It’s a new school year, with potentially lots of changes for your children: starting elementary, middle or high school, or maybe a new school altogether; figuring out class schedules; getting to know teachers or a new friend group; feeling overwhelmed with assignments and new routines. This time of year can be stressful for young people. Here is a great antidote: 20 minutes outside! 

Our friends over at Generation Wild  (Great Outdoors Colorado) compiled a fantastic list of ideas for quick 20 minute activities to get kids active and outdoors.  A few minutes outside can work wonders for your kids’ stress levels and overall feelings of well-being.

Here are just a few of the 20 ideas for 20 minutes outside from Generation Wild: 

• “Host a mud party.” Get a big bucket of dirt and water and make mud pies, try mud painting, or just squish the mud between your toes. Let your kids’ imagination flow.
• “Add water and chill.” Fill a baby pool with ice and water, then add marbles and try to fish them out with your toes. 
• “Camp in your backyard.” Sleep under the stars, but in the convenience of your backyard. Make s’mores!
• “Go on a color scavenger hunt.” Search for things outdoors that match targeted colors. This could be plants, animals, or whatever else you see outside!
• “Make sun prints.” Place colored construction paper outside in the sun. Make a design on top of it with the things you find in nature—leaves, sticks, rocks and other stuff. Then let it sit out, and in a few hours, the sun will turn it into a wild creation.
• “Go on a safari.” Hide toy animals outside, and let your kids enjoy the challenge of finding them all.

For the complete list go to: generationwild.com/20ideaslist. 
It’s not always easy to get kids to turn off the computer or put down the game controller. So how do you get them to play outside? Here are a few tried-and-true strategies that will actually help get them off the couch and out the back door.

Try relocating their favorite indoor activity to the outdoors. Nudge them to read, draw, or play with their favorite toy outdoors in the fresh air. Being in an outdoor environment is an entirely different experience—it may encourage them to “play” in a new way.

Make outdoor time into family time. Sometimes kids just want to spend time with their parents and other loved ones. Taking walks, having picnics, and making park visits together are all great ways to incorporate Mother Nature into your family routine.

A little variety can spice up outdoor time. We have the best backyard here on the Western Slope of Colorado, so consider exploring a bit farther–farms, forests, mountains, and lakes. This gives kids different ways to experience and think about the outdoors. The same place can be completely transformed during different parts of the year or even different times of the day.

The more the merrier! Kids inspire other kids. Adding a friend to the mix might be just the nudge needed to inspire their inner adventurer to come out. This strategy is especially effective with older kids.

Playing outdoors makes for more capable, knowledgeable, and self-sufficient youth. And, an independent youth is a safer one. Start your kids’ outdoor independence by taking small steps, like playing in the backyard while you observe them. Before you know it, they will be running all over the neighborhood, just like you used to do.

If we all spend a little more time outdoors in our neighborhoods, we’ll make more friends, know more about one another, and create communities that parents and kids feel comfortable in. It’s a simple idea that will benefit everyone.

For older kids and you, time outdoors is invaluable in helping to reset thoughts and priorities and dispel frustrations or anxieties from work or school and recharge yourself. A run or bike ride along a river or a walk with a friend can be revitalizing and a brief escape from troublesome issues. Encourage your teen to engage in an outdoor game like Frisbee golf, Ultimate Frisbee, or try a new outdoor sport like climbing or paddling with a SUP. 

You don’t have to have all the ideas. That’s where Generation Wild comes in. Follow Generation Wild on Instagram and Facebook, and you will get all kinds of ideas and inspiration to get your kids outdoors. Check out “The List” of 100 things every kid absolutely has to do before they are 12 (generationwild.com/the-list). The list has some great ideas for time outside, like digging up worms, dancing in the rain, skipping rocks, tubing down a creek, catching a crawdad, and more. If you are a kid at heart, you may be surprised at how many things you can already check off!

Through Generation Wild, you can also connect with more than 250 incredible partners around the state that host outdoor activities and youth programming. Friends of Youth and Nature’s Provider Page also has a list of providers who engage kids in outdoor programs and environmental education activities by county (Delta, Mesa, and Montrose).

