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

2002 / Children, Development, Environmental Generational Amnesia

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 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 / Health and well-being

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 / Culture, Development

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

Two studies evaluated cross cultural perspectives of children’s moral and ecological reasoning as well as values about nature. The first study was conducted in Houston, Texas, with an inner city Black community. Subjects were 72 children from impoverished families. The results suggested that the serious constraints of living in an inner-city community cannot easily squelch Black children’s diverse and rich appreciation for nature, and moral responsiveness to its preservation. The second study, conducted in the Brazilian Amazon, is a modification of the Houston study. Subjects were 44 Portuguese fifth-grade children. The results suggested that Brazilian children do not exercise more biocentric reasoning than those in the Houston study. The two studies extend recent research in the moral developmental literature which suggests that, in important ways, individuals’ moral reasoning across cultures is similarly structured by concerns for human welfare, fairness, and rights. Inadequate attention to universal aspects of development in general, end morality in particular, would result in missing the many essential ways of being human, and underestimating common humanity.

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 (P. H. Kahn & B. Friedman, 1995).

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

1995 / Black communities, Children, Development, Urban

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.

Assessing the Value of the U.S. Roadless Rule for People and Nature

2026 / Blue spaces, Public land, Recreation

For more than a century, forest policy in the United States has recognized the importance of protecting forested watersheds to safeguard water resources. The 2001 U.S. Forest Service Roadless Area Conservation Rule (Roadless Rule) established Inventoried Roadless Areas (IRAs) across approximately 60 million acres of National Forest System lands to sustain high-quality soil, water, biodiversity, and recreational values by restricting road building and commercial timber harvest. Because IRAs are administratively designated rather than legislatively protected, they remain vulnerable to policy reversals. Recent efforts to rescind the Roadless Rule have renewed concerns about potential ecological and economic consequences. Here, we assess vulnerabilities to weakened protections under the Roadless Rule by quantifying the benefits IRAs provide for river protection, clean water provisioning, recreational opportunities, and aquatic biodiversity across the conterminous United States. We find that IRAs protect over 130,000 kms of streams and rivers, representing 2.5% of total river length, and serve as the primary protection mechanism for more than 100,000 kms of rivers (1.9%) when accounting for other regulatory and conservation frameworks. These protections are geographically widespread and particularly important in regions with limited alternative safeguards. IRA-influenced watersheds supply drinking water to at least 25 million Americans, with several states sourcing water for over one-third of their populations from these areas. Proximity of National Forests to urban centers amplifies these benefits, even in states with relatively small IRA extents. In addition, IRA-protected watersheds overlap substantially with high-demand hunting and fishing areas and support diverse aquatic biodiversity. Our results demonstrate that rescinding the Roadless Rule would diminish protections for rivers, and may compromise drinking water quality and affordability, reduce recreational opportunities, and threaten freshwater biodiversity. Safeguarding Roadless Rule protections is therefore essential for sustaining ecosystem services, supporting human well-being, and advancing broader conservation and resilience goals under increasing climatic and land-use pressures.

Child-Nature Interaction in a Forest Preschool

2020 / Children, Environmental Generational Amnesia, 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.

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)

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)