The Healing Power of Nature - Norwegian Journal of Friluftsliv

that, finally, if he tries to ignore its importance to himself, he does so at peril of his
psychological well-being (Searles, 1960, p. 6).
As mentioned earlier, children and nature is a current topic in a number of developed countries. An
interesting historical perspective is that in the US in the 1960s and 1970s there also was a revival of the
understanding of our need of nature and would probably be labeled as the first modern day green
movement. In response Elwood Shafer of the Forest Service's Pinchot Institute of Environmental
Forestry Research, worried about the impact on youth and children spending less time in nature,
gathered professionals from many different disciplines working with children. Representatives from
local, state, and federal health, recreation, and park officials; and individuals working in the fields of
child development and environmental studies constituted most of the presenters along with some
academics. The resulting 1975 proceedings of the Children, Nature, and the Urban Environment
Symposium concluded that children need opportunities to explore wild places and to learn about nature
for healthy maturation and are not having these opportunities. Along with ground breaking
environmental protection legislation many school systems adopted environmental education programs
and several curricula were developed including Project WILD, Project WET, and Project Learning Tree
supported in part by federal agencies.
Twenty-five years later the question about children needing and having opportunities to explore
wild places and to learn about nature for healthy maturation was addressed again by Kahn and Kellert
(2002) in their book Children and Nature. They gathered ecologists, biologists, and psychologists
academics and the findings were consistent with the practitioners of the 1975. Children were being
denied the opportunity to explore wild places and to learn about nature (Kahn & Kellert, 2002). Kellert
(2002) said that a child’s direct and ongoing experience of accessible nature is an essential, critical, and
37