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“I’m Stronger than I Thought”: Native Women Reconnecting to Body, Health, and Place

2016 / Indigenous communities, Health and well-being

This community-based research applied principles of wilderness experience programming and Indigenous knowledges in an exploratory intervention designed to address health disparities in a tribal community. Drawing on historical trauma frameworks, tribal members rewalked the Trail of Tears to consider its effect on contemporary tribal health. Qualitative data from tribal members suggest that engagement with place and experiential learning, particularly the physical and emotional challenge of the Trail, facilitated changes in health beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors. Deep engagement outside of traditional health service settings should be considered in interventions and may be particularly effective in promoting positive health behaviors in Native communities.

Living in Cities, Naturally

2016 / Stress, Health and well-being, Urban

Figure 1. Together with ecological benefits such as climate change mitigation and the protection of biological diversity, the renaturing of cities opens opportunities for people to engage with features and processes of the natural world; for example, when tending plants in a community garden. Natural features, settings, and processes in urban areas can help to reduce stress associated with urban life. In this and other ways, public health benefits from, street trees, green roofs, community gardens, parks and open spaces, and extensive connective pathways for walking and biking. Such urban design provisions can also yield ecological benefits, not only directly but also through the role they play in shaping attitudes toward the environment and environmental protection. Knowledge of the psychological benefits of nature experience supports efforts to better integrate nature into the architecture, infrastructure, and public spaces of urban areas.

Measuring Recreational Visitation at US National Parks with Crowd-Sourced Photographs

2016 / Recreation, Public land, Social media

Figure 1. Average monthly visitation in each park, from 2007 to 2012, expressed as the percent of total visits measured by NPS and Flickr PUD. Land managers rely on visitation data to inform policy and management decisions. However, visitation data is often costly and burdensome to obtain, and provides a limited depth of information. In this paper, we assess the validity of using crowd-sourced, online photographs to infer information about the habits and preferences of recreational visitors by comparing empirical data from the National Park Service to photograph data from the online platform Flickr for 38 National Parks in the western United States. Using multiple regression analysis, we find that the number of photos posted monthly in a park can reliably indicate the number of visitors to a park in a given month. Through additional statistical testing we also find that the home locations of photo-takers, provided voluntarily on an online profile, accurately show the home origins of park visitors. Together, these findings validate a new method for measuring recreational visitation, opening an opportunity for land managers worldwide to track and understand visitation by augmenting current data collection methods with crowd-sourced, online data that is easy and inexpensive to obtain. In addition, it enables future research on how visitation rates change with changes in access, management or infrastructure, weather events, or ecosystem health, and facilitates valuation research, such as travel cost studies.

Spatial and Temporal Dynamics and Value of Nature-Based Recreation, Estimated via Social Media

2016 / Recreation, Social media

Figure 1. Conserved lands in Vermont. Conserved lands provide multiple ecosystem services, including opportunities for nature-based recreation. Managing this service requires understanding the landscape attributes underpinning its provision, and how changes in land management affect its contribution to human wellbeing over time. However, evidence from both spatially explicit and temporally dynamic analyses is scarce, often due to data limitations. In this study, we investigated nature-based recreation within conserved lands in Vermont, USA. We used geotagged photographs uploaded to the photo-sharing website Flickr to quantify visits by in-state and out-of-state visitors, and we multiplied visits by mean trip expenditures to show that conserved lands contributed US $1.8 billion (US $0.18–20.2 at 95% confidence) to Vermont’s tourism industry between 2007 and 2014. We found eight landscape attributes explained the pattern of visits to conserved lands; visits were higher in larger conserved lands, with less forest cover, greater trail density and more opportunities for snow sports. Some of these attributes differed from those found in other locations, but all aligned with our understanding of recreation in Vermont. We also found that using temporally static models to inform conservation decisions may have perverse outcomes for nature-based recreation. For example, static models suggest conserved land with less forest cover receive more visits, but temporally dynamic models suggest clearing forests decreases, rather than increases, visits to these sites. Our results illustrate the importance of understanding both the spatial and temporal dynamics of ecosystem services for conservation decision-making.

