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Children and Nature Network

"Leave No Child Inside" and "Life's Better Outside" are themes for regional campaigns in a movement gaining momentum across the country to reconnect children with nature. That's the mission of the Children & Nature which links like-minded people and organizations.

The vision and mission of the Children & Nature Network (C&NN) is to give every child a wide range of opportunities to experience nature directly so they can discover nature's joys and lessons as well as its profound physical and mental bounty.

The Children & Nature Network (www.cnaturenet.org) was created to encourage and support the people and organizations working to reconnect children with nature. The network will provide a critical link between researchers and individuals, educators and organizations dedicated to children's health and well-being. C&NN will also promote fundamental institutional change and provide resources for sharing information, strategic initiatives and success stories.

The C&NN news service and portal, cNatureNet.org, will offer parents, youth, civic leaders, educators and health-care providers access to the latest news and research in this field. It will also provide practical advice, including ways to apply new-found knowledge at home, at school, in work environments and in the community. The network will engage a diverse community of institutes, organizations and industries by providing a forum for publishing and presenting research, reports and case studies on children's health and nature, and related program-development strategies and support.

In December 2006, the Children & Nature Network reported that state and regional campaigns to reconnect kids to nature have been created or are forming in at least 22 cities -- including Cincinnati, OH; Cleveland, OH; Chicago; the San Francisco Bay Area; Madison, WI; and St. Louis, MO -- as well as several states, with Connecticut, Florida, Colorado, New Hampshire, and Texas among them.

These campaigns, which go by such names as "Leave No Child Inside" and "Life's Better Outside," often bring unlikely allies together. A host of related initiatives -- among them the simple-living, walkable-cities, nature-education and land-trust movements -- have begun to find common cause, and collective strength, through this issue.

White Hutchinson Leisure & Learning Group has advocated for naturalized outdoor spaces for 11 years, so it is really exciting to see the movement grow.

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