Reflections on SOAR

Posted by Jan Whitney on February 6, 2007 - 09:43 AM

The most gratifying experiences for me in all these almost 27 years of Prairie Plains life have been during SOAR.  It is when we can all just go outside and immerse ourselves in that which we spend much of the rest of the year promoting, managing, planting, burning, planning for, and documenting.

SOAR campers have learned all kinds of things about prairie and river life over the last 15 years.  Perhaps the most valuable lesson of all is that it can be quite enjoyable to be outside - to spend time in exploration and discovery away from electronic gadgetry.  Out of the car and hiking through a prairie you learn it is not a weed patch, nor just grass.  You meet new friends – a plant with gray-green leaves and spikes of purple flowers with bright orange stamens, with a name, Leadplant – or a beautiful butterfly named Regal Fritillary.  Wading right out into the Platte you become aware of shallows, holes, riffles, varying currents and textures of riverbed – while watching dragonflies, whirligig beetles, schools of little fishes (we’ve become especially familiar with Red Shiners and Plains Killifish), toads hopping on sandbars and maybe even a Great Blue Heron flying overhead.

I can’t help but notice how all this seems to be such a new experience for an increasing number of these youngsters.  For some, it is a big deal to just be outside.  Their approach is cautious and apprehensive, and there’s no chance they’ll forget their bug spray and sunscreen.

When did this happen, this disconnect from the outdoors, from nature, even from walking around?  According to child advocacy expert Richard Louv, in Last Child in the Woods, we may be witnessing the last generation to still have some sense of connection.  Nature has become an abstraction, not really a tangible experience in the lives of today’s youth.

I spent my first 18 years on a small farm by a river.  I roamed the pastures while digging up musk thistles.  I fished, seined, and waded in the river, and became familiar with the aroma of alfalfa, field corn, cattle and chickens.  Gardening was more than a hobby.  It is hard for me to imagine being a child and not ever working or playing outdoors.  Wouldn’t that cause some sort of illness, like a nutrient deficiency?!

In fact, Louv labels this disconnect “Nature Deficit Syndrome” and links it with the high incidence of childhood depression and anxiety, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, stress, and obesity (and I would add, as a result, the increase of type 2 diabetes in the young).  He cites some of the reasons for this syndrome as the obsession with electronic media, the loss of green space to development, parents’ exaggerated fears of natural and human predators, and the threats of lawsuits and vandalism that has prompted community officials to forbid access to their land.

I think Louv is right on, and I recommend the book to all parents, teachers, and – well, everybody.  It could save lives.

Save lives?  You never know!  I am delighted that SOAR is here to offer therapy to the nature-deprived.  In the beginning we were just thinking in terms of getting kids more familiar with the plants, wildlife, river, etc. in and around Hamilton County.  But now we realize it’s vital that they simply have opportunities to go outside and play.  Amazing.