Biophilia

Biophilia is a term made famous by Edward Wilson. It is the idea that humans evolved as creatures deeply enmeshed with the intricacies of nature, and that we still have this affinity with nature ingrained in our genotype. In other words, we are all subconsciously connected with nature. The term biophilia means "love of life or living systems " 


Reading about biophilia made me wonder how we can capture this "love of life or living systems" with children and recreate this connectedness that Edward Wilson says we all have. Children are now suffering from what Richard Louv terms as Nature Deficit Disorder. If this is true, how to we reconnect children with nature?


Developing appropriate environmental learning starts where children are at and not where adults transfer their own issues ( global warming etc ) onto the children. I often wonder whether children truly understand why me must recycle and reuse items. David Sobel writes, "Suffering from the time sickness of trying to do too much too quickly, we infect our children with our impatience" 


In other words, if we teach children about the rain forest and not about their own place, their own environment around them, children will not necessarily bond with nature. Research suggests that if children are allowed to spend time outdoors in a wild place and had an adult sharing that love of nature with the child, they were more likely to grow up with a respect of nature. That means, it isn't the teaching of rain forests sometimes thousands of miles away that makes a child love nature, but total immersion in their own natural world with a modeling adult that creates that loved of nature.


Nature means different places to different people. For some, it might mean a city park, for others a community garden. For us in Northern Ontario, its the vast wilderness of North of Superior. Gardens in schools are a simple start to re-engaging children with their surroundings.


So bringing this back to gardening. If the same issues around love of nature exist in food, surely teaching children to garden in an outside classroom is a way to help them to keep healthy and teach curriculum at the same time. Children get excited about being outside. What better way to teach children about healthy lifestyles and nutrition, meeting curriculum expectations, by being outside in a garden?