Recent trends show that our nation is becoming disconnected from the outdoors, and the effects of this disconnection are magnified in America’s young people. Unstructured outdoor activity among children is down by half from the previous generation.  In fact, children in the United States. average just 30 minutes a week of unregulated time outdoors. By contrast, their weekly electronic media exposure is almost 45 hours a week.

Childhood obesity is at an all-time high.  The average American child can recognize a thousand corporate logos but can’t identify 10 plants or animals native to his or her own region.  Computers, televisions, video games and cell phones have become the new safer, easier babysitter.  With the loss of outdoor activity, we are witnessing an increase in physical, spiritual, and mental health issues such as childhood obesity, depression, and attention disorders.  As a land-management agency, the Bureau of Land Management is concerned that future generations will lack the basic knowledge necessary to make informed decisions about the health and management of our public lands.

Children’s current disconnection with nature threatens their essential understanding of the relationships between humans and the natural world:  the air we breathe, the water we drink, the species with which we share the world, the natural resources that we use.  For generations, young people spent long hours outside, exploring neighborhood open spaces, building tree houses with other kids, experimenting with an ant hill, feeling the pure sensation of wind and sunlight against the skin.  Outdoor activities allow children to develop independence; express their creativity; play games; test scientific hypotheses (without really knowing it); and get in touch with their senses. In today’s virtual-reality world of video games, computers, cell phones, and DVD’s, our young people aren’t exploring the outside because, as one child put it, “There aren’t any electrical outlets.” A whole generation of young people is growing up estranged from the outdoors in a way we have never seen before.

Journalist Richard Louv’s 2005 book, “Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder,” helped launch a nationwide push to reconnect young people with the outdoors.  According to Jim Hughes, then-acting director of BLM, “Our agency has a unique opportunity to reconnect children and families to the outdoors.  The BLM manages lands located throughout the U.S. that are backyards to many rapidly growing, urbanizing communities.  These lands provide great opportunities for outdoor recreation and education.”

“Take It Outside: Connect with Your Public Lands,” the BLM’s initiative to help reconnect kids to nature, brings together — and in some cases expands upon — agency programs that already engage children and families in the outdoors, annually reaching thousands of children through education and recreation programs and opportunities.  Take It Outside combines the best of these programs, focusing on involving schools, youth organizations, and families.  To support the program and to encourage field-based youth projects during the 2008 season, the BLM is offering $225,000 in grant funding to BLM field sites.

Local organizations, state and city parks BLM lands and other public lands offer unparalleled opportunities for visitors to learn, get fit, commune, contemplate, recreate, serve and re-center. Many of these sites are located in, or a short distance from, our urban areas and are easily accessible.  Additionally, many commercial organizations are also following the national trend by starting their own programs to address the need to reconnect young people to the outdoors.  The following Web sites offer a wealth of information aimed at getting young people outside:

• BLM   “Take It Outside”: Connect with   Your Public Lands

http://www.blm.gov/wo/st/en/prog/more/children_and_nature.html

• USDA Forest Service “More Kids In the   Woods”

http://www.fs.fed.us/news/2008/releases/02/outdoors.shtml

• No   Child Left Inside

http://www.cbf.org/site/PageServer?pagename=act_sub_actioncenter_federal_NCLB

• Hands   on the Land

http://www.handsontheland.org

• The   Children and Nature Network

http://www.cnaturenet.org

• National   Wildlife Federation “Green Hour”

http://www.greenhour.org/

 The future of our public lands depends on an educated, concerned and aware citizenry who will act as good stewards and knowledgeable public land managers.  “We need to create a sense of wonder about nature and the outdoors, and a sense of respect for cultural sites and the people who created them,” Jim Hughes said. “The ‘Take It Outside: Connect with Your Public Lands’ program will give children a sense of ownership, respect, and stewardship that they will carry with them throughout their lives.”