Nature Experience Reduces Rumination and Subgenual Prefrontal Cortex Activation

2015 / Anxiety, Health and well-being, Urban

Figure 1. The impact of nature experience on self-reported rumination and blood perfusion to the sgPFC. (A) Change in self-reported rumination (postwalk minus prewalk) for participants randomly assigned to take a 90-min walk either in a natural setting or in an urban setting. (B) A time-by-environment interaction in blood perfusion was evident in the sgPFC. F map of significant interactions at a threshold of P < 0.05, FWE corrected for multiple comparisons. (C) Change in blood perfusion (postwalk minus prewalk) for participants randomly assigned to take a 90-min walk either in a natural setting or in an urban setting. Error bars represent SE within subjects: *P < 0.05, ***P < 0.001. Significance More than 50% of people now live in urban areas. By 2050 this proportion will be 70%. Urbanization is associated with increased levels of mental illness, but it’s not yet clear why. Through a controlled experiment, we investigated whether nature experience would influence rumination (repetitive thought focused on negative aspects of the self), a known risk factor for mental illness. Participants who went on a 90-min walk through a natural environment reported lower levels of rumination and showed reduced neural activity in an area of the brain linked to risk for mental illness compared with those who walked through an urban environment. These results suggest that accessible natural areas may be vital for mental health in our rapidly urbanizing world. Abstract Urbanization has many benefits, but it also is associated with increased levels of mental illness, including depression. It has been suggested that decreased nature experience may help to explain the link between urbanization and mental illness. This suggestion is supported by a growing body of correlational and experimental evidence, which raises a further question: what mechanism(s) link decreased nature experience to the development of mental illness? One such mechanism might be the impact of nature exposure on rumination, a maladaptive pattern of self-referential thought that is associated with heightened risk for depression and other mental illnesses. We show in healthy participants that a brief nature experience, a 90-min walk in a natural setting, decreases both self-reported rumination and neural activity in the subgenual prefrontal cortex (sgPFC), whereas a 90-min walk in an urban setting has no such effects on self-reported rumination or neural activity. In other studies, the sgPFC has been associated with a self-focused behavioral withdrawal linked to rumination in both depressed and healthy individuals. This study reveals a pathway by which nature experience may improve mental well-being and suggests that accessible natural areas within urban contexts may be a critical resource for mental health in our rapidly urbanizing world. Related Media Nature May Be Key to Strengthening Our Attention (November 28, 2023) Stanford researchers find mental health prescription: Nature (June 30, 2015)

Safeguarding Human Health in the Anthropocene Epoch

2015 / Climate, Health and well-being

Figure 1: Services provided by natural systems. Adapted from the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. Far-reaching changes to the structure and function of the Earth’s natural systems represent a growing threat to human health. And yet, global health has mainly improved as these changes have gathered pace. What is the explanation? As a Commission, we are deeply concerned that the explanation is straightforward and sobering: we have been mortgaging the health of future generations to realise economic and development gains in the present. By unsustainably exploiting nature’s resources, human civilisation has flourished but now risks substantial health effects from the degradation of nature’s life support systems in the future. Health effects from changes to the environment including climatic change, ocean acidification, land degradation, water scarcity, overexploitation of fisheries, and biodiversity loss pose serious challenges to the global health gains of the past several decades and are likely to become increasingly dominant during the second half of this century and beyond. These striking trends are driven by highly inequitable, inefficient, and unsustainable patterns of resource consumption and technological development, together with population growth. We identify three categories of challenges that have to be addressed to maintain and enhance human health in the face of increasingly harmful environmental trends. Firstly, conceptual and empathy failures (imagination challenges), such as an over-reliance on gross domestic product as a measure of human progress, the failure to account for future health and environmental harms over present day gains, and the disproportionate effect of those harms on the poor and those in developing nations. Secondly, knowledge failures (research and information challenges), such as failure to address social and environmental drivers of ill health, a historical scarcity of transdisciplinary research and funding, together with an unwillingness or inability to deal with uncertainty within decision making frameworks. Thirdly, implementation failures (governance challenges), such as how governments and institutions delay recognition and responses to threats, especially when faced with uncertainties, pooled common resources, and time lags between action and effect. Although better evidence is needed to underpin appropriate policies than is available at present, this should not be used as an excuse for inaction. Substantial potential exists to link action to reduce environmental damage with improved health outcomes for nations at all levels of economic development. This Commission identifies opportunities for action by six key constituencies: health professionals, research funders and the academic community, the UN and Bretton Woods bodies, governments, investors and corporate reporting bodies, and civil society organisations. Although better evidence is needed to underpin appropriate policies than is available at present, this should not be used as an excuse for inaction. Substantial potential exists to link action to reduce environmental damage with improved health outcomes for nations at all levels of economic development. This Commission identifies opportunities for action by six key constituencies: health professionals, research funders and the academic community, the UN and Bretton Woods bodies, governments, investors and corporate reporting bodies, and civil society organisations. Depreciation of natural capital and nature’s subsidy should be accounted for so that economy and nature are not falsely separated. Policies should balance social progress, environmental sustainability, and the economy. To support a world population of 9–10 billion people or more, resilient food and agricultural systems are needed to address both undernutrition and overnutrition, reduce waste, diversify diets, and minimise environmental damage. Meeting the need for modern family planning can improve health in the short term—eg, from reduced maternal mortality and reduced pressures on the environment and on infrastructure. Planetary health offers an unprecedented opportunity for advocacy of global and national reforms of taxes and subsidies for many sectors of the economy, including energy, agriculture, water, fisheries, and health. Regional trade treaties should act to further incorporate the protection of health in the near and long term. Several essential steps need to be taken to transform the economy to support planetary health. These steps include a reduction of waste through the creation of products that are more durable and require less energy and materials to manufacture than those often produced at present; the incentivisation of recycling, reuse, and repair; and the substitution of hazardous materials with safer alternatives. Despite present limitations, the Sustainable Development Goals provide a great opportunity to integrate health and sustainability through the judicious selection of relevant indicators relevant to human wellbeing, the enabling infrastructure for development, and the supporting natural systems, together with the need for strong governance. The landscape, ecosystems, and the biodiversity they contain can be managed to protect natural systems, and indirectly, reduce human disease risk. Intact and restored ecosystems can contribute to resilience (see panel 1 for glossary of terms used in this report), for example, through improved coastal protection (eg, through wave attenuation) and the ability of floodplains and greening of river catchments to protect from river flooding events by diverting and holding excess water. The growth in urban populations emphasises the importance of policies to improve health and the urban environment, such as through reduced air pollution, increased physical activity, provision of green space, and urban planning to prevent sprawl and decrease the magnitude of urban heat islands. Transdisciplinary research activities and capacity need substantial and urgent expansion. Present research limitations should not delay action. In situations where technology and knowledge can deliver win–win solutions and co-benefits, rapid scale-up can be achieved if researchers move ahead and assess the implementation of potential solutions. Recent scientific investments towards understanding non-linear state shifts in ecosystems are very important, but in the absence of improved understanding and predictability of such changes, efforts to improve resilience for human health and adaptation strategies remain a priority. The creation of integrated surveillance systems that collect rigorous health, socioeconomic, and environmental data for defined populations over long time periods can provide early detection of emerging disease outbreaks or changes in nutrition and non-communicable disease burden. The improvement of risk communication to policy makers and the public and the support of policy makers to make evidence-informed decisions can be helped by an increased capacity to do systematic reviews and the provision of rigorous policy briefs. Health professionals have an essential role in the achievement of planetary health: working across sectors to integrate policies that advance health and environmental sustainability, tackling health inequities, reducing the environmental impacts of health systems, and increasing the resilience of health systems and populations to environmental change. Humanity can be stewarded successfully through the 21st century by addressing the unacceptable inequities in health and wealth within the environmental limits of the Earth, but this will require the generation of new knowledge, implementation of wise policies, decisive action, and inspirational leadership.