There’s a lot to discover out there. While you are having so much fun playing outside with your kids, think of all the benefits they are getting from hanging out with you in nature.

Summer is a great time to play outside. Some games are timeless like hopscotch, jump rope, tag, hide-and-seek, Simon Says and Red Light-Green Light. While playing these games not only do kids disperse energy but they are enhancing their muscle strength, endurance, stability, balance, coordination, cardiovascular fitness and physical agility.
 

 
One of the best aspects of being in Colorado, especially on the Western Slope of Colorado, is being outdoors.  Public lands are just a short drive for most of us providing fantastic outdoor access.  As  you head out this Spring to hike, bike, hunt, fish, bird watch, camp, and participate in many other activities,  a few proactive things can help you avoid trouble and have a great time.    Undoubtedly, you have heard this advice many times before but a little forethought and planning will make your outings safer, and often more fun.  Some important planning considerations are:

1. When are you going out?  Both the season, or time of year, and the time of day can make a difference.  It is especially important to plan ahead during the spring and fall due to the rapid weather changes that can occur AND the lower temps early and late in the day that can contribute to hypothermia. Conversely, in summer the highest heat of the day often occurs in late afternoon/early evening, when heat exhaustion and heat stroke can be a real danger.  When you are in the high country particularly above tree line in the summer be aware of afternoon thunderstorms and return to a safe location in a shelter or at lower elevations. 
2. What are you taking with you?  Some basic supplies can make for both a pleasant experience and a survival difference in the outdoors.  Your survival kit cannot consist of just a cell phone.  Cell phones have issues with reception and battery life.  There are many schools of thought on what is in a basic ‘survival’ kit. A simple kit should at least have ways to signal (both visual and audible), ways to make a shelter, and ways to start a fire. Bring some simple high-calorie foods, water and water treatment, and a knife or multitool.  A simple medical/first aid kit is also a good idea.  However, having a first aid kit is only helpful if you know why and how to use the supplies.  A first aid class (many are online) will prepare you with the most important thing you will need in a medical situation: knowledge.  
3. What will you wear?  Layer in wicking, non-cotton clothing, and bring an insulating layer as well as a water-resistant layer. This will allow you to adjust to the rapid changes in weather. Extra socks and a warm hat is also a good idea.  Please WEAR GOOD FOOTWEAR!  Having flip flops, or shoes with little tread or support is an invitation for trouble. 
4. Where are you going?  Are you familiar with the area?  If not, look at the area on topographical maps or a mapping app ahead of time so you know potential hazards.  Features including major elevation changes, water crossings, or drop-offs can create unsafe situations.  Even well-traveled trails can be difficult to follow during storms or after big rains.   Unless you learn and practice orienteering, a compass will not be helpful.  There are some apps that can help you locate where you are IF you have cell signal, or services that work using GPS satellites, but these also need time on the front end to learn how they work and may have a cost associated with them.  

After planning, the next proactive thing to do outdoors is use good judgment.  I survived a few serious incidents early in life and learned from them, but they could have had much worse outcomes.  These included a poor choice of time of day to start up a fourteener! I made the decision to abandon my high-elevation goal for the day and luckily avoided having an emergency.  Know your limits based on knowledge or physical condition, and acclimatization to the altitude.  If you are new to  being outdoors, having an experienced mentor is one great way to have a successful and fun start.  They have already learned a lot about preparation and decision making in the outdoors and they likely want to share their experiences.  

When venturing outdoors, ALWAYS tell someone where you are going. If you should get lost, stay put in an area with shelter nearby and call or signal in a way to be seen/heard at a distance. By staying in the same safe area, you will use less energy and be closer to your last known location. Be aware of how alcohol or other substances can affect your judgment.  Finally, watch the weather and if it changes dramatically, pay attention!  It is always the best choice to play it safe, enjoy the experience you’ve had and save the rest for another day. Remember: the mountains, streams, trails, and lakes will still be there when you return in better conditions!  
 

