{"id":4952,"date":"2013-10-30T12:08:59","date_gmt":"2013-10-30T12:08:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/?p=4952"},"modified":"2013-10-30T12:08:59","modified_gmt":"2013-10-30T12:08:59","slug":"rspb-disconnect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2013\/10\/30\/rspb-disconnect\/","title":{"rendered":"RSPB Disconnect"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve been reading the RSPB\u2019s new survey<\/a> of 8 to 12 year olds and their conclusions that only 21% of them are as \u201cconnected to nature\u201d as the RSPB thinks they need to be.\u00a0 This is based on a survey of some 1100 youngsters, using a conceptual frame established by US academics:<\/p>\n

Chen-Hsuan Cheng, J. and Monroe, M. C. (2012) Connection to Nature: children\u2019s affective attitude toward nature. Environment and Behavior <\/em>44(1): 31\u201349<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I got rather confused with the questions the children were asked.\u00a0 I wondered why, for example, all the following terms were used across the 16 questions, and whether they all had distinct meanings:<\/p>\n

nature, \u00a0natural environment, \u00a0natural world, \u00a0outdoors, \u00a0environment<\/span><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It\u2019s possible to make a clear distinction between \u201cenvironment\u201d and \u201cnatural environment\u201d (think street and forest), but if there is a difference between \u201cnature\u201d, \u201cnatural environment\u201d, and \u201cnatural world\u201d, it\u2019s not at all clear to me what it is, and I wonder why three (potentially confusing) phrases were used.\u00a0 Were the differences explained to the children, I wonder, \u2026<\/p>\n

As a general rule, if you ask daft questions, you get the answers you deserve.\u00a0 A few examples.<\/p>\n

I enjoy touching animals and plants <\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As the correct RSPB answer to this is \u201cagree\u201d or \u201cstrongly agree\u201d, and it is a survey about \u201cthe natural world\u201d, this seems to be encouraging youngsters to touch wildlife, which seems completely bonkers.\u00a0 I\u2019m thinking here, not just of rats and other vermin such as squirrels, but also of swans and geese, cows, horses, \u2026 .\u00a0 Madness.<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s ...<\/p>\n

People do not have the right to change the natural environment <\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As you have to agree with this to get a positive score, it seems to rule out all sorts of everyday activities, such as gardening (which RSPB encourages in another question).\u00a0 Does it mean I should stop pruning my fruit trees? \u00a0Or maybe fruit trees are out \u2013 after all, they are hardly natural.<\/p>\n

I could go on about this conceptual confusion, for example about this: I like to see wild animals living in a clean environment, <\/span><\/strong>but \u2026<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s what the survey doesn\u2019t say.\u00a0 There are no questions about exercise which is odd given how much youngsters seem to run, scoot, climb and bike about whenever they manage to escape the house.<\/p>\n

The report says that the average score was 1.05 out of 2 (a dismal 0.97 in Wales), and that RSPB believes that a score of 1.5 is a realistic and achievable target for every child in the country. \u00a0Umm. \u00a0Of course, a\u00a0positive in all this is that now that we know what the test questions are, NGOs can tweak their policies and practices towards these to ensure the 1.5 target is met.<\/p>\n

Just keep away from all those rats.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve been reading the RSPB\u2019s new survey of 8 to 12 year olds and their conclusions that only 21% of them are as \u201cconnected to nature\u201d as the RSPB thinks they need to be.\u00a0 This is based on a survey...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment","category-new-publications"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4952","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4952"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4952\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}