The following post is condensed from an interview appearing in the latest issue of Hand to Hand, ACM’s quarterly journal. The interview was conducted by Mary Maher, editor of Hand to Hand.
In 2006, Richard Louv delivered a keynote address at InterActivity held that year in Boston. He had recently published what would become a landmark book, Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder. In the years since, this award-winning journalist, commentator and activist has authored eight more books, including The Nature Principle: Reconnecting with Life in a Virtual Age, and most recently Vitamin N: The Essential Guide to a Nature-Rich Life: 500 Ways to Enrich Your Family’s Health & Happiness. His books, translated into thirteen languages and published in seventeen countries, have helped launch an international movement to connect children and their families to nature, which is the focus of an organization which he co-founded and for which he serves as chairman emeritus, Children & Nature Network.
Louv graciously took a break from working on his newest book, which is focused on the evolving relationship between humans and other animals, to respond to questions from the children’s museum field, one of many that have been deeply influenced by his work.
Mary Maher: In the eleven years since you delivered the keynote address at InterActivity 2006 in Boston, your message of getting kids back outside and involved with nature has spread within our field—and around the world. Has this message changed or been refined over the years?
Richard Louv: Since 2006, I’ve tried to place more emphasis on how we envision the future—long-term. Conservation is no longer enough. To improve our psychological and physical health, our sense of pleasure and happiness, and our ability to learn, we have to transform our cities, yards, homes, and workplaces into incubators of biodiversity.
We’re at a crucial point in what I call the “new nature movement.” Awareness has grown, but we need to move into an action mode, both at the family and community levels. My new book, Vitamin N, offers suggestions on how to do this that can be adapted by children’s museums. The Children & Nature Network, a nonprofit organization that grew out of Last Child in the Woods, currently has a partnership with the National League of Cities (representing 19,000 mayors and other municipal leaders in the U.S.) to urge mayors to improve opportunities for children and families to connect to nature in urban areas.
Children’s museums can join this effort (and many already have) by offering parallel opportunities, such as those now created in the green schoolyards movement—places where kids play in plant-filled natural settings. Children’s museums can play a larger role in creating bioregional awareness, directly helping families make real changes in their homes and neighborhood environments. For example, they can send children and parents home with native plants or seeds to help rebuild urban biodiversity, as well as promote nature-based play at home and in the community.
MM: Your book Vitamin N contains more than 500 activities to get kids and families more involved with nature. What are some of your favorite activities that are most effective at increasing that link to nature?
RL: It’s hard to choose, but here are three:
MM: In the eleven-plus years of your work on nature education, what are some unexpected outcomes or results?
RL: I’ve learned to my surprise that this is an intrinsically hopeful issue. The concern about connecting children to nature transcends political and religious barriers, and brings people together. It not only helps people look at education, healthcare, and urban design and architecture differently, but it may also help conservationists take the next step in the evolution of environmentalism.
In “Imagine a Newer World,” an essay adapted from The Nature Principle, I paint a modest portrait of what I hope that that world will be like.
MM: What role do you see children’s museums playing in better connecting their community’s children with nature?
RL: The seeds of the future are planted in our homes and neighborhoods, but also in a community’s businesses and institutions. Schools, museums, zoos, service organizations, churches, and more are the connectors of community. I am delighted to hear that more than fifty children’s museums around the U.S. are in the process of developing outdoor exhibits and play areas, some of which are written about in this issue.
Read the full interview here. To read other articles in the “Children’s Museums Go Outside” issue of Hand to Hand, subscribe today. ACM members also receive both digital and printed complimentary copies of Hand to Hand.
This post first appeared on the International Science Center & Science Museum Day Blog on October 3, 2017. The post is shared in partnership with Eco Boys and Girls.
By Sophia Collas and Maria Snyder
Eco Boys and Girls joins with the Association of Science-Technology Centers to celebrate the 2017 International Science Center and Science Museum Day (ISCSMD 2017) on November 10. As a children’s media company reaching young children across the globe with educational programming focused on early science, sustainable development, and respect for diversity through pluralism, being among leaders in science education and innovation is an exciting opportunity to learn from other dedicated professionals in this field.
Eco Boys and Girls has made it their mission to deliver high-quality early learning in the areas where it is needed most for the future generation to succeed in our ever-connected, globalized world. Promoting early science, sustainable development, and pluralism are the Eco Boys and Girls’ main focus across all of their programming. To achieve this, the organization delivers research-based curricula, media assets and materials, and hands-on activities. Driven by five charismatic and colorful characters—the Eco Boys and Girls—children are engaged in playful educational experiences through which they learn about their surroundings, taking care of the planet and each other.
Eco Boys and Girls has ongoing programming with the Association of Children’s Museums, based in Washington, D.C., which engages pre- and primary-school age children in activity-based and self-driven learning about the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Through this program, and in celebration of ISCSMD, young children are asked to think critically and curiously about the world around them and the role they play in making a positive difference.
With the Children’s Museum of New Hampshire, U.S., the Eco Boys and Girls Science Bites! Program leads children through science experiments that teach them about Science, Technology, Engineering, the Arts, and Mathematics (STEAM), and are joining ISCSMD 2017 with their programming at CMNH. Celebrating this important event, Eco Boys and Girls joins with other implementing organizations to share best practices and opportunities for collaborations with teachers committed to bringing innovative and forward-thinking education to young people around the world.
