Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Children who play outside more likely to protect nature as adults

exactlyscience.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 32 posts

Re: Children who play outside more likely to protect nature as adults

#21

Post by Xylakant »

HenryBemis wrote: post #17
rimliu wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And your point is? There should be no parks? We should not call them nature? We should not throw cans into bins? I grew in a nature. Now I live near a park. The tree is still a tree and I don't leave trash around no matter if I am in the forest or in the park. Actually littering is one of the things I just cannot understand. How a person should be brought up to think that leaving trash scattered behind is in any way…

My point is "city park != Nature" A walk in Hyde park gets you closer to "nature" but not really. It is just a brief escape from the concrete & asphalt.

Even the park is nature. Biodiversity may be lower, but the small park here in Berlin that I pass through daily is home to a few foxes, tons of birds and even a pair of birds of prey nest here. It's not the wild cost countryside but it's a habitat of its own.

Re: Children who play outside more likely to protect nature as adults

#23

Post by kleiba »

My buddies and I used to play outdoors whenever the weather allowed as kids. My mom would literally kick me out if I stayed inside on a nice day.

These days, when I walk through the streets of my neighborhood, I don't ever see any kids play outside, even on the sunniest of days.

In parts I see that one of the reason for that may be that a lot of the open space we used to have as kids have been built on since. There was an empty lot to both sides of my parents house in my childhood with trees on them that we used to climb all the time, surrounded by a wire mesh fence that was used as our soccer goal. This space is gone, and I wouldn't even know where kids should even play in my parents' street.

But then, there's also a playground close to my grandparents' house that was always inhabited by children back in the day. It got renovated a couple of years ago and is arguably much nice today than it was, yet I never see anyone there.

Of course, the families that live in that areas had kids at around the same time that my parents did, so it wouldn't be surprising if not a lot of children lived in that area today. Perhaps I will have to wait another generation before younger families move in that area again?

But there are parts of the town where I live that are less old and where I know that young families live there. Still, no kids in the street, as far as I can see.

Re: Children who play outside more likely to protect nature as adults

#24

Post by DoodleBuggy »

tradersam wrote: post #2

I'm curious to know if there is a correlation between climate change deniers and playing outside as well.

There's certainly a high correlation between belief in science and education as well as how much garbage media is consumed.

Re: Children who play outside more likely to protect nature as adults

#27

Post by pvaldes »

VLM wrote: post #19
grardb wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's an even bigger misconception of what "protecting nature" is. I grew up in New York and now live in LA, and I can guarantee you that I do more to "protect nature" than the average suburbanite/exurbanite/rural person/whatever: 1. I'm a vegetarian, potentially transitioning to veganism. 2. I don't own a car; I mostly take public transit. 3. I take recycling and composting very seriously. 4. I pay attenti…

"A public park might require tons of water to sustain" Living large in the burbs east of the Mississippi causes less environmental damage than even the most ascetic life imaginable west of the Mississippi. More water falls from the skies, for free, without pumping, than we know what to do with... In theory public parks and front yards in the west could be xeriscape-d but in practice they seem to mostly try to emulate…

Only if badly designed. Plants store water, shadow the soil and keep the water in the area. A park "creates" its own water.

Re: Children who play outside more likely to protect nature as adults

#28

Post by mc32 »

spodek wrote: post #12

Saying playing outside leads to protecting nature implies they take effort from the norm. I prefer to look at playing outdoors and caring about nature as normal, so I'd restate it as " Keeping children indoors too much leads them to harm the environment more as adults. " Anyone can define "normal" for themselves how they want. I find this perspective leads to going outside more and caring more about the environment.

Does this mean that the most vociferous protectors of the environment may come from farming and rural areas where kids pretty much spend the majority of their free time outdoors?

I'm not sure there is a connection, or maybe this speaks only to people who are generally removed from nature and only see it in spurts?

In any event, the more conservationist (within reason) the better --just not sure these results mean much.

Re: Children who play outside more likely to protect nature as adults

#29

Post by rorykoehler »

spodek wrote: post #12

Saying playing outside leads to protecting nature implies they take effort from the norm. I prefer to look at playing outdoors and caring about nature as normal, so I'd restate it as " Keeping children indoors too much leads them to harm the environment more as adults. " Anyone can define "normal" for themselves how they want. I find this perspective leads to going outside more and caring more about the environment.

I find this with much in the mainstream media. So much so that I created a browser plugin to change some terms that really irked me (anti-austerity for example).

Re: Children who play outside more likely to protect nature as adults

#30

Post by crooked-v »

kleiba wrote: post #23

My buddies and I used to play outdoors whenever the weather allowed as kids. My mom would literally kick me out if I stayed inside on a nice day. These days, when I walk through the streets of my neighborhood, I don't ever see any kids play outside, even on the sunniest of days. In parts I see that one of the reason for that may be that a lot of the open space we used to have as kids have been built on since. There w…

A bigger factor than lack of open space would probably be things like parents getting accused of neglect for letting their kids be outside by themselves.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/04/13/parents...

Post reply on HN