The Big Picture
Inspired by Richard Louv’s book, Last Child in the Woods, Shirley Hunt, co-founder of Focus on Nature, saw a need to get her own children and their peers connected to nature. Seeing a broad social need, and with input from the community beginning in 2008, FoN was conceived and co-founded with Guelph photographer Trina Koster.
As human beings, we need nature. Nature experience is essential to our physical, mental, and emotional health. Unfortunately this connection, especially in the case of young people, has been lost. For the first time in the history of humanity, kids are spending the majority of their time indoors on screen-related activities. A recent Healthy Kids report card indicated that Canadian adolescents are spending on average 6.5 hours/day on “screens” (computers, TVs and video games) and 7 hours/day on weekends.
Louv’s book is a powerful argument, backed by an array of research studies, for the link between this indoor sedentary lifestyle and the increases in obesity, depression, anxiety and ADHD among today’s youth.
What we know instinctively, and what health practitioners are now saying, is that nature has a calming effect, helping us to focus, awaken our senses, and feel a sense of balance in our lives.
What we need is a cultural shift in all of our systems, (for example educational systems who support outdoor experiential learning, and governments who foster urban forestry and naturalized green spaces) so that nature experiences are part of our daily lives.
We also need innovative tools for facilitating this shift, and for motivating young people (and their parents) to get outside. It’s happening, and Focus on Nature is part of a burgeoning global movement to make it a priority to provide kids with nature experiences. There’s now legislation in several US states called “No child left inside”, and numerous initiatives and campaigns in the US and Canada to build the connections between young people and nature.
Focus on Nature was launched in 2008, to be followed by the creation of an advisory group and volunteer base, research and grant-writing, and running and evaluating pilot projects. By 2011, the pilot project was supported with the help of a $60,000 Ontario Trillium Foundation (OTF) grant and $8,000 from the Ontario Arts Council. We receive grants from the OTF to support expansion as well as receiving support from various foundations and community sponsors.
“Photography is so accessible for young people today… It gives kids new ways to appreciate nature and opens up new windows of possibility in their lives,” says Simon Bell, previous Executive Director.
Focus on Nature sees a critical role for the arts in enticing youth to get outside and explore nature. We are excited to see the potential for using photography as a means to monitor changes in ecosystems, and the possibilities of collaborating with outdoor education centers. We have worked with school boards across Southern Ontario, museums, libraries, art galleries, and more to bring our programming to more kids.
The particular value of photography in enhancing the child-nature connection is its relevance to today’s digitally savvy youth, its capacity to enhance the excitement of nature experiences, and the opportunities it allows for sharing both nature appreciation and creative expression with others.
Focus on Nature operates as an incorporated non-profit, charitable organization, facilitated by an Executive Director; governed by a Board of Directors; with workshop leaders in Guelph, Waterloo, Halton, Dufferin-Peel, London, and Hamilton, Ontario. We work with local colleges and universities to provide meaningful work placements for young teachers, artists, and environmentalists.
