Fall 2021: Children and Nature
NC State’s Department of Parks, Recreation & Tourism Management offers compelling courses to prepare our students to be the next generation of leaders who will build healthy communities and find sustainable solutions to protect our planet. PRT 595-005: Children & Nature is taught by Associate Professor, Kathryn Stevenson. Dr. Stevenson also runs the EE Lab at NC State to identify drivers of environmental literacy among K-12 students.
PRT 595-005: Children & Nature (Fall 2021)
In recent decades, there has been an explosion of research around the benefits of nature, supporting measures of happiness, health, attention spans, social cohesion, and others. In parallel to these studies on how nature benefits people (especially children), work has emerged on how children may also be good for nature. Children are leading global movements to combat climate change, becoming civically active to ensure access to nature for all, and proving to be an avenue to bring even the most politically divided communities together to work toward a sustainable future.
In this course, students will gain an overview of this rapidly growing literature, meet some of the researchers behind it, and find ways to contribute to it. Perspectives of graduate students from natural resources, education, landscape architecture, or others who are interested in exploring how nature can benefit kids and kids can benefit nature are most welcome.
For more information about the course, contact Dr. Stevenson at katheryn_stevenson@ncsu.edu.