Nature and Health

2014 / Green spaces, Stress, Health and well-being

Figure 1: Some pathways through which the natural environment can affect the health of broad segments of populations. Urbanization, resource exploitation, and lifestyle changes have diminished possibilities for human contact with nature in many societies. Concern about the loss has helped motivate research on the health benefits of contact with nature. Reviewing that research here, we focus on nature as represented by aspects of the physical environment relevant to planning, design, and policy measures that serve broad segments of urbanized societies. We discuss difficulties in defining “nature” and reasons for the current expansion of the research field, and we assess available reviews. We then consider research on pathways between nature and health involving air quality, physical activity, social cohesion, and stress reduction. Finally, we discuss methodological issues and priorities for future research. The extant research does describe an array of benefits of contact with nature, and evidence regarding some benefits is strong; however, some findings indicate caution is needed in applying beliefs about those benefits, and substantial gaps in knowledge remain.

Positive Health Effects of the Natural Outdoor Environment in Typical Populations in Different Regions in Europe (PHENOTYPE): A Study Programme Protocol

2014 / Green spaces, Health and well-being

Figure 1. Interdependencies of different parts of the PHENOTYPE project. Introduction Growing evidence suggests that close contact with nature brings benefits to human health and well-being, but the proposed mechanisms are still not well understood and the associations with health remain uncertain. The Positive Health Effects of the Natural Outdoor environment in Typical Populations in different regions in Europe (PHENOTYPE) project investigates the interconnections between natural outdoor environments and better human health and well-being. Aims and Methods The PHENOTYPE project explores the proposed underlying mechanisms at work (stress reduction/restorative function, physical activity, social interaction, exposure to environmental hazards) and examines the associations with health outcomes for different population groups. It implements conventional and new innovative high-tech methods to characterise the natural environment in terms of quality and quantity. Preventive as well as therapeutic effects of contact with the natural environment are being covered. PHENOTYPE further addresses implications for land-use planning and green space management. The main innovative part of the study is the evaluation of possible short-term and long-term associations of green space and health and the possible underlying mechanisms in four different countries (each with quite a different type of green space and a different use), using the same methodology, in one research programme. This type of holistic approach has not been undertaken before. Furthermore there are technological innovations such as the use of remote sensing and smartphones in the assessment of green space. Conclusions The project will produce a more robust evidence base on links between exposure to natural outdoor environment and human health and well-being, in addition to a better integration of human health needs into land-use planning and green space management in rural as well as urban areas.

Climate Change: Anticipating and Adapting to the Impacts on Terrestrial Species

2013 / Climate, Biodiversity

Table 1. Example approaches for anticipating and adapting to climate impacts on terrestrial species. Addressing the impacts of climate change on terrestrial species requires knowledge of how climates will change, how species will respond, and what is the scope of actions that can be taken to help species and systems adapt. There is a rapidly growing understanding of how species will respond to projected climatic changes with changes in their phenologies, distributions, population dynamics, interspecific interactions, and disease dynamics. Many management strategies have been proposed for addressing these changes, including general principles such as fostering resilience, practicing adaptive management, and expanding the scale of management as well as more specific recommendations such as increasing landscape connectivity and increasing the extent of reserve networks.