It’s a bit like speed dating for adults only this event involves quick learning interactions for kids. Springtime environmental education events are ways for elementary students to engage with natural resource experts to learn as much as possible in a short period. Each dedicated specialist has 20-25 minutes to engage elementary students about their area of expertise with hands-on activities and tips about their jobs. Students rotate through 8 to 9 stations in a day to learn about many topics, such as how forests contribute to healthy watersheds, how various aquatic insects indicate water quality, what kinds of items can be recycled, and much more.  Montrose, Grand Junction, and the North Fork Valley all have festivals organized and sponsored by many organizations, partners, and volunteers who work together to provide this opportunity for the youth of these communities. 
 
Presenters, mostly natural resources experts from various agencies, explain aspects of their field that most kids, and even some adults, never think about.  As an added bonus, students get insights into various natural resource careers. “These can be defining moments for young minds that may influence their choices for a lifelong passion or a future career path,” says Anita Evans of Friends of Youth and Nature, one of the funding contributors to the event.    
 
For the last 30 years, fourth graders from the Uncompahgre Valley have attended the Montrose event organized by the Shavano Conservation District. The Natural Resource Festival (previously known as the Water Festival) draws approximately 450 -500 students each year. This May students headed to Baldridge Park for a full day of fun learning activities.  “Classes rotate through 9 learning stations, out of 29 featured at the festival, and engage in activities that demonstrate the connections between their lives and the resources they depend on.  Activities are focused on all of our natural resources, with an emphasis on water connections in their lives,” explains Mendy Stewart, Education Specialist for the Shavano Conservation District, and festival organizer.
 
 “The activities are meant to be ‘hands-on’, where kids really get in the mix of things,” Stewart added. A wide array of resource topics and activities are featured such as: demonstrating how river water is treated before being sent to our faucets, making play-dough watersheds and determining where the rivers and lakes form after a simulated rainstorm, making your own recycled paper, panning for silver while learning about Colorado’s Mining history with the Colorado Department of Reclamation and Mine Safety, practicing moving water through irrigation pipes with the Uncompahgre Valley Water Users, measuring the flow of a nearby stream with a Colorado Water Commissioner and putting their math minds to work figuring the rate of flow in cubic feet per second (cfs). Other activities help kids to learn things like “Leave No Trace” and how to minimize impacts when exploring nature.  

The Colorado State Forestry Department sets up an experiment where students predict the amount and quality of rainwater runoff between two watersheds (actually dirt-filled culverts), one with plants and one with bare soil. After predicting the outcome of a rainstorm, the students learn how plant cover works to slow runoff, so it can be absorbed within the watershed. “This is a huge benefit to water quality, catching soil and pollutants before they reach rivers,” explains Tanya Banulis, Colorado State forester. Dave Dearstyne, retired Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) soil scientist, focuses students’ attention on detecting some of the millions of microorganisms living in our soil. Who would think to look that closely at dirt? 

This event involves a lot of planning and behind-the scenes work such as pre-festival classroom presentations and festival logistics. The festival's successes are attributed to the dedication of Stewart and the supporting host agency, the Shavano Valley Conservation District. Festival supplies, student transportation, and festival planning are made possible through matching funds to the Shavano Conservation District received from the Colorado State Conservation Board. The goal of this program is to help Conservation Districts in Colorado implement conservation projects and educational activities.  In addition to the festival, the funds have also made conservation education available to San Miguel, Ouray, and Montrose County students. The activities also include source pollution presentations, 9th grade Mancos Shale Soil Salinity Experiments, and 5th and 6th grade conservation poster contests.
 
Stewart says these events, “...inspire learning opportunities for Western Slope students who will be part of an outdoor savvy generation. We hope they will be empowered to use what they learn to influence future decisions about land and water uses that benefit our planet now and in the future.”  
 
Some kids take time to reflect about what they learned during the festivals; others are super excited and cannot stop talking about the day. Parents or relatives can encourage more discussion or help reinforce significant concepts kids learned. Ask your child what learning station impressed them the most?  Here are a few questions that will help you start a discussion with your student: 
 
What can you tell me about the Gunnison or Colorado River’s journey to the ocean?
What type of water bugs will you find in your favorite fishing spot?
How fast is the river near you flowing this spring?
What are the components of a beehive?
How can you harness solar power? Can you use it to make a fruit smoothie or baked good?
What should you put into your community’s recycle bins?
What foods are produced locally and where can you find them?
 
