Why Take Children Outside to Create Art?

In this day and age, there is an ever-pressing need to connect children to the natural world and art. Children today spend less time outside, and have limited or nonexistent art instruction in the classroom. These concerning trends contribute to growing problems of “nature deficit disorder”, and “biophobia”, as well as visual and environmental illiteracy. Children today can name multiple corporate brand names, but can barely acknowledge the art around them or identify the plants, and trees in their region. According to a Kaiser Foundation study, children also spend an average of 6.5 hours a day in front of electronic media while the National Park systems state that family attendance to state parks and national forests is in decline. Even recent legislation such as the No Child Left Inside Act, and in my home state of Maryland, Governor O'Malley's Children's Outdoor Bill of Rights seek to improve the lacking nature-connection in U.S. schoolchildren.

Children are the future stewards of our natural resources, and the future patrons of the arts. Figuratively speaking, they are the artists that will create the environment of the future. We cannot afford to graduate generations of children who are ignorant about the environment, and the arts. Because of this, it is essential that they establish primary meaningful connections to, and comprehensions of, art and the environment. Educators, child-care professionals and parents must strive to fill these deficiencies in environmental and art education by introducing children to the beauty, importance and functions of both nature and art.

Nature is an inspiring classroom for all ages, providing a peaceful environment which is conducive to creativity and discovery. It is also an excellent sensorial muse by which the elements, principals and expressiveness of art can be exemplified. Art creation itself allows for a higher-level cognitive, affective and psycho-motor domain attainments from Blooms taxonomy of learning, while increasing neural activity and intellectual growth in children. The study of nature through art allows the “student-artist” to experience, observe, value, analyze, synthesize and express his/her understanding of, and relationship to, nature and the environment. The examination of nature through artistic processes has been a constant in the development of artists and scientists throughout culture and history. From the ancient painters of the Lascaux caves, to the artists of the Renaissance and to the modern day artists, nature has inspired man to create in order to understand, and praise its wonders. As the great painter Francisco Goya explained, “I have had three masters, Nature, Velasquez, and Rembrandt.”

So, take the young people you know outside, give them a sketchbook and some pencils,  or send them on a nature scavenger hunt and have them draw or assemble their findings into a sculpture. Pull them away from their media devices and encourage them experience the natural world with all of their senses and respond to, as well as express their experience in a creative way.