In an excerpt for Lost Child in the Wood by Richard Louv, he tells us about the benefits children who are diagnose with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder or ADHD and Attention Deficit Disorder or ADD could have just by being out in nature. He even suggests the can be miss diagnosed. Instead they can be surfing from something known as Nature – Deficit Disorder or NDD. In this particular part of the book that was read in class it explained how we as people have cut ourselves off from nature and though many people can coup with this, there are some who suffer from the lack of connect with the greenery and open spaces of nature. The book states “of the twenty-first century, nearly 40 percent of American elementary school either eliminated …show more content…
Coming from a more urban place going up I am use to concrete and tall building. The wilderness is something of a fantasy seen mostly in books. The tallest tree I’ve seen where I am from now seem small and insignificant, being here and being surrounded by nature some of which has been around for hundreds of years. In an article called ‘Walk on the Wilder side’ an English teacher experiences how detach from nature her students are firsthand. “Somewhere in the recent past her students had become the Net generation, weaned on electronic text, instant messages, and virtual reality. The gap between word and world had widened at the time when cotemporary environmental authors cry out for reconnection.” (Mary Ellen Dakin, 2011). A need to bridge the gap between kids that grow up in urban setting and nature itself has never been more important now. People are now spending so much time on their phones and computer not only can they get disconnected from nature, but they can also get disconnected from the world. When the English teacher in an urban area found that many of her student did not have a good understanding of the nature around them, she had them go outside and sit in a park and write about what they saw and heard. “She would see that they lack a vocabulary specific to the natural world, unable to name types of trees, birds, insect, grasses, flowers, and weeds they observed (one student would write
Cronon, William “The Trouble with Wilderness; or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature” ed., Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature, New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1995, 69-90
The wild is a place to push yourself to the limit and take a look at who you truly are inside. “Wilderness areas have value as symbols of unselfishness” (Nash). Roderick Nash’s philosophy states that the wilderness gives people an opportunity to learn humility but they fight this because they do not have a true desire to be humble. Human-kind wants to give out the illusion that they are nature lovers when in reality, they are far from it. “When we go to designated wilderness we are, as the 1964 act says, "visitors" in someone else's home” (Nash). People do not like what they cannot control and nature is uncontrollable. Ecocentrism, the belief that nature is the most important element of life, is not widely accepted. The novel Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer depicts a young boy who goes on an exploration to teach himself the true concept of humility. Chris McCandless, the protagonist, does not place confidence in the universal ideology that human beings are the most significant species on the planet, anthropocentrism.
One strength of his article is that it can easily elicit an emotional response from the more sympathetic readers and outdoor enthusiasts. Duane appeals to pathos when first setting the scene of a day in the wilderness. He describes what it would be like if one had the “good fortune” to spot a Sierra Nevada bighorn sheep in the wild. He writes, “You unwrap a chocolate bar amid breathtaking views . . . the sight fills you with awe and also with gratitude for the national parks, forests, and yes, environmental regulations that keep the American dream of wilderness alive” (Duane 1). For the audience that connects to this emotional appeal, this instantly draws them in to the article and can arouse feelings of amazement and wonder toward the sight described. It can likewise leave readers wondering whether or not this scene is truly so perfect. This statement can also appear too dramatic for those less passionate. When Duane writes, “The sight fills you with . . . gratitude for the . . . yes, environmental regulations that keep the American dream of wilderness alive,” it seems almost untrue, as most people do not think twice about the environmental regulations that keep animals in their
The advent of industrialization and mankind's insatiable quest to devour nature has resulted in a potentially catastrophic chaos. Our race against time to sate the ever-increasing numbers of hungry stomachs has taken toll on the environment. Man has tried to strip every resource Earth has to offer and has ruthlessly tried to eliminate any obstruction he perceived. Nature is an independent entity which has sustained and maintained the balance existing within it. Traditionally, spring season hosts the complete magnificence of nature in full bloom. It is evident in the very first chapter when Rachel Carson talks about a hypothetical village which was the epitome of natural rural beauty and was a delightful scenery for the beholder. The village
The debate over technology being healthy for our children has been a debate that has gone on for years. It appears as though the tragedy that children are missing out on hands-on nature is definitely something we all must learn to accept. Nicholas D. Kristof hits the nail on the head when he suggest that we try to preserve nature but we don’t promote natural activity such as hiking, biking, camping, and “discovering the hard way what a wasp nest looks like”. Kristof does an effective job getting the point across on experiencing nature and limiting technology. He is a father that is destined for his young daughter to know about the outdoors with personal experimentation. Kristof’s intended audience is geared toward people that want their children and themselves to be involved in nature, but they have been consumed with this technological age.
Does wilderness exist? To many people, this would seem to be a very meaningless question. Of course wilderness exists. But, coming from a student who decided to enroll in a class called Humans and the Natural Environment: Impacts and Moral Obligations, this question has become one that has almost thrown my world upside down. Before we can answer the question, we must first know the definition of wilderness is this, “an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man is a visitor who does not remain.” Because of my recent class periods and readings, I believe that the concept of wilderness does not exist, and that it is not useful. Throughout this essay I will explain why
have both a sense of the importance of the wilderness and space in our culture
“The integrity of impression made by manifold natural objects… in the tranquil landscape, and especially in the distant line of the horizon, man beholds somewhat as beautiful as his own nature” (Emerson). Rather than providing a technical, concrete definition of nature, Ralph Waldo Emerson brings a fresh take to how nature is defined. In fact, other authors and individuals have shaped their own definition of nature: what they believe it possesses in addition to what it encompasses. This theme has been widely discussed, with a peak in the nineteenth century. Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau are responsible for the fixation of nature in literature, and Christopher McCandless plus Cheryl Strayed are answerable for bringing that fixation into a more recent time period. Nature was and is a prevalent theme in literature and society; however, every individual views it differently. While Emerson, Thoreau, McCandless, and Strayed all took similar approaches in interacting with nature, they differ in their belief of what nature offers individuals.