The Rediscovery of the Wild

2013 / Health and well-being

A compelling case for connecting with the wild, for our psychological and physical well-being and to flourish as a species We often enjoy the benefits of connecting with nearby, domesticated nature—a city park, a backyard garden. But this book makes the provocative case for the necessity of connecting with wild nature—untamed, unmanaged, not encompassed, self-organizing, and unencumbered and unmediated by technological artifice. We can love the wild. We can fear it. We are strengthened and nurtured by it. As a species, we came of age in a natural world far wilder than today’s, and much of the need for wildness still exists within us, body and mind. The Rediscovery of the Wild considers ways to engage with the wild, protect it, and recover it—for our psychological and physical well-being and to flourish as a species. The contributors offer a range of perspectives on the wild, discussing such topics as the evolutionary underpinnings of our need for the wild; the wild within, including the primal passions of sexuality and aggression; birding as a portal to wildness; children’s fascination with wild animals; wildness and psychological healing; the shifting baseline of what we consider wild; and the true work of conservation.

A Study of Community Design, Greenness, and Physical Activity in Children using Satellite, GPS and Accelerometer Data

2012 / Children, Green spaces

Fig. 1. Geovisualization of a child’s personal monitoring points show MVPA occurring within green areas and during active transport (* home points shifted for confidentiality). This study examined relationships between greenness exposure and free-living physical activity behavior of children in smart growth and conventionally designed communities. Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) was used to quantify children’s (n=208) greenness exposure at 30-s epoch accelerometer and GPS data points. A generalized linear mixed model with a kernel density smoothing term for addressing spatial autocorrelation was fit to analyze residential neighborhood activity data. Excluding activity at home and during school-hours, an epoch-level analysis found momentary greenness exposure was positively associated with the likelihood of contemporaneous moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA). This association was stronger for smart growth residents who experienced a 39% increase in odds of MVPA for a 10th to 90th percentile increase in exposure to greenness (OR=1.39, 95% CI 1.36–1.44). An individual-level analysis found children who experienced >20 min of daily exposure to greener spaces (>90th percentile) engaged in nearly 5 times the daily rate of MVPA of children with nearly zero daily exposure to greener spaces (95% CI 3.09–7.20).

Introduction to Ecopsychology: Science, Totems, and the Technological Species

2012 / Health and well-being

Ecopsychology: Science, Totems, and the Technological Species An ecopsychology that integrates our totemic selves—our kinship with a more than human world—with our technological selves. We need nature for our physical and psychological well-being. Our actions reflect this when we turn to beloved pets for companionship, vacation in spots of natural splendor, or spend hours working in the garden. Yet we are also a technological species and have been since we fashioned tools out of stone. Thus one of this century’s central challenges is to embrace our kinship with a more-than-human world—”our totemic self”—and integrate that kinship with our scientific culture and technological selves. This book takes on that challenge and proposes a reenvisioned ecopsychology. Contributors consider such topics as the innate tendency for people to bond with local place; a meaningful nature language; the epidemiological evidence for the health benefits of nature interaction; the theory and practice of ecotherapy; Gaia theory; ecovillages; the neuroscience of perceiving natural beauty; and sacred geography. Taken together, the essays offer a vision for human flourishing and for a more grounded and realistic environmental psychology.

The Impacts of Nature Experience on Human Cognitive Function and Mental Health

2012 / Health and well-being

Scholars spanning a variety of disciplines have studied the ways in which contact with natural environments may impact human well-being. We review the effects of such nature experience on human cognitive function and mental health, synthesizing work from environmental psychology, urban planning, the medical literature, and landscape aesthetics. We provide an overview of the prevailing explanatory theories of these effects, the ways in which exposure to nature has been considered, and the role that individuals’ preferences for nature may play in the impact of the environment on psychological functioning. Drawing from the highly productive but disparate programs of research in this area, we conclude by proposing a system of categorization for different types of nature experience. We also outline key questions for future work, including further inquiry into which elements of the natural environment may have impacts on cognitive function and mental health; what the most effective type, duration, and frequency of contact may be; and what the possible neural mechanisms are that could be responsible for the documented effects.

Technological Nature: Adaptation and the Future of Human Life

2011 / Virtual nature

Why it matters that our relationship with nature is increasingly mediated and augmented by technology. Our forebears may have had a close connection with the natural world, but increasingly we experience technological nature. Children come of age watching digital nature programs on television. They inhabit virtual lands in digital games. And they play with robotic animals, purchased at big box stores. Until a few years ago, hunters could “telehunt”—shoot and kill animals in Texas from a computer anywhere in the world via a Web interface. Does it matter that much of our experience with nature is mediated and augmented by technology? In Technological Nature, Peter Kahn argues that it does, and shows how it affects our well-being. Kahn describes his investigations of children’s and adults’ experiences of cutting-edge technological nature. He and his team installed “technological nature windows” (50-inch plasma screens showing high-definition broadcasts of real-time local nature views) in inside offices on his university campus and assessed the physiological and psychological effects on viewers. He studied children’s and adults’ relationships with the robotic dog AIBO (including possible benefits for children with autism). And he studied online “telegardening” (a pastoral alternative to “telehunting”). Kahn’s studies show that in terms of human well-being technological nature is better than no nature, but not as good as actual nature. We should develop and use technological nature as a bonus on life, not as its substitute, and re-envision what is beautiful and fulfilling and often wild in essence in our relationship with the natural world.

