Why do children spend less time in the natural environment?

Stavreva Veselinovska, Snezana (2024) Why do children spend less time in the natural environment? Book of proceedings: International Interdisciplinary Scientific Conference “Everyday life of children”, 1 (1). pp. 28-36.

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Abstract

The lives of children have radically changed over the past few years. Children have little free time. Their lives are structured, organized, and timed nearly to the minute. Today’s children are less connected to the natural world than at any other time in history. No longer free time is spent outdoors, in the nature. A growing body of research has demonstrated that the natural world holds numerous benefits for children and adults. While it is still mysterious just how the mind, body and spirit gain from exposure to and experiences with nature, empirical evidence forces us to reexamine and rethink the lives of today’s children. This natural connection has been replaced in various ways – greater interaction with the digital (‘plugged-in’) world, less unstructured outdoor play, and via growing urbanization. This decreased exposure to nature has consequences that we are just beginning to understand. Research across disciplines now suggests that this disconnect (both figurative and literal) has far-reaching consequences for the health and well-being of both individuals and the natural environment in which they act. Children are smarter, cooperative, happier and healthier when they have frequent and varied opportunities for free and unstructured play in the outdoors.
In this paper we represent the results from research made on children from 3-7 years old age in kindergartens in urban and rural environment. Results are statistically processed from which the results obtained give us the conclusion about the connection of the children with the natural environment.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	children, nature, natural world, natural connection, kindergartens.
Subjects:	Natural sciences > Earth and related environmental sciences
Divisions:	Faculty of Educational Science
Depositing User:	Snezana Stavrova Veselinova
Date Deposited:	27 Nov 2024 10:04
Last Modified:	27 Nov 2024 10:04
URI:	https://eprints.ugd.edu.mk/id/eprint/35085

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