If we want children to flourish, says educator David Sobel, we need to give them time to connect with nature and love the Earth before we ask them to save it! What really happens when we lay the weight of the world's environmental problems on eight and nine year-olds already haunted with too many concerns and not enough real contact with nature? Perhaps to be replaced by ecophobia - a fear of ecological problems and the natural world. Fear of oil spills, rainforest destruction, whale hunting, acid rain, the ozone hole, and Lyme disease. Fear of just being outside. If we prematurely ask children to deal with problems beyond their understanding and control, then I think we cut them off from the possible sources of their strength. The crux of the issue is the developmental appropriateness of environmental curricula. If curricula focused on saving the Earth don't work, what does?
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What a simple solution. No rainforest curriculum, no environmental action, just opportunities to be in the natural world with modeling by a responsible adult.It is with this rationale in mind that we have launched AfriOceans Kidz as an oppurtunity for them to 'connect with nature and love the Earth before we ask them to save it!' So with this in mind, we present our range of EE excursions and camps, under the banner 'Ocean education' ranging from 1 hr presentations at your school, through 3hr experiential outdoor excursions to our fantastic Three day Shark camps and our amazing Five day Sustainability camps...
www.aoca.org.za/pages/2165/education |