In the Orchard: Farm Worker Children’s Moral and Environmental Reasoning

2010 / Children, Development

Fig. 1. Developmental difference in use of biocentric reasoning categories. N= 40. Error bars= standard error of mean. ⁎χ2 (1, N= 40)= 5.23, pb.05, φ= .36, pb.05. In this study, farm worker children (N = 40) in 2nd and 5th grade were interviewed about (a) their conceptions and judgments of pesticide exposure and (b) their reasoning about the moral standing of nature. First, results showed that all participants negatively judged pesticide exposure based on moral obligatory criteria. Yet, most children accepted pesticide use in the orchards where they lived. Their reasoning was either based on assumptions that certain practices eliminated potential harms or coordination of potential physical harms with concerns for financial security. Second, participants expressed biocentric considerations (wherein nature is accorded moral standing) when reasoning about harms to nature. The results provide evidence of biocentric reasoning earlier than previously shown in the developmental literature, and indicate a developmental shift in the form of biocentric reasoning. Finally, the results offer support of a new methodology for disentangling human considerations from environmental moral reasoning.

Cohabitating With the Wild

2009 / Health and well-being

There is long-standing recognition that while an environmental-human discipline must do much else as well, it must ground its speculation ever anew in seeing. There is also recognition that there is as much merit to narrative as to argument. It is in this sense that this article seeks to see and to narrate, while its author is living on 670 acres of mountain land, an hour up a dirt road from the nearest town, off-line and off grid. The article focuses on what it means for an entity to be wild, how in our evolutionary past humans lived with wildness, and what of wildness might make sense in modern times. The central argument, more implied than stated, is that still today wildness remains part of the architecture of the human mind and body, and that to thrive as individuals and as a species we need to cohabitate with it.

The Human Relation with Nature and Technological Nature

2009 / Virtual nature

Figure 1. Examples of technological nature. HDTV plasma “windows” displaying real-time images of the local nature scene outside the building are shown (a) installed in a participant’s office in a long-term field study (Friedman, Freier, Kahn, Lin, & Sodeman, 2008); and (b) covering up a real window in the plasma-window condition of an experimental study in the lab (Kahn et al., 2008). The camera that recorded looking behavior can be seen poking out from the drapes to the left of the plasma window. The plasma screen was not present in the glass-window condition of the experimental study; and the drapes were pulled across the entire wall for the blank-wall condition. The bottom pictures show technological nature in the form of a robot dog (AIBO; from Kahn, Friedman, Perez-Granados, & Freier, 2006). In (c), the participant has just been introduced to AIBO and approaches the robot a little apprehensively. Within a couple of seconds, AIBO begins to move toward the participant; in (d), the participant is startled and appears slightly apprehensive (not unlike how a person might respond when encountering a biological dog that he or she has never met before). Two world trends are powerfully reshaping human existence: the degradation, if not destruction, of large parts of the natural world, and unprecedented technological development. At the nexus of these two trends lies technological nature—technologies that in various ways mediate, augment, or simulate the natural world. Current examples of technological nature include videos and live webcams of nature, robot animals, and immersive virtual environments. Does it matter for the physical and psychological well-being of the human species that actual nature is being replaced with technological nature? As the basis for our provisional answer (it is ‘‘yes’’), we draw on evolutionary and cross-cultural developmental accounts of the human relation with nature and some recent psychological research on the effects of technological nature. Finally, we discuss the issue—and area for future research— of ‘‘environmental generational amnesia.’’ The concern is that, by adapting gradually to the loss of actual nature and to the increase of technological nature, humans will lower the baseline across generations for what counts as a full measure of the human experience and of human flourishing. Technology has begun to change our species’ long-standing experiences with nature. Now we have technological nature—technologies that in various ways mediate, augment, or simulate the natural world. Entire television networks, such as the Discovery Channel and Animal Planet, provide us with mediated digital experiences of nature: the lion’s hunt, the Monarch’s migration, or a climb high into the Himalayan peaks. Video games like Zoo Tycoon engage children with animal life. Zoos themselves are bringing technologies such as webcams into their exhibits so that we can, for example, watch animals from the leisure of our home or a café. Inexpensive robot pets have been big sellers in the Wal-Marts and Targets of the world. Sony’s higher-end robot dog AIBO sold well. Real people now spend substantial time in virtual environments (e.g., Second Life). In terms of the physical and psychological well-being of our species, does it matter that we are replacing actual nature with technological nature? To support our provisional answer that it does matter, we draw on evolutionary and cross-cultural developmental accounts of the human relation with the natural world and then consider some recent psychological research on the effects of technological nature.

Office Window of the Future?—Field-Based Analyses of a New Use of a Large Display

2008 / Virtual nature, Office

Figure 1. HDTV Camera (circled) mounted on the roof of the university building (left). Brin at work in her office with the plasma display window (right). We installed large plasma displays on the walls of seven inside offices of faculty and staff at a university, and displayed, as the default image, real-time HDTV views of the immediate outside scene. Then, utilizing a field-study methodology, data were collected over a 16-week period to explore the user experience with these large display windows. Through the triangulation of data—652 pages of interview transcripts, journal entries, and responses to email inquiries—results showed that users deeply appreciated many aspects of their experience. Benefits included a reported increase in users’ connection to the wider social community, connection to the natural world, psychological wellbeing, and cognitive functioning. Users also integrated the large display window into their workplace practice. However, users expressed concerns particularly about the impacts on the privacy of people whose images were captured in the public place by the HDTV camera. Discussion focuses on design challenges for future investigations into related uses of large displays.

