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Health & Fitness

JCC's New ECE Curriculum is Going Back to Nature

JCC ECE is implementing a new back-to-nature curriculum, proven to benefit young children.

By Ilene Meister, M.S.
Director of Early Childhood Education
JCC of Greater Baltimore

During the first week in November, Ellen Olson, ECE Assistant Director, and I had the opportunity to attend the 2011 National Association for the Education of Young Children in Orlando, Fl. With more than 1,000 sessions organized over 40 topic tracks from which to choose, hundreds of exhibits to view, and thousands of colleagues from around the world with whom to share ideas, we were able to craft a learning experience that met our school's unique needs. Both of us left the conference not only with new information, but more energized than ever to ensure that our program preserves the sense of wonder in the children in our program.

Below I included some information that reinforces why we are moving forward with an exciting new component to our program: 

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"I like to play indoors better 'cause that's where all the electrical outlets are," reports a fourth-grader.

Children now more than ever before in history are "plugged in" to computers, television, and video games and increasingly disconnected from the natural world, even as research shows that "thoughtful exposure of youngsters to nature can ... be a powerful form of therapy for attention-deficit disorder and other maladies."

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Child advocacy expert, Richard Louv, directly links the lack of nature in the lives of today's wired generation to some of the most disturbing childhood trends, such as rises in obesity, Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) and depression. He calls it "nature deficit." He cites multiple causes for why children spend less time outdoors and why they have less access to nature: our growing addiction to electronic media, the relinquishment of green spaces to development, parents’ exaggerated fears of natural and human predators fueled by the media and the threat of lawsuits and vandalism that has prompted community officials to forbid access to their land. Adding to the problem, many schools are also assigning more and more homework, and there is less and less access to natural areas.

Here are some disturbing facts: "By the 1990s the radius around the home where children were allowed to roam on their own had shrunk to a ninth of what it had been in 1970. Today, average eight-year-olds are better able to identify cartoon characters than native species, such as beetles and oak trees, in their own community. The rate at which doctors prescribe antidepressants to children has doubled in the last five years, and recent studies show that too much computer use spells trouble for the developing mind."

According to Louv, nature-deficit disorder is not a medical condition; it is a description of the human costs of alienation from nature. This alienation damages children and shapes adults, families and communities.

There are solutions, though, and they're right in our own backyards. Research shows that direct exposure to nature is essential for healthy childhood development—physical, emotional and spiritual. Environment-based education dramatically improves standardized test scores and grade point averages and develops skills in problem solving, critical thinking and decision making. Even creativity is stimulated by childhood experiences in nature.

A connection between children and nature is an integral part of their development, so with this in mind, we have planned a program that will raise children's awareness and appreciation for the natural world, teach them about science, nurture their creativity, help them develop a sense of responsibility for maintaining the environment and reunite all of us to nature.

We are fortunate that the JCC has amazing outdoor spaces including a phenomenal nature trail at the Rosenbloom Owings Mills JCC. Our goal is to commit to regular visits to these outdoor areas and to introduce our children to the "life" in their background. Over a period of time, the children will have the opportunity to label and sketch plant life, create maps, cast and photograph animal tracks, leave food for the animals and then observe what the animals eat, observe seasonal changes, relate nature to their senses, label plants, trees, and rocks, collect items for classroom investigation and so much more.

We'll still keep the children "plugged in" to the latest technology, but also plan to get ourselves a little dirty and experience a totally "natural" kind of fun.

I look forward to sharing pictures!

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