Children and Nature: Psychological, Sociocultural, and Evolutionary Investigations

By Peter H. Kahn, S. Kellert. Children, Youth and Environments, 2003

530 citations recorded by the source corpus.

For much of human evolution, the natural world was one of the most important contexts of children's maturation. Indeed, the experience of nature was, and still may be, a critical component of human physical, emotional, intellectual, and even moral development. Yet scientific knowledge of the significance of nature during the different stages of childhood is sparse. This book provides scientific investigations and thought-provoking essays on children and nature. Children and Nature incorporates research from cognitive science, developmental psychology, ecology, education, environmental studies, evolutionary psychology, political science, primatology, psychiatry, and social psychology. The authors examine the evolutionary significance of nature during childhood; the formation of children's conceptions, values, and sympathies toward the natural world; how contact with nature affects children's physical and mental development; and the educational and political consequences of the weakened childhood experience of nature in modern society.

Subfields: General Agricultural and Biological Sciences, Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/e44106a11f6dfa42ff85df07a1c30dd9f165bde3

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In General Agricultural and Biological Sciences

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Citations in the corpus

The Misdiagnosis: Rethinking “Nature-deficit Disorder” (2013, background): “Louv successfully draws attention to issues scholars have highlighted, such as fear and despair (Macy, 1995), stunted childhood development (Kahn & Kellert, 2002), and technological implications (Glendinning, 1995).”
Green spaces and cognitive development in primary schoolchildren (2015, background): “C with nature is thought to play a crucial and irreplaceable role in brain development (1, 2).”
Value Sensitive Design: Theory and Methods (2002, background): “will also draw on existing empirical research on people’s environmental concepts and values [12, 13] to shape their conceptual investigations.”
A Look at the Ecotherapy Research Evidence (2009, unknown): “Researchers like Kahn and Kellert (2000) have found biocentric reasoning in children all over the world.”
An Exploration of the Relationships between Adults' Childhood and Current Nature Exposure and Their Mental Well-Being (2023, background): “…behavior Ecopsychologists and environmentalists attest that nature exposure is important for the psychological and physical health of humans (e.g., Kahn & Kellert, 2002; Kaplan & Kaplan, 1989; Metzner, 1999), and there is substantial scientific evidence that confirms these contentions for both…”
Nearby Nature (2003, background): “In addition to the studies of adults, research has more recently begun to explore children’s relationships to the natural environment (e.g., Bartlett, 1997, 1998; Coley, Kuo, & Sullivan, 1997; Kahn & Kellert, 2002; R. C. Moore, 1986; Sebba 1991; Sobel, 1993).”
Learning with nature and learning from others: nature as setting and resource for early childhood education (2015, unknown): “…sarah.macquarrie@perth.uhi.ac.uk Journal of Adventure Education and Outdoor Learning, 2015 Vol. 15, No. 1, 1–23, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14729679.2013.841095 © 2013 Institute for Outdoor Learning contribution within childhood (Gullestad, 1997; Kahn & Kellert, 2002; Louv, 2005; Warden, 2010).”
Hardware companions?: what online AIBO discussion forums reveal about the human-robotic relationship (2003, background): “Why might this proposition be interesting? For one thing, the human-animal bond is an important one in the human psyche [2, 13, 18].”
Extinction of experience: the loss of human–nature interactions (2016, background): “In a similar vein, Kellert ( 2002 ) observed that society has become “so estranged from its natural origins, it has failed to recognize our species’ basic dependence on nature as a condition of growth and development”.”