Designing for Human Values in an Urban Simulation System: Value Sensitive Design and Participatory Design

2004 / Urban, Participatory Design

UrbanSim is a large-scale simulation system that models the development of urban areas over periods of 20 or more years. Its purpose is to help citizens and local governments make more informed decisions about major transportation and land use issues, by projecting the long-term consequences of the different alternatives. Citizens often bring strongly held values to such decisions, for example regarding equity, sustainability, environmental protection, economic expansion, or property rights, and the decisions are often politically charged. To help shape the design of UrbanSim to better support the democratic process, as well as to be responsive to the values held by different stakeholders and the conflicts among them, we are using Value Sensitive Design, a theoretically grounded approach to the design of technology that seeks to account for human values in a principled and comprehensive manner throughout the design process. Participatory Design also has a good deal to say about these issues. Thus, in this paper, we first describe UrbanSim and Value Sensitive Design, and provide a snapshot of our ongoing work in this area. We then use the UrbanSim work as an example to bring out key commonalities and differences between Value Sensitive Design and Participatory Design, and to motivate some preliminary ideas about ways in which each methodology could evolve based on techniques and concepts from the other.

Children’s Affiliations with Nature: Structure, Development, and the Problem of Environmental Generational Amnesia

2002 / Children, Development

How do children reason about environmental problems? Are there universal features in children’s environmental conceptions and values? How important is it that children and young adults-like the Portuguese student above who remembers having seen a dolphin in the Rio Tejo experience natural wonders? Finally, what happens to children’s environmental commitments and sensibilities when they grow up in environmentally degraded conditions? This chapter reports on the results of five studies that the author and various colleagues conducted. In these studies, children were interviewed in diverse locations about their environmental moral conceptions and values. The author also seeks to explicate two ideas that frame his theoretical approach to investigating children’s affiliations with nature–structure and development. Finally, the author builds on the structural-developmental framework and his research findings to articulate what may be one of the most pressing and unrecognized problems of the current age—the problem of environmental generational amnesia.

Beyond Toxicity: Human Health and the Natural Environment

2001

Research and teaching in environmental health have centered on the hazardous effects of various environmental exposures, such as toxic chemicals, radiation, and biological and physical agents. However, some kinds of environmental exposures may have positive health effects. According to E.O. Wilson’s “biophilia” hypothesis, humans are innately attracted to other living organisms. Later authors have expanded this concept to suggest that humans have an innate bond with nature more generally. This implies that certain kinds of contact with the natural world may benefit health. Evidence supporting this hypothesis is presented from four aspects of the natural world: animals, plants, landscapes, and wilderness. Finally, the implications of this hypothesis for a broader agenda for environmental health, encompassing not only toxic outcomes but also salutary ones, are discussed. This agenda implies research on a range of potentially healthful environmental exposures, collaboration among professionals in a range of disciplines from public health to landscape architecture to city planning, and interventions based on research outcomes.

The Human Relationship with Nature: Development and Culture

1999 / Development, Culture

Urgent environmental problems call for vigorous research and theory on how humans develop a relationship with nature. In a series of original research projects, Peter Kahn answers this call. For the past eight years, Kahn has studied children, young adults, and parents in diverse geographical locations, ranging from an economically impoverished black community in Houston to a remote village in the Brazilian Amazon. In these studies Kahn seeks answers to the following questions: How do people value nature, and how do they reason morally about environmental degradation? Do children have a deep connection to the natural world that gets severed by modern society? Or do such connections emerge, if at all, later in life, with increased cognitive and moral maturity? How does culture affect environmental commitments and sensibilities? Are there universal features in the human relationship with nature? Kahn’s empirical and theoretical findings draw on current work in psychology, biology, environmental behavior, education, policy, and moral development. This scholarly yet accessible book will be of value to practitioners in the social science and environmental fields, as well as to informed generalists interested in environmental issues and children.

Bayous and Jungle Rivers: Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Children’s Environmental Moral Reasoning

1997 / Children, Development

Similarities in moral concerns and obligations to the environment were found in the moral reasoning of African American children in Houston and Brazilian children in a large city and in a small river village.

Developmental Psychology and the Biophilia Hypothesis: Children’s Affiliation with Nature

1997 / Children, Development

A venturesome hypothesis has been put forth by Wilson (1984), Kellert (1996), and others and has been receiving increasing support. The hypothesis asserts the existence of biophilia, a fundamental, genetically based human need and propensity to affiliate with other living organisms. A review of the biophilia literature sets into motion three overarching concerns. One focuses on the genetic basis of biophilia. A second focuses on how to understand seemingly negative affiliations with nature within the biophilic framework. A third focuses on the quality of supporting evidence and whether the biophilia hypothesis can be disconfirmed. Through this critical examination, biophilia emerges as a valuable interdisciplinary framework for investigating the human affiliation with nature. Yet it is clearly a nascent framework, and some of its potential lies in charting a stronger ontogenetic course. Toward this end, in the second half of this article a structural–developmental approach is framed for investigating biophilia. Support for this approach is provided by discussing the author’s recent studies—conducted in the United States and in the Brazilian Amazon—on children’s environmental reasoning and values.

