Children and Nature Psychological, Sociocultural, and Evolutionary Investigations

by Kahn, Peter H.; Kellert, Stephen R.

• ISBN13: 9780262611756
• ISBN10: 0262611759
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-05-03
• Publisher: The MIT Press

Summary

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 Natureincorporates 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.

Author Biography

Peter H. Kahn, Jr., is a Professor in the Department of Psychology and School of Environmental and Forest Sciences at the University of Washington, author of Technological Nature (MIT Press), and Editor-in-Chief of the Journal Ecopsychology. He is coauthor (Patricial H. Hasbach) of The Rediscovery of the Wild (MIT Press).

Stephen R. Kellert was Tweedy Ordway Professor Emeritus of Social Ecology at Yale University's School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. He was the author of a number of books, including Building for Life: Designing and Understanding the Human-Nature Connection, and the coeditor of Children and Nature: Psychological, Sociocultural, and Evolutionary Foundations (MIT Press).

Table of Contents

Introduction	vii
Peter H. Kahn, Jr.
Stephen R. Kellert
The Primate Relationship with Nature: Biophilia as a General Pattern	1	(28)
Peter Verbeek
Frans B. M. de Waal
The Ecological World of Children	29	(36)
Judith H. Heerwagen
Gordon H. Orians
The Development of Folkbiology: A Cognitive Science Perspective on Children's Understanding of the Biological World	65	(28)
John D. Coley
Gregg E. A. Solomon
Patrick Shafto
Children's Affiliations with Nature: Structure, Development, and the Problem of Environmental Generational Amnesia	93	(24)
Peter H. Kahn, Jr.
Experiencing Nature: Affective, Cognitive, and Evaluative Development in Children	117	(36)
Stephen R. Kellert
Animals as Links toward Developing Caring Relationships with the Natural World	153	(26)
Olin Eugene Myers, Jr.
Carol D. Saunders
Animals in Therapeutic Education: Guides into the Liminal State	179	(20)
Aaron Katcher
Spots of Time: Manifold Ways of Being in Nature in Childhood	199	(28)
Louise Chawla
Adolescents and the Natural Environment: A Time Out?	227	(32)
Rachel Kaplan
Stephen Kaplan
Adolescents and Ecological Identity: Attending to Wild Nature	259	(20)
Cynthia Thomashow
Political Economy and the Ecology of Childhood	279	(26)
David W. Orr
Eden in a Vacant Lot: Special Places, Species, and Kids in the Neighborhood of Life	305	(24)
Robert Michael Pyle
List of Contributors	329	(2)
Name Index	331	(10)
Subject Index	341