.

On a nature trail

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Our efforts to engage people with nature are often based on knowledge and identification. A national paper last weekend gave a couple of good examples – watching birds had 6 pages on identification, while going to the local woods was about ticking off 10 species, including goshawk and pine martin! This is raising expectations of what might be seen, but also our current research suggests it’s not the way to get people connected to nature. Continue reading →