Along the Rio Negro: Brazilian Children’s Environmental Views and Values

1996 / Children

Children in urban and rural parts of the Brazilian Amazon were interviewed in Portuguese on how they understand and value their relationship with the natural environment. Forty-four 5th-grade children (mean age = 13 years, 8 months) participated. Children in both locations were aware of environmental problems, believed that throwing garbage in the Rio Negro harmed various parts of the environment (i.e., birds, insects, the view of the river, and people who live along the river), and cared that such harm might occur. Moreover, children believed that throwing garbage in the Rio Negro constituted a violation of a moral obligation. Children supported the conservation of the Amazon rainforest. Additional analyses showed striking similarities between this Brazilian population and a population of African American urban children in the United States

Environmental Views and Values of Children in an Inner‐City Black Community

1995 / Children, Black communities, Urban, Development

72 children across grades 1, 3, and 5 (mean ages, 7–5, 9–6, and 11–4) from an economically impoverished inner-city Black community were interviewed on their views and values about the natural environment. Assessments were made on whether children were aware of environmental problems, discussed environmental issues with their family, valued aspects of nature, and acted to help the environment. Additional assessments pertained to the prescriptivity and generalizability, and supporting justifications, of children’s normative environmental judgments based on a hypothetical scenario that involved polluting a waterway. Overall, children showed sensitivity to nature and awareness of environmental problems, although attenuated by both developmental and cultural factors. Most children believed that polluting a waterway was a violation of a moral obligation. Children’s environmental moral reasoning largely focused on homocentric considerations (e.g., that nature ought to be protected in order to protect human welfare). With much less frequency, children focused on biocentric considerations (e.g., that nature has intrinsic value or rights). Findings are discussed in terms of moral-developmental theory, and the place of social-cognitive research in understanding the human relationship to the natural environment.

A Plasma Display Window?—The Shifting Baseline Problem in a Technologically mediated Natural World

2008 / Virtual nature

Figure 2. Heart rate recovery from low-level stress. Values are the mean slope of heart rate (in beats per minute per minute (bpm/min)) during the first 60 s of each activity. Negative values indicate decreasing heart rate, and points lower on the graph represent more rapid decreases in heart rate. (The activities are ordered by the overall average slope across all six activities.) Humans will continue to adapt to an increasingly technological world. But are there costs to such adaptations in terms of human well being? Toward broaching this question, we investigated physiological effects of experiencing a HDTV quality real-time view of nature through a plasma display “window.” In an office setting, 90 participants (30 per group) were exposed either to (a) a glass window that afforded a view of a nature scene, (b) a plasma window that afforded a real-time HDTV view of essentially the same scene, or (c) a blank wall. Results showed that in terms of heart rate recovery from low-level stress the glass window was more restorative than a blank wall; in turn, a plasma window was no more restorative than a blank wall. Moreover, when participants spent more time looking at the glass window, their heart rate tended to decrease more rapidly; that was not the case with the plasma window. Discussion focuses on how the purported benefits of viewing nature may be attenuated by a digital medium.

Applying Novel Visitation Models using Diverse Social Media to Understand Recreation Change after Wildfire and Site Closure

2022 / Social media, Wildfires

Figure 1. Location of study sites in the Columbia River Gorge, USA. The area burned in the Eagle Creek Fire is shown in red. Sites are numbered from west to east. Names and closure and reopening dates are in Table S1. The purple star on the reference map shows the location of the study area in the USA. The Columbia River forms the border between Washington (to the north) and Oregon (to the south) in this region. Natural disturbances such as wildfires are increasing in severity and frequency. Although the ecological impacts of disturbance are well documented, we have limited understanding of how disturbances and associated management responses influence recreation use patterns. This reflects, in part, difficulty in quantifying recreation use across different land ownerships with inconsistent, or non-existent, recreation monitoring practices. In this study, we use visitation models based on social media to examine how recreation use changed after a wildfire and site closures in a large, mixed-ownership landscape. We find that wildfire and associated closures resulted in visitation loss to the recreation system as a whole and little site-to-site displacement within the system in the two years following the wildfire. Our study highlights the importance, when considering how wildfire and management may alter recreation use patterns, of considering the many factors that influence substitution behavior, including the relative locations of visitor origins, disturbances, and substitute sites.

Child-Nature Interaction in a Forest Preschool

2020 / Children, Nature school

Children participating in activities at Fiddleheads Forest School. In 2012 there were only around 25 nature preschools and kindergartens in the United States; now there are well over 250. It is a national movement that is gaining momentum. It is an exciting time because in principle these schools have within them the kernels to transform the world through increasing children’s direct interaction with nature and a more wild nature than that exists in most urban children’s lives. In this paper we begin to characterize forms of child-nature interaction that occur in one specific nature preschool, Fiddleheads Forest Preschool in Seattle, Washington, USA. Based on our observational data, derived through a randomized time-sampling methodology, we modeled child-nature interaction using what we call interaction patterns: characterizations of essential ways of interacting with nature described abstractly enough such that the pattern can be instantiated in different ways, across diverse forms of nature. Specifically, we use a nature language to describe (with photographs) eight interaction patterns: leaning on and hanging from supple tree limbs, climbing high in small tree, looking at wild animals, imitating animals, imagining nature to be something other than it is, making boundaries on earth, pushing the edges of boundaries, and waiting attentively in nature. Through an interaction pattern approach, we seek to provide insight into what is actually happening on the ground at a forest preschool and how that provides a key solution to the problem of environmental generational amnesia.

