Get hooked on nature: Ben Klasky at TEDxRainier

Rating: ****

This video really grabs you in on his point about how kids don’t get enough time outside anymore and how going into nature can really change their life.

 

This presenter, Ben Klasky, starts off with comparing chickens, prison inmates and kids, and asks which ones do you think get the least amount of time outside. Of course the answer is kids. Fact is, over the past few decades kids have stopped doing their after school games in the park or on the streets with their friends. All they like to do now is sit inside and play their video games. Ben Klasky has worked over the years in trying to get kids to go outside more often by bringing them on hiking trips and sharing cool apps involving outdoor scavenger hunts and what not. He tells remarkable stories of some kids who have had their whole world opened up to them just by being in the wilderness and seeing nature. It is truly remarkable what parents can do for their kids by getting them to go outside, and by doing so would it be a game-changer.

 

This video has made me think back to when I would play in the park with my friends after school, and go mountain biking in the forest with them. And thinking back to that, it wasn’t that long ago. Technology has really evolved over the past few years and is ruining childhood. It really makes me think to how long I actually spend looking at my phone or staring at the computer screen. All these facts that I have learned by watching the video really scare me about the future. It makes me want to try and go back to how things were years ago when we didn’t text each other and actually talked face to face, or go outside and be active instead of sitting inside playing video games.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArhjLa4xbNk