Friends of Youth and Nature is a non-profit promoting opportunities for youth and families to get outside, experience outdoor activities, and explore nature. Your donations as well as grants received by FOYAN from the Gunnison Basin Roundtable (DNR- Colorado Water Conservation Board) and Forever Our Rivers (Connecting Rivers and Communities) have enabled FOYAN to contribute funding for these festivals.

What kid hasn’t had some sort of rock collection? Discovering hidden gems is always a treat. Western Colorado is perfect for exploring geology with your kids. Look around − there is evidence of eons of geological happenings everywhere! 

Geology is an Earth science that investigates how the Earth formed and changes over time.  Through studying rock layers, geologists learn about the past and reconstruct the puzzle of Earth’s history. The Earth is a mind boggling 4.5 billion years old!  This ruler helps to grasp the age of the Earth. Each inch on the ruler stands for 375 million years (375,000,000 years). Because the numbers are so large, scientists use abbreviations for a billion years (BY) and a million years (MY). Major events in the Earth’s history are shown above the ruler and geologic ages (eons and eras) are marked below the ruler.
 

It might appear that the Earth’s surface never changes, but it is changing slowly all the time. Sediments, such as sand grains and clay, are deposited horizontally and then squeezed down by more sediment deposited on top. Over time, these layers turn into sedimentary rock with the oldest layers at the bottom and younger layers on top.  These rock layers constantly change over time, and with heat and pressure form metamorphic and igneous (volcanic) rock.  Melting or molten rock below the Earth’s surface builds up and breaks through older rock layers to form volcanoes. Metamorphic rock is formed when volcanic or sedimentary rock layers are buried and their structure changes under pressure - this is how diamonds are formed! Earthquakes occur when the Earth’s crust moves on the molten mantle like meringue on the surface of a lemon meringue pie. Cracks in the crust, called faults, can cause the Earth’s crust to move, fold, and tilt through a process called plate tectonics. Colliding plates can create mountain ranges and reshape the Earth’s continents. As the plates slowly shift across the globe, volcanoes and earthquakes represent the immense power at play. External events such as landslides and water or wind erosion wear down mountains, depositing the sediments downstream. 
 
Check out the last 1.6 inches of the 12-inch ruler (the Phanerozoic Eon). We know more about this time than any other in Earth’s history and we know that life was abundant! Many strange creatures swam, crawled, and flew across this corner of Colorado.  The story of these ancient creatures and where they lived are told by their fossils or impressions, bones, footprints, shells, petrified wood, and even fossilized feces, called coprolites, left behind in the rock layers. 
 
The present is the key to the past – this is the first lesson in geology, which means geologic events we observe today took place in the past. Volcanoes, earthquakes, floods, ocean tides, winds, gravity, as well as sedimentation and erosion  likely behaved similarly throughout time in shaping our landscapes. Glacial ice advances then melts; wind and water erode mountains until they are flat; valleys fill with rock and debris washed down from highlands. The Earth is and was a very dynamic place! 
 
Let’s look a little closer at Colorado’s geologic history. Most of Western Colorado lies within the Colorado Plateau. This high-desert formed millions of years ago when tectonic plates slowly pushed together, uplifting stacked layers of sand, silt, and mud to form the Plateau. Ancient volcanic mountains, plateaus, buttes, deeply carved canyons, and stunning color ranges are the defining characteristics of this region. The plateau is dominated by high mountains gashed by river canyons, dry washes, and intermittent stream beds. Near the southern end of the Plateau, the Grand Canyon has exposed rocks with ages that span almost 2 billion years.

Colorado National Monument was established because of its unique geology. Situated on the Uncompahgre Plateau (part of the larger Colorado Plateau), the monument was shaped over millions of years into colorful, wind-eroded sandstone formations, towering monoliths, and steep-walled canyons. The deeper rock layers span billions of years, with sedimentary layers covering the bottom-most metamorphic layer. Erosion continues to change this landscape with each storm creating wind- and water-sculpted rock formations with shape-inspired names like Window Rock, Pipe Organ, and Sentinel Spire. 
 