COVID-19, the Built Environment, and Health

2021 / COVID, Built environment + Urban design

Figure 1. Milan’s lazaretto, built just outside the city’s walls in the late 15th and early 16th centuries to house plague victims. Having outlived its usefulness, it was demolished about 400 y later. This part of Milan, Porta Venezia, is now a vibrant neighborhood of galleries and ethnic restaurants—or it was until COVID-19 struck. Source: Wikimedia Background Since the dawn of cities, the built environment has both affected infectious disease transmission and evolved in response to infectious diseases. COVID-19 illustrates both dynamics. The pandemic presented an opportunity to implement health promotion and disease prevention strategies in numerous elements of the built environment. Objectives This commentary aims to identify features of the built environment that affect the risk of COVID-19 as well as to identify elements of the pandemic response with implications for the built environment (and, therefore, for long-term public health). Discussion Built environment risk factors for COVID-19 transmission include crowding, poverty, and racism (as they manifest in housing and neighborhood features), poor indoor air circulation, and ambient air pollution. Potential long-term implications of COVID-19 for the built environment include changes in building design, increased teleworking, reconfigured streets, changing modes of travel, provision of parks and greenspace, and population shifts out of urban centers. Although it is too early to predict with confidence which of these responses may persist, identifying and monitoring them can help health professionals, architects, urban planners, and decision makers, as well as members of the public, optimize healthy built environments during and after recovery from the pandemic.

Monitoring Recreation on Federally Managed Lands and Waters—Visitation Estimation

2025 / Public land

Federally managed public lands and waters attract millions of visitors each year, generating significant economic benefits for surrounding communities. Accurate visitation data are crucial for guiding policy decisions and managing resources effectively. This report explores the methods employed by agencies to collect and use data on recreational visitation to Federal lands and waters. Visitation estimation practices across seven agencies are reviewed, revealing similarities such as the use of automated counters for on-site data collection, alongside differences in reporting frequencies, visit definitions, and public access to data. Emerging technologies, including social media, mobile device activity, and community science, are also evaluated for their potential to improve visitation estimation. Although these technologies offer promising opportunities, they come with challenges such as data biases, the need for calibration, costs, and privacy concerns. The report concludes with opportunities to enhance data collection, coordination, and accessibility, ensuring more efficient resource management and informed decision making. Related Media How Busy are National Parks and other Public Lands? Researchers Hone Methods for Estimating Visitation (June 2025)

NatureCollections: Can A Mobile Application Trigger Children’s Interest In Nature?

2020 / Children, Virtual nature

Figure 1. a. Student taking a close-up shot of a flower b. One student pointing nature element to her peers a c. Students walking and scanning their surroundings. In this study, we investigate whether and how a mobile application called NatureCollections supports children’s triggered situational interest in nature. Developed from an interest-centered design framework, NatureCollections allows children to build and curate their own customized photo collections of nature. We conducted a comparison study at an urban community garden with 57 sixth graders across 4 science classrooms. Students in two classrooms (n = 15 and 16) used the NatureCollections app, and students in another two classrooms (n = 13 and 13) used a basic Camera app. We found that NatureCollections succeeded in focusing students’ attention–an important aspect of interest development– through sensory engagement with the natural characteristics in their surroundings. Students who used NatureCollections moved slower in space while scanning their surroundings for specific elements (e.g., flowers, birds) to photograph. In contrast, students who used the basic Camera app were more drawn to aesthetic aspects (e.g., color, shape) and tended to explore their surroundings through the device screen. NatureCollections supported other dimensions of interest development, including personal relevance, social interactions, and positive experiences for continued engagement. Our findings further showed that the NatureCollections app facilitated students’ scientific discourse with their peers.

The Benefits of Nature Experience: Improved Affect and Cognition

2015 / Health and well-being

Figure 2. Affective impact of nature experience. Difference scores are used to compare performance from before the walk to performance afterward (negative values indicate a decrease after the walk, while positive values indicate an increase). Each panel depicts these difference scores for the urban and nature groups separately on one of the four affective measures: (A) anxiety, (B) rumination, (C) negative affect, and (D) positive affect. Error bars depict standard error (SE) values. Highlights Nature experience produced clear benefits for affect (e.g., decrease in anxiety and rumination). Nature experience produced some benefits for cognition (complex working memory span task). Supports the idea that exposure to natural greenspace can improve affect and cognition. This study investigated the impact of nature experience on affect and cognition. We randomly assigned sixty participants to a 50-min walk in either a natural or an urban environment in and around Stanford, California. Before and after their walk, participants completed a series of psychological assessments of affective and cognitive functioning. Compared to the urban walk, the nature walk resulted in affective benefits (decreased anxiety, rumination, and negative affect, and preservation of positive affect) as well as cognitive benefits (increased working memory performance). This study extends previous research by demonstrating additional benefits of nature experience on affect and cognition through assessments of anxiety, rumination, and a complex measure of working memory (operation span task). These findings further our understanding of the influence of relatively brief nature experiences on affect and cognition, and help to lay the foundation for future research on the mechanisms underlying these effects. Related Media Nature May Be Key to Strengthening Our Attention (November 28, 2023)