What childhood experiences cultivate future environmentalists? Researcher Louise Chawla found a pattern: most environmentalists attributed a combination of “many hours spent outdoors in a keenly remembered wild or semi-wild place in childhood or adolescence, and an adult who taught respect for nature.”
If you ask Annie Hanna, a rising senior at Lebanon High School in New Hampshire, why she cares about the environment and what inspires her to do conservation work in her own community, one of the first things she’ll talk about is the influence of her family.
Annie describes her grandfather as a “big environmentalist” and as a biologist who tracks insects. Annie’s mother is converting the family’s grassy yard to native plants. Annie remembers that in elementary school, her grandmother was a puppeteer for the Four Winds puppet shows in her classroom. Annie’s favorite part of Four Winds was the puppet shows, but she thinks the most important aspect of the program is that it gets every kid in school outdoors.
If Louise Chawla were to meet Annie Hanna, she would see a young woman whose life supports her research. Annie spent time outdoors from an early age under the influence of adults who care about the environment. She developed a strong attachment to the natural world near her home. She recognizes changes in that environment, and now, as a young adult, she’s ready to pitch in and help solve problems.
As David Sobel notes in Beyond Ecophobia, “If we want children to flourish, to become truly empowered, then let us allow them to love the Earth before we ask them to save it. Perhaps this is what Thoreau had in mind when he said, ‘the more slowly trees grow at first, the sounder they are at the core, and I think the same is true of human beings.’”