Eco Boys and Girls’ successes are in large part due to the high-quality materials and designs that capture children’s attention, but also because programs are designed to stimulate children in a number of ways. The engagement of children in practical, educational activities across their familiar environments—home, school and community—means that important and lasting effects will take hold. It is through the Eco Boys and Girls’ approach of child-friendly and relevant learning experiences that early childhood education can include science, sustainable development, and pluralism to prepare the youngest age group for the 21st Century.
Sophia Collas is Eco Boys and Girls’ Director of International Education, specializing in early childhood development. She also teaches professional development in international contexts. Maria Snyder, Founder and CEO of Eco Boys and Girls, is an artist, activist, and social entrepreneur creating brands that combine social ethics and economic purpose.
Several ACM members in the Gulf Coast region of Texas were directly impacted by Hurricane Harvey this past week. We’re happy to report that many of these museums are already open and providing a safe and fun place for families to play in this difficult time.
On Tuesday, August 29, ACM established the ACM Harvey Relief Fund to support the staff and families of our members affected by the storm. ACM will match the first $5,000, and the fund will remain open for donations through September 30. To date, we’ve received more than $2,500 in donations!
Thank you to all who have donated and spread the word about the Fund, including Shenandoah Valley Discovery Museum, the American Alliance of Museums, WOW! Children’s Museum, The Empathetic Museum, Mid-Hudson Children’s Museum, and the Children’s Museum of Brownsville.
We’re inspired by the words of Saleem Hue Penny, Associate Vice President of Community and Educational Partnerships at Chicago Children’s Museum: “in these moments reminded we are a ‘community,’ not merely an ‘association.’”
donated to @childmuseums #HarveyRelief https://t.co/Scy1GbsL11
in these moments reminded we are a “community”, not merely an “association” https://t.co/hljATv1qPK— Saleem Hue Penny (@huedotart) August 30, 2017
We’re heartened by the strength of our Texas museums, and by how our membership is coming together in support and solidarity. Thank you all for being a part of our community!
The Association of Children’s Museums (ACM) champions children’s museums worldwide. Follow ACM on Twitter and Facebook.
By Felipe Peña III
The role of a children’s museum is to provide a safe and fun place for families to play, learn, and enjoy time together. As executive director of the Children’s Museum of Brownsville, I am reminded of this every day. But what happens when new people arrive in your town? How does your local community respond to these different people? What is the role a museum plays in how it responds?
Immigration has always been an issue in America. As a child in Texas, I remember hearing about raids and the act of rounding up people, and seeing this on Spanish television. I remember hearing stories in my own community of people using scare tactics against those of their own culture. Someone would shout “LA MIGRA” (immigration) among a group of Hispanic immigrants without papers and everyone would scatter. As the experience of immigration in the U.S. continues to change, my perspective continues to change, and with the new administration even more so.
This spring, through ACM’s 90 Days of Action campaign, I had the opportunity to share my museum’s experience serving immigrant children from Central and South America with my colleagues in the children’s museum field. My community is located in the southernmost tip of Texas, a flat land covered in palm trees. Our metro has more than 3 million people, but it’s separated into two countries by the Rio Grande river—and a border fence divided so irrationally it leaves areas of “no man’s land” between the U.S. and Mexico.
Because of my museum’s location, we often host unaccompanied children living in immigrant detention centers. Over the past two years, we’ve seen an increase in these visits, which aren’t planned by the museum. We follow the rules set by the detention centers, including the use of security guards.
By the time these children reach our community, they have been through an unimaginable journey. Some have been trafficked and others, transported through stressful and crowded circumstances on LA BESTIA (“the beast”), a train that travels from Central America through the interior of Mexico. They have been cared for by strangers or taken advantage of by those with ill intentions. Most, if not all, are running from persecution by gangs and the lack of stability where they live.
When they are picked up at the border they are taken to detention centers in the Rio Grande Valley. They are kept in simple yet prison-like living conditions. They are clothed and fed but this is not a home: it is a holding facility. These processing centers are focused on either finding relatives of the unaccompanied minors in the U.S. or returning them to their homes in their respective countries. Those with neither option are placed in the foster care system.
To many, their experiences aren’t just sad, but unimaginable. My staff and I have many discussions about how, in responding to these situations over and over, we become numb. While we don’t feel shock any more, we never hesitate to talk to these children when they visit our museum, and show them the best time they could possibly have. We remind them, even if for only an hour, that they are children. It’s important to remember that children’s museums are here to make this very simple thing possible—honoring childhood. This can be the experience of a lifetime for children whether they visit us once or as a routine part of every week.
Sometimes these tragic events and migration stories have tough beginnings that lead to fruitful lives. Rossy Evelin Lima, a speaker at TEDx McAllen in 2015, inspired me by sharing her journey as immigrant determined to succeed. Rossy’s family immigrated to the U.S. looking for opportunity when she was 13. Later she graduated from the University of Texas – Pan American. Today, she’s an international award winning poet and linguist. She was a featured poet in the Smithsonian Latino Virtual Museum in 2015. This is just one story, one instance of success. There are countless more.
So, even though we might feel pain at hearing the stories immigrant children and families experience we must remember to always be hopeful. By celebrating childhood every day at children’s museums, we provide a reassurance that better days are ahead.
Felipe Peña III is executive director of the Children’s Museum of Brownsville. Follow the museum on Instagram and Facebook.