Muir’s wilderness is rooted in the idea of an aesthetically pleasing natural scape given they fit into certain criteria such as, “ none of Nature’s landscape’s are ugly so long as they are wild” (Muir). The attachment of this emphasis on an aesthetically pleasing landscape was partial truth, which drove people out the national parks. While these places where indeed wild and beautiful, Muir sold the masses on this idea of all nature being pristine and pure, when in reality that was not the
From the lone hiker on the Appalachian Trail to the environmental lobby groups in Washington D.C., nature evokes strong feelings in each and every one of us. We often struggle with and are ultimately shaped by our relationship with nature. The relationship we forge with nature reflects our fundamental beliefs about ourselves and the world around us. The works of timeless authors, including Henry David Thoreau and Annie Dillard, are centered around their relationship to nature.
... of the man, but shines into the eye and the heart of the child” (Emerson, pg. 510).Such imagery allows the man to understand that nature is more than a collection of integrated objects. Moreover, to appreciate nature, a man has to free his mind from society’s distractions and to see nature through the eyes of a child. Children are inexperienced and will not reminisce past events while observing nature. Seeing this world through a child’s eyes gives the world more meaning and value.
The Stress Reduction Theory (SRT) proposes the idea that nature “posits a healing power of nature that lies in an unconscious, autonomic response to natural elements that occur without recognition and most noticeably in individuals who have been stressed before the experience”(Bratman; Nature Experience, cognitive function, and mental health). Scientists tested this theory through the usage of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). By analyzing the brain activity demonstrated in the images, facial expressions and other factors that indicate changes in emotion, scientists, consequently; children are not fully familiar with their emotions and couldn’t describe what they were feeling in detail. The fMRI brain images indicated massive differences in the children who had had a nature experience prior to the brain scans (the control group) compared to those who had not. The second theory Attention Restoration Theory “centers the power of nature to replenish certain types of attention through conscious, cognitive processed in response to natural landscapes.” The Attention Restoration Theory (ART) focused primarily on the differences in attention spans and behavior of children who lived in urbanized areas compared to those who live in greener areas. In a natural experiment Taylor “compared children from the same population in a housing complex in Chicago, whose living conditions and demographic characteristics differed only by their views from home: a small pocket of urban park or a barren concrete area.” (Berman, Tennessen, Cimprich and Taylor; Nature experience, cognitive function, and mental function). Children in both areas demonstrated the effects of an environment on the behavior and proved the Attention Restoration Theory. A minor
Flourishing nature is most beauteous in areas which have not been maimed by the human race. The idea that spiritual and philosophical wellness can be found in nature is supported world-wide. Many different cultures use their eco-rich surroundings to become more spiritually/philosophically endowed. In the short story “A White Heron” by Sarah Orne Jewett there are two fundamental relationships with society and nature that reflect the author’s point of view in support of this idea. The first is a good example of how nature can positively affect the spiritual/philosophical wellness of a person through an appreciative, loving, and tolerant relationship (Sylvia). The second is a destructive, parasitic relationship that is only beneficial to one party (the hunter). Sylvia struggles with her loyalty to her own innocence and respect of nature because of the exciting new possibilities the hunter promises to her. I will elaborate on topics such as the nature of Sylvia’s relationships, the narrator’s point of view, and the writing style in the text to demonstrate an understanding of how the author saw the relationship of society and nature in “A White Heron”.
My family and I rarely went on outings; my parents were always busy or at work. Likewise, family trips or vacations were something my parents could not afford. The first time I ever fully experienced the beauty of nature was when I went on a week long trip with my fifth grade class to an outdoor school. This was the first time I went on a real hike and the first time I was really in the middle of nature. Walking through the forest, listening to the birds chirp and the graceful movement of the leaves in the wind changed my perspective. That week, I realized how much beauty there was to discover on Earth. My relationship with the environment started during that trip in fifth grade as I realized that the world is such an immense place full of things to admire and unearth. It was something wholly new to me. I fell in love with the
Journeys into the wilderness test far more than the physical boundaries of the human traveler. Twentieth century wilderness authors move beyond the traditional travel-tour approach where nature is an external diversion from everyday life. Instead, nature becomes a catalyst for knowing our internal wilderness and our universal connections to all living things. In Margaret Atwood’s Surfacing, Mary Austin’s Land of Little Rain, and Gary Snyder’s The Practice of the Wild, “nature” mirrors each narrator: what the narrators ultimately discover in the wilderness reflects what needs they bring to it. Their points of view, expectations, and awareness all determine their experiences of the wild and “self.” Ultimately, however, each work reveals that the experience of nature need not be restricted only to “self-discovery,” but may well expand to an understanding of the spiritual “family self.”