Connecting kids, nature | Rhode Island news | Rhode Island news | projo.com | The Providence Journal
In this advancing technological age — where the young seem more familiar with camping out on a sidewalk for the latest version of Xbox than along a mountain stream — some people fear America may be producing its first generation of children unplugged from nature.
And the consequences, they say, are great.
“If people don’t establish that connection with nature, who in the future will care and fight to preserve the environment?” asks Dennis Schain with the Connecticut Department of Environment Protection. “If as adults they don’t have that base of experience, are they going to be aroused to protect the great natural resources, the important lands, the animal species?”
It was that concern that prompted Connecticut last year to join a national movement now spurring dozens of grassroots projects across the country and hearings on Capitol Hill. The movement has a name: No Child Left Inside.
