#493: Nature Cure

A Guardian article from late 2023 had a piece on what it called the 'nature cure'.

A lot has been made of the health benefits of being outside in nature rather than inside staring at a screen. This is supposed to 'save the NHS' hundreds of thousands of pounds every year by reducing stress.

Nature connectedness will be a major element of the new specification I would hope.

#484: Nature connectedness

A recent piece in The Guardian by Patrick Barkham on some work by Miles Richardson on nature connectedness.

Nature connectedness is bad in Britain.

"We are seeing an ongoing “extinction of experience” with future generations continuing to lose an awareness of nature because it is not present in increasingly built-up neighbourhoods, while parents no longer pass on an “orientation” towards the natural world. Other studies have found parental nature connectedness is the strongest predictor of whether a child will become close to nature.

“Nature connectedness is now accepted as a key root cause of the environmental crisis,” said Richardson. “It’s vitally important for our own mental health as well. It unites people and nature’s wellbeing. There’s a need for transformational change if we’re going to change society’s relationship with nature.”

A newborn child is much the same as a child born in 1800. Children are fascinated by the natural world. It’s maintaining that through their childhood and schooling that’s essential, alongside urban greening. There’s policies starting to do that but we’ve got to think in transformational terms – not 30% but 1,000%.”

One particular statistic from the report was shocking...

A study found that people in Sheffield on average spent just four minutes and 36 seconds in natural spaces each day.

#482: Slow Ways Crowdfunder

This could be a useful context for work outside the classroom, and mapping routes to wildlife, wildflowers, woodlands and other habitats. Students could get involved in mapping the routes.

I've blogged about Slow Ways before.

You have until the end of August to join in with the Slow Ways Crowdfunder to fund the next stage of development and get some benefits in return. Details are here.

Where we’re coming from

Thanks to thousands of people we’ve already created a Slow Ways national walking network with 140,000km of routes that connect all of Britain’s towns, cities and national landscapes.

We’ve proven the idea. Now it’s time to take it to the next level.

Where we’re going

With your support we’ll help millions of people to find, follow and enjoy great routes that match their diverse interests and needs - making places more enjoyable and inclusive in the process.

We'll make the network much bigger and better, add more ways of getting around, enable groups and organisations to share routes for communities and develop website and app to make it all happen.

Slow Ways routes will always be publicly available and free for everyone to follow and enjoy.

We’ll be introducing memberships for people and groups that would like to support our work. In return, we’ll give you extra benefits, features and powers.

For less than the cost of a pair of walking socks and few coffees, as an individual member you’ll be able to enjoy special member-only benefits, including:

✔︎ Better features and functionality - See the table below!
✔︎ A growing calendar of talks, podcasts, meet-ups and workshops
✔︎ Votes on what we develop next

Community organisation members will additionally get:

✔︎ Tools to collaboratively develop route collections and networks
✔︎ Training, talks, workshops, newsletters, podcasts and online forums
✔ Public profile on the platform, with the same abilities as individuals

#461: Top 100 largest parks in Britain

The Ordnance Survey's mapping team have created a range of maps over the years. Back in 2023, they produced a list of 100 large parks.

This website suggests some of the largest parks in Britain.

#103: National GetOutside Day

 The best way to see some natural history is to Get Outside!

 

I hope you have something planned for today!

Between 2018 and 2020 I worked as a GetOutside Champion for the Ordnance Survey: part of a team of people in various locations around the country encouraging people to get outside in different ways. Some of them were athletes, bloggers, Instagrammers, runners, paralympians and TV personalities. I was just a geography teacher using my blogging and role to encourage fieldwork and other outdoor activities in the curriculum. 

We added a Fieldwork Week to my GA Presidential year, with thanks to Paula Richardson for her efforts there, and expanded it to a Fieldwork Fortnight last year.

There is plenty of advice on the Ordnance Survey's page for this day when people are encouraged to spend time outdoors.

And don't forget to follow the Countryside Code.