{"id":367,"date":"2014-05-06T14:39:14","date_gmt":"2014-05-06T14:39:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/?p=367"},"modified":"2014-05-07T17:01:58","modified_gmt":"2014-05-07T17:01:58","slug":"introducing-young-children-to-nature-survey-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/?p=367","title":{"rendered":"Introducing Young Children To Nature – Survey Report"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chris Rose\u00a0\u00a0 <\/b>chris@campaignstrategy.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n

A nationally representative survey (N=2000, representative by age and sex) was conducted for the Fairyland Trust www.fairylandtrust.org<\/a> in December 2013, as part of the British Values Survey run by Cultural Dynamics Strategy and Marketing, CDSM [1].<\/p>\n

The questions were fielded by GMI and each had a Likert scale of options 1 \u2013 5, \u2018strongly agree, slightly agree, neither agree nor disagree, slightly disagree, strongly disagree\u2019.\u00a0 The survey was conducted online using a sample weighted to be representative.<\/p>\n

The key question asked for the Fairyland Trust (www.fairylandtrust.org<\/a> \u2013 contact Chris Rose, Director at chris@fairylandtrust.org<\/a> ) was agreement\/disagreement with the statement \u201cit is vital to introduce young children to nature\u201d.\u00a0 Respondents were also segmented by motivational values.\u00a0 That analysis will be the subject of a subsequent report.<\/p>\n

In total, 85.2% agreed it’s vital to introduce young children to nature.\u00a0<\/strong> 56.2% opted for \u2018strongly agree\u2019 and 29% \u2018somewhat\u2019.\u00a0 Only 6.6% actively disagreed and just 8.1% opted for \u2018neither agree nor disagree\u2019.<\/p>\n

Chris Rose, Director of the Fairyland Trust who commissioned the survey says:\u00a0 \u201cThe overwhelming support for the idea of introducing children to nature is fantastic news, as research has shown most children now cannot recognize most common wild plants and animals, and some haven\u2019t even seen a bumble bee\u201d.<\/p>\n

The poll also found that women agree somewhat more strongly than men, and older people more than younger people.\u00a0 (Whether or not people are actually<\/i> engaged in nature is a different matter \u2013 see forthcoming blog at https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/<\/a> ).<\/p>\n

Other evidence suggests that engaging young children in nature has the greatest influence on them as adults [2].\u00a0 This means \u2018young\u2019 as in three to four years of age up to about eight to eleven years.<\/p>\n

The report results, graphs and tables can be downloaded here – Report Introducing Young Children to Nature<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

The survey also included two other statements related to places, magic and folklore: \u201cI am interested in real British folklore, magic, ancient places and legends\u201d, and \u201dI have a favourite place which makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck\u201d.<\/p>\n

[1] www.cultdyn.co.uk<\/a> \u2013 contact Pat Dade, Director, at pat@cultdyn.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n

[2] eg (a) Childhood Development and Access to Nature: A New Direction for Environmental Inequality Research, Susan Strife and Liam Downey.\u00a0\u00a0 http:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC3162362\/<\/a> \u201cResearch has shown that regardless of race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status, early childhood experiences in nature significantly influence the development of lifelong environmental attitudes and values\u201d. (b) Richard Louv, Last child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature Deficit Disorder<\/i>, (Atlantic Books 2010), p 150: \u2018In 1978 Thomas Tanner at Iowa State University conducted a study of environmentalist\u2019s formative influences\u2019.\u00a0 He found that \u201cFar and away the most frequently cited influence was childhood experience of natural, rural or other relatively pristine habitats\u201d.\u00a0 \u2018For most of these individuals, the natural habitats were accessible for unstructured play and discovery nearly every day when they were kids\u2019.\u00a0 Studies in many countries have replicated his findings and in 2006 Nancy Wells and Kristi Lekies went beyond studying the childhood influences of environmentalists; they looked at a broad sample of urban adults, ages eighteen to ninety.\u00a0 The study indicated that adult concern for, and behavior related to, the environment derives directly from participating in such wild nature activities\u201d as playing independently in the woods, hiking, fishing and hunting before the age of eleven\u201d. (c ) \u201cchildren younger than 12 were willing to attribute emotional feelings to trees as well as animals, and that their interpretation of a story about a tree \u201cseems to be closely associated with feelings of empathy for the tree and appears to permit them to assume its perspective\u201d Chalawa http:\/\/www.peecworks.org\/peec\/peec_reports\/01795CA8-001D0211.34\/jdpchawla.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n

ends<\/p>\n

<\/h1>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chris Rose\u00a0\u00a0 chris@campaignstrategy.co.uk A nationally representative survey (N=2000, representative by age and sex) was conducted for the Fairyland Trust www.fairylandtrust.org in December 2013, as part of the British Values Survey run by Cultural Dynamics Strategy and Marketing, CDSM [1]. The … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=367"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":374,"href":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367\/revisions\/374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}