{"id":6665,"date":"2016-05-23T07:03:59","date_gmt":"2016-05-23T07:03:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/?p=6665"},"modified":"2016-05-23T07:03:59","modified_gmt":"2016-05-23T07:03:59","slug":"the-nature-of-nature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2016\/05\/23\/the-nature-of-nature\/","title":{"rendered":"The nature of Nature"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Thanks to the SEEd \/ NAEE blogs for alerting me to \u00a0recent paper in <a href=\"http:\/\/theconversation.com\/why-getting-children-to-engage-with-nature-isnt-all-its-cracked-up-to-be-55181\">The Conservation<\/a>\u00a0by Hannah Pitt, Research Associate at Cardiff,\u00a0comments on research by Natural England on the extent to which youth is \u2018engaging with nature\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve been commenting on this research for a while now through an internal support \/ reference group, and some of the points Pitt\u00a0makes are familiar to me: for example, the broad definition of \u2018natural environment\u2019 (an urban outdoor exercise area counts as much as a nature reserve, even though the amount of \u2019nature\u2019 in them\u00a0might be quite different). \u00a0Pitt notes that the often relatively wildlife-rich back garden doesn\u2019t count in all this as spending time there is not seen as being away from the house, which <em>is<\/em> seen as important by those who count such things.<\/p>\n<p>The best point that Pitt\u00a0makes (for me) is to point to the importance of focusing on what youth (and everybody else for that matter) does when it is in nature, as opposed just being pleased that they are out there. \u00a0She says,<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\"Rather than thinking of all places with a good amount of greenery as natural and therefore beneficial, we need to distinguish which features and characteristics can have positive effects. \u00a0By understanding this it becomes possible to plan environments which support positive, healthy engagement. \u2026 what one does when outdoors is as significant in terms of well-being as the very fact of getting out and among the plants.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Just so, even if you do\u00a0very little, as sometimes <em>being<\/em> is as good as doing \u2013 as Wordsworth knew.<\/p>\n<p>Pitt\u00a0mentions research that suggests that different cultural groups have varied motivations for spending time outdoors, and that there is more to learn here. \u00a0I\u2019m sure that this is right, but might it also be the case that differences within groups are now becoming as great as those between them? \u00a0Does anyone know?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Thanks to the SEEd \/ NAEE blogs for alerting me to \u00a0recent paper in The Conservation\u00a0by Hannah Pitt, Research Associate at Cardiff,\u00a0comments on research by Natural England on the extent to which youth is \u2018engaging with nature\u2019. I\u2019ve been commenting...<\/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-6665","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\/6665","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=6665"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6665\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}