Nature on your doorstep

With busy parents and busy lives, children are missing out on daily interactions with local wildlife, writes Sylvia Thompson.

ARE CHILDREN disconnected from nature? That was the question that Knocksink Wood education guide, Sarah O'Malley put to her audience at her recent public talk in the Wicklow Mountains National Park Education Centre, Glendalough, Co Wicklow.

"I believe many children are disconnected from nature because they have fewer opportunities to interact with nature," says O'Malley. The problems, according to O'Malley mainly stem from busy parents and children being driven to and from school, missing out on the little interactions with nature such as watching snails crawl up walls or bees searching for nectar in flowers.

"Children simply aren't going out in nature and we see when they come to Knocksink Wood on school trips how little many of them know about our animals, birds and insects," she says.

"For instance, many children won't know the name of a fox's home and when we ask them what is black and white and comes out at night? Many of them will say a zebra or a Dalmatian rather than a badger."

Wildlife expert and author of many books on nature, Eanna Ní Lamhna agrees. "I've been talking about wildlife and nature to children in schools for the last 30 years and what I've noticed most is how rural children are disconnecting from nature simply because they are not walking to school," she says.

"A generation ago, people knew the names of wildflowers and the different things you could eat in the countryside, now if I'm out with children, a lot of them won't even eat blackberries because they think they are dirty. I never remember worrying about blackberries being dirty when they were picked in a field when I was a child," says Ní Lamhna.

In urban areas, however, she believes that things have improved somewhat. "The key in urban areas is that environmental aspects are now taken into consideration in tidy town competitions," she says. "And, children generally walk to school in towns," she adds.

"What I really think is that things are improving again in terms of nature studies in schools but they are getting worse on an informal level with parents," says Ní Lamhna.

Ironically, wildlife programmes on television don't seem to encourage children to interact with nature more, according to the experts. This is partly due to the perfect quality of the images on television and the close-up slow motion focus that is virtually impossible in real life.

It's also due to the exotic nature of the animals and habitats shown which have virtually no relevance to children's own back gardens, parks or countryside.

"On television, you can always see the creature in great detail but in the real world you are often peering into a gloomy hedge or getting a fleeting glance at creepy crawlies scuttling away from under a stone you have just upturned," writes Ní Lamhna in Talking Wild - wildlife on the radio (Townhouse).

"What you are likely to encounter on your field trip is a spider running away rather than one in the act of eating her husband, having just mated with him. No wonder children feel short-changed."

Andrew Fleming, education officer with the Irish Wildlife Trust (IWT) argues that children need guidance and opportunities to interact with nature.

"We do outdoor events like pond dipping and nature walks with school groups during the year and the children love it. We will also be running activities in local Dublin parks during the summer," he says. The IWT's new junior membership scheme, Owls (see www.iwt.ie), has also attracted 150 children in the last six months.

The Green Flag scheme run by An Taisce (www.greenschoolsireland.org) is another way of encouraging children to become re-connected with nature. Alongside recycling and energy/water saving efforts, many schools also develop school gardens.

The Heritage in Schools Scheme, administered by the Irish National Teachers' Organisation (www.into.ie ), is another opportunity for children to interact with nature. The recently updated booklet contains a directory of heritage specialists who will visit schools at a low cost.

A regular visitor to primary schools through the Heritage in Schools programme, Ní Lamha says that the field trips are very popular. "We look for cuckoo spit, ants and earwigs. Teachers are nervous about their knowledge of nature so bringing the experts on field trips with the class makes it exciting."

O'Malley adds that when children do get out in nature, they love it.

"You see how excited they are to run around the woods even if they aren't used to the uneven terrain. We organise treasure hunts for the older groups in which they have to look out for animal tracks and different plants.

"For the younger children, we organise scavenger hunts where they have to look closely around the wood to find different things to collect," she says.