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Director's
Message
Welcome to the JSU Field Schools’ Newsletter. Through this high-tech
form of communication we hope to keep you in touch with some low-tech
things like wildflowers, bird migration, and hiking. We’d like
your feedback on our programs, news and information. Most importantly,
read and incorporate our existing programs into your personal calendars.
Then call or e-mail us to sign up and participate. It is our goal to
get you outdoors and in touch with some special places and interesting
people.
Pete Conroy
Director, JSU Field Schools
Book
Review:
Last Child in the Woods
An environmentally relevant book was released in 2005 that speaks
to the importance and necessity of connecting children and nature. The
story is not about linking people with nature to “help”
nature…it is about the NEED we have for nature ourselves because
we are a part of nature. According to author Richard Louv, many of our
environmental problems are a result of our estranged relationship with
the natural world because we look at people and nature through separate
lenses rather than seeing a relationship where we are part of a greater
whole. He describes a disconcerting societal shift in how children experience
the world around them. Instead of climbing trees, fishing, tromping
through the woods, building forts and catching frogs, most children
remain inside or do not have the same opportunities they did 30 years
ago. Louv sites numerous reasons such as liability concerns, lack of
wooded areas and ponds in our neighborhoods, overly busy family schedules,
the attraction of electronics, and some media exposure that has created
a “bogeyman syndrome.” One child that he interviewed summed
up Louv’s concern when the child said, “I like playing inside
because that is where the electric outlets are.” We highly recommend
reading Richard Louv’s "The Last Child in the Woods: Saving
Our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder". Meanwhile, you can
rest assured that the JSU Field Schools are dedicated to creating educational
and entertaining opportunities for children and adults to experience,
immerse, and possibly reacquaint themselves with nature in all of her
splendid diversity!
Renee
Morrison
Coordinator, JSU Field Schools
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Upcoming
Events
Quarterly
Quote
“There was a child went forth every day,
And the first object he look’d upon, that object he became,
And that object became part of him for the day or a certain part of
the day,
Or for many years or stretching cycles of years.
The early lilacs became part of this child,
And grass and white and red morning glories, and white and red clover,
And the song of the phoebe-bird,
And the Third-month lambs and the sow’s pink-faint litter;
And the mare’s foal and the cow’s calf…”
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