The geologic story of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison is one of uplift, volcanism, and the erosive force of water. Large volcanoes erupted on either side of the uplift about 30 million years ago, burying it in volcanic rock. As early as 2 million years ago, the Gunnison River began flowing in force through the soft volcanic rock. Over time, river flows eroded a deep canyon in the metamorphic rock. The canyon, at 2700 feet deep, is one of the deeper canyons in North America.

Another local geologic hot spot is located just outside of Delta Colorado. In the early 1970’s, 150-million year old fossils from the Jurassic period were found in the Dry Mesa Dinosaur Quarry on the Uncompahgre Plateau.  One of the most prolific sites of its time, the quarry revealed a unique chain of Upper Jurassic sedimentary rock (Morrison Formation) known for its high yield of dinosaur fossils.  What a yield! Over 4,000 bones from 30 different species were unearthed in the Quarry including two new species of dinosaur! Check out this informative activity booklet about the quarry finds developed by the Forest Service: The Jurassic World and Other Exciting Times in the Geological Past of Colorado, Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre, and Gunnison National Forests.

The geologic past of Colorado is a dynamic story and you don’t have to travel far to observe it.  Start with a visit to the Dinosaur Journey Museum in Fruita for interactive displays such as an earthquake simulator, a sandbox for making your own dinosaur tracks, and a “quarry site” where kids can uncover actual Jurassic dinosaur bones. There are over 15,000 fossil specimens in its collections. Design your own scavenger hunt to see if your child can find fossils reflecting our region's warm, moist environment (ferns) or when our town was at the bottom of a vast sea (shark teeth and fish fossils). Colorado has been at the bottom of an ocean several times, has been covered by ice, and has seen the rise and erosion of vast mountain ranges long before the Rocky Mountains of today were formed. The rock layers and fossil collections are there to demonstrate it, you just have to get out there and take a closer look!

Here are a few links for fun geology activities for kids:

• The Jurassic World and Other Exciting Times in the Geological Past of Colorado, Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre, and Gunnison National Forests.

• Geologic Activity- Colorado National Monument (https://www.nps.gov/colm/learn/nature/geologicactivity.htm)
• 40 playful ways to teach young kids about rocks (https://www.fantasticfunandlearning.com/30-playful-ways-to-teach-young-kids-about-rocks.html)
• 15 ways kids can study geology at home ( https://earthsciencejr.com/15-at-home-geology-projects-for-kids/)
• Fascinating Geology Activities for Kids  (littlebinsforlittlehands.com/geology-for-kids/)

• Geology STEM activities for kids (https://www.sciencebuddies.org/stem-activities/subjects/geology)
  
• Geologic Time Scale (https://earthsciencejr.com/15-at-home-geology-projects-for-kids/)
  
• Adapt this geology scavenger hunt for a local field trip area
  

 

Children’s overall health is positively affected by connections to outdoor spaces. This is essential for a healthy balance with technology use.

We are so lucky to live in Colorado, where there is such a wide variety of outdoor opportunities for youth close to home in local state parks and in our vast open landscapes across the state. This past week, the Colorado Equity Grant Board awarded various Colorado nonprofits a total of $1.3 million to help more kids and families experience the outdoors. Here on the Western Slope, Friends of Youth and Nature was awarded a generous grant of $67,180 towards our efforts in getting local youth into outdoor activities. This gift to our citizens is an effort to increase access to the outdoors for our youth and instill stewardship practices of our state's outstanding natural resources in the next generation. In the long run, this investment will increase the health of Coloradans and our communities. The personal benefits gained from outdoor experiences is not a novel concept; there is a plethora of research proving that outdoor activities overall increase individual well-being. 
 
According to Dr. Constance Scharff in Psychology Today, “Children are increasingly spending time indoors engaged with various forms of electronic devices: phones, computers, tablets, televisions, and gaming consoles. There is significant data indicating that time spent outdoors, whether in play, outdoor education or recreation, or even gardening, can have a real and positive impact on mental and physical well-being.” 

