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something to break up the stress in your day
can exposing kids to nature create a more sustainable world? interview results seem promising!
Jasper Lydon
November 05, 2024
hi friends,
its a crazy time for all of us today, so i wanted to share a positive snippet for this week’s newsletter.
Table of Contents
a lot of the stories i heard during these interviews i found really uplifting. it was so heartwarming to just sit down with strangers across the country and really connect. one of my favorites, though, was Lara’s story as a descendant of original Oregon trail pioneers turned core member of LA Ecovillage!
a snippet from oregon
Lara grew up in Portland, Oregon, regularly visiting her grandparents who had settled on the outskirts of the city, near Mount Hood.
When we met, she had on a camo jacket and two mousy brown braids. She was one of my first interviews of this project. I was so excited and nervous, we ended up talking for three hours! Here’s a small snippet from that.
My grandmother was a pioneer on the Oregon Trail. My grandfather built a log cabin, and they had an area where they had chickens and ducks and geese and turkeys, and they had a section where they were growing blueberry bushes where you could actually harvest the blueberries, and other vegetable growing areas.
My whole upbringing I got to go visit this area a lot. That introduced me both to a homesteading approach, raising food and things, but also to the local forest ecosystem. It was really that experience that gave me a real appreciation of nature.
Obviously the Oregon Trail has a complicated history. This direct link to history brings out some of the complications with the modern homesteading movement, with the beauty of tradition and the ugly undercurrents of White settlers buying up land previously care-taken by native groups.
I want to honor all of the darkness and violence of that history, but also take a moment to bask in the beauty of the image here: visiting your grandparents in their log cabin in an old-growth forest, picking blueberries, catching bugs.
i never made it as far north as oregon, but here’s a shot from muir woods in marin, california
across my interviews, i asked everyone about their background and childhood influences to try and get at the question of what motivates people to live more sustainable lives, to see if there’s some key component we could use to encourage more people to live sustainably.
a few things popped up, but one of the most consistent was:
positive childhood experiences in nature motivate sustainability
across the board, people cited experiences with nature growing up as one of the biggest reasons that caring about the environment became a core value for them. these moments could come from exploring a patch of woods near their house, bonding with a treasured pet, or simply getting sucked into Steve Irwin specials.
a slide in the forest at whole village ecovillage in ontario, canada
takeaways?
importance of giving all children access to nature
‘nature’ not meaning cultivated outdoor areas like playgrounds, but actual areas with some wilderness to them, so that children will encounter wildlife
Pockets of woods or larger, outdoor parks seemed to be impactful!
media like TV programs, books, movies, and video games that expose kids to nature seemed to be helpful as well!
spend some time outside today! its a stressful day — give yourself a break :)
and take a bit of hope with you — no matter what happens, the trees will be there, breathing through it with us.
much love,
jasper
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