Author Dr. John J. Ratey in his book, The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain, discusses how exercise influences the brain on a cellular level. He also talks about how lack of real play does hurt children because they need to use their imaginations to develop creative thinking and problem solving skills. Many outdoor activities require kids to work together and communicate in order for everyone to have fun or to accomplish a common goal. He also describes a bacterium in the soil that increases serotonin in the brain and improves mood. Who knew that getting dirty is a good thing!

There are many activities to do outdoors, including hiking, camping, rafting, paddle boarding, rock climbing, skiing, sledding, orienteering, horseback riding, and raising animals, just to name a few. Some examples of activities and research-proven benefits include:

Gardening – Teaches patience, perseverance and empathy (and don’t forget that special bacterium that increases serotonin levels). According to Dr. Scharff, gardening teaches children about the food cycle and nutrition, provides important life skills, and creates opportunities for children to learn competence, resilience, and community building. There are Junior Master Gardener programs that can be integrated into school curricula or used at home or with youth groups. Children’s gardening programs ignite a passion for good food, provide opportunities for people of all ages to work together, and develop important life skills that can lead to a lifetime of healthy choices. Food produced may be used in home or school settings, or canned for use in the off-season, and the excess can be donated to local food banks.

Walking and talking − Builds conversation skills and helps with the flow of creative thinking. Just taking a long walk outdoors with a friend has many benefits.  State and national parks offer a wide variety of outdoor activities for youth and families. These are not necessarily just hikes or camping, but interactive wildlife activities, archaeological explorations, storytelling times, and much more. The park service often coordinates activities and provides special programming for youth groups. Every Kid in a Park is a National Park Service Program to encourage youth visitation to national parks. Every Fourth grader gets a yearlong free family pass to any national park. Visit their website to find out more, and encourage your kids to become junior rangers (www.nps.gov/kids/every-kid-outdoors.htm). Public lands managed by the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management have mostly free access with a variety of trails for mountain biking, hiking, cross country skiing and snowshoeing. 
 
Bird Watching − Watching any wildlife has its benefits! Observation can help build attention skills while also practicing mindfulness and coping strategies. It also stirs a sense of curiosity in young people. Many birding organizations provide activities and/or mentors to teach children about bird watching. Check into your local Audubon chapter, Colorado Field Ornithologist groups, or the Bird Conservancy of the Rockies. National and state parks also offer nature programs that are scheduled or can be requested by contacting them. Audubon Adventure for Kids highlights curriculum and related DIY activities that can be done at home or in a yard or park (www.audubon.org/get-outside/activities/audubon-for-kids). Scavenger hunts are a great way to get kids excited about exploring nature and improve their observation and attention skills. Looking for a bird nest, a cactus flower, a cool rock, or an animal track can be very exciting. Search the internet for nature/outdoor scavenger hunts; you will be surprised with how many come up. 

Horses − Studies have shown that working with horses helps children, teens, and adults make significant improvements in the areas of confidence, anger management, empathy, impulse control, self-esteem, PTSD, anxiety, and overall emotional well-being. Did you know that horses can be an emotional mirror to ourselves? Research has also shown that horses recognize and react to human emotions from our body language and facial expressions. Since they are herd and prey animals, they have a strong emotional sense, reflect and respond to the behavior of other horses in the herd. Even playing with your family pet or walking your beloved dog has huge benefits. Speaking of the influence animals have on youth, Meet Wilder!  This is a very engaging video you can watch with your kids featuring Wilder. It will inspire them to go outdoors and play (www.generationwild.com/).
 
Are you looking for something that will help your child build social interaction skills, confidence, problem solving skills, independence, creativity, and emotional well-being? Take them outside! No matter what activity they do outdoors, just getting them outside on a regular basis has so many benefits to them, their families, and our communities.

The end-of-year giving season is in full swing, and you’re probably hearing a lot of appeals from nonprofits to help fund their community impacts. There are so many crucial needs in our area, all of which are eminently deserving of your support; in a perfect world we would be able to help with all of the causes, but in the real world you’ll need to make choices about where to contribute your year-end donations in a way that aligns with your ideals, priorities, and your hopes for the future.
 
I’d like to make a case for the importance of getting western slope kids into outdoor educational and recreational programs as a long-term solution for many of the issues facing our youth, and our community at large.
 
What impact does an early introduction to the outdoors have on who a child will become as an adult, and how are they affected physically, mentally, emotionally—and even morally as they grow up? As it turns out, we can directly connect childhood exposure to outdoor activities with positive long-term outcomes.
 
Physical Fitness
It’s no secret that children are frequently neglecting more physical, outdoor forms of play in favor of the digital world—reducing kids’ screen time is often a major struggle for parents. Computers, mobile devices, and video games are passive forms of entertainment, and they don’t call for physical coordination, strength, endurance, or any of the other attributes necessary for a healthy body. Outdoor play, on the other hand, promotes all of these things, and is a natural method of encouraging physical activity in young people.
 
A 2015 metanalysis of studies regarding the effects of time spent outdoors on children found, “outdoor time is positively related to physical activity and negatively related to sedentary behavior in children aged 3–12 years'' (Gray, 2015). The more outdoor time children have the more physical activity they take part in and, conversely, the less sedentary behavior they display.
 
Resiliency
Many people spend time outdoors because it brings them a sense of happiness and well-being. If adults who have grown accustomed to the ways of the modern world still need to get away to nature every now and then to stay happy, surely children must benefit from these quieter natural spaces as well.
 
Perhaps unsurprisingly, a 2018 study showed that the more time children spend in nature and the greater sense of connection they personally feel with nature, the less likely they are to experience psychosomatic symptoms such as irritability, anxiety, difficulty sleeping, headache, stomach ache, backache, and other physical afflictions. The benefits start with as little as 30 minutes of outdoor activity per week (Piccininni, 2018).
 
As we consider ways to address the increasing prevalence of mental health challenges in young people, including a disproportionately high suicide rate in our area, outdoor activities can play a crucial role in building resiliency and promoting mental well-being in our youth.
 
Stewardship
Physical activity, cognitive development, emotional well-being—these things are relatively easy to quantify in research. But what about something like the desire to preserve our natural areas, or an understanding of the importance of good stewardship practices for our public lands? Can we quantify these outcomes?
 
Though it’s more difficult to show a correlation between time spent outdoors during childhood and an individual’s likelihood to become a good environmental steward, it has been shown that the amount of time spent outdoors has a direct correlation with a child’s feelings of connection with nature. This sense of connection with the natural world then has a direct influence on behaviors related to environmental stewardship in children such as, “conserving water, turning out lights, recycling, talking about the environment, and picking up litter” (Andrejewski, 2011). The more time we can get younger generations to spend in the outdoors, the greater sense of connection they’ll feel with nature, and the more likely they will become involved with environmental stewardship and preservation.
 
As you consider how to distribute your year-end donations in our community in a way that most aligns with your values, know that when you donate to organizations that provide opportunities for local kids to get outdoors for science education and recreational field trips, you’re not only directly contributing to their physical and mental well-being—you’re also helping to raise a generation that will value our natural environment and ensure the preservation of public lands for years to come.
 
Friends of Youth and Nature (FOYAN) is a non-profit organization that promotes opportunities for youth and families to go outside, experience outdoor activities and explore nature. To contribute through Colorado Gives Day and multiply the impact of your donation, please visit https://www.coloradogives.org/organization/friendsofyouthandnature 
 
Andrejewski, Robert, et al. “An Examination of Children's Outdoor Time, Nature Connection, and Environmental Stewardship.” ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst, Proceedings of the Northeastern Recreation Research Symposium, 2011, https://scholarworks.umass.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1001&context=nerr.
 
Gray, Casey, et al. “What Is the Relationship between Outdoor Time and Physical Activity, Sedentary Behavior, and Physical Fitness in Children? A Systematic Review.” International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, vol. 12, no. 6, 8 June 2015, pp. 6455–6474., doi:10.3390/ijerph120606455.
 
Piccininni, Caroline, et al. “Outdoor Play and Nature Connectedness as Potential Correlates of Internalized Mental Health Symptoms among Canadian Adolescents.” Preventive Medicine, vol. 112, July 2018, pp. 168–175., doi:10.1016/j.ypmed.2018.04.020.

Sniffing around the garden! Students from Delta Country are enjoying the organic smell of soil and herbs in their school garden.