Thomas Eugene Lovejoy III was an American ecologist who was President of the Amazon Biodiversity Center, a Senior Fellow at the United Nations Foundation and a university professor in the Environmental Science and Policy department at George Mason University. Lovejoy was the World Bank's chief biodiversity advisor and the lead specialist for environment for Latin America and the Caribbean as well as senior advisor to the president of the United Nations Foundation. In 2008, he also was the first Biodiversity Chair of the H. John Heinz III Center for Science, Economics and the Environment to 2013. Previously he served as president of the Heinz Center since May 2002. Lovejoy introduced the term biological diversity to the scientific community in 1980. He was a past chair of the Scientific Technical Advisory Panel (STAP) for the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the multibillion-dollar funding mechanism for developing countries in support of their obligations under international environmental conventions.
Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterised by executive dysfunction occasioning symptoms of inattention, hyperactivity, impulsivity and emotional dysregulation that are excessive and pervasive, impairing in multiple contexts, and otherwise age-inappropriate.
Donald Culross Peattie was an American botanist, naturalist and author. He was described by Joseph Wood Krutch as "perhaps the most widely read of all contemporary American nature writers" during his heyday. His brother, Roderick Peattie (1891–1955), was a geographer and a noted author in his own right. Some have said that Peattie's views on race may be considered regressive, but that expressions of these views are "mercifully brief and hardly malicious".
Robert McLellan Bateman is a Canadian naturalist and painter, born in Toronto, Ontario.
Frances P. Mainella was the 16th Director of the National Park Service of the United States and first woman to hold that position. She was appointed by President George W. Bush and confirmed by the U.S. Senate in 2001. She announced her retirement in July 2006 and resigned effective October 15, 2006. Mary A. Bomar, was sworn-in as the 17th Director on October 17, 2006. Mainella was in charge of the NPS when it allowed Redskin's Owner Dan Snyder to illegally remove 130 trees from his property, and while the park ranger who blew the whistle on this activity, Ranger Robert M. Danno, was persecuted at length. She subsequently gave contradictory accounts of this to federal investigators.
Outdoor education is organized learning that takes place in the outdoors, typically during school camping trips. Outdoor education programs sometimes involve residential or journey wilderness-based experiences in which students participate in a variety of adventurous challenges and outdoor activities such as hiking, climbing, canoeing, ropes courses and group games. Outdoor education draws upon the philosophy, theory, and practices of experiential education and environmental education.
Forest school is an outdoor education delivery model in which students visit natural spaces to learn personal, social and technical skills. It has been defined as "an inspirational process that offers children, young people and adults regular opportunities to achieve and develop confidence through hands-on learning in a woodland environment". Forest school is both a pedagogy and a physical entity, with the use often being interchanged. The plural "schools" is often used when referring to a number of groups or sessions.
Russell Alan Barkley is a retired American clinical neuropsychologist who was a clinical professor of psychiatry at the VCU Medical Center until 2022 and an author of books on attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Involved in research since 1973 and a licensed psychologist since 1977, he is an expert on ADHD and has devoted much of his scientific career to studying ADHD and related fields like childhood defiance. He proposed the renaming of sluggish cognitive tempo (SCT) to concentration deficit disorder (CDD) and later cognitive disengagement syndrome (CDS).
Nature-deficit disorder is the idea that human beings, especially children, are spending less time outdoors than they have in the past, and the belief that this change results in a wide range of behavioral problems.
A playscape is either a piece of land modified for children's play, a particular structure on a playground, or a nontraditional type of play environment. Landscape architects and designers are increasingly using the term to express areas of cities that encourage interaction and enjoyment for all ages. The term was probably first used in the mid-twentieth century, possibly first attributable to the National Institute for Architectural Education in 1957, and associated in the 1960s with the New York-based Playground Corporation of America. It is mentioned by Joe Frost in his 1992 book, Play and Playscapes, referring to attempts to replace or add on to the rubberized surface, metal and plastic of traditional playgrounds.
The National Wildlife Federation recommends that parents give their kids a "Green Hour" every day, a time for unstructured play and interaction with the natural world. This is part of NWF's strategy called Reversing Nature Deficit. The Green Hour program teaches that unstructured play can take place in a garden, a backyard, a nearby park, or any place that provides safe and accessible green spaces where children can learn and play.
Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder is a 2005 book by author Richard Louv that documents decreased exposure of children to nature in American society and how this "nature-deficit disorder" harms children and society. The author also suggests solutions to the problems he describes. A revised and expanded edition was published in 2008.
Joseph Biederman was an American academic psychiatrist. He was Chief of the Clinical and Research Programs in Pediatric Psychopharmacology and Adult ADHD at the Massachusetts General Hospital and a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.
The Children & Nature Network was founded in 2006 by a group of educators, writers, and community leaders who share a deep concern about children's disconnection from nature. The Children & Nature Network was created to encourage and support the people and organizations working to reconnect children with nature. The organization provides access to the latest news and research in the field and a peer-to-peer network of researchers and individuals, educators and organizations dedicated to children's health and well-being.
The No Child Left Inside movement in the United States seeks to encourage and provide funding for environmental education. Its stated goals include the enhancement of environmental literacy between kindergarten and 12th grade and fostering of understanding, analysis, and solutions to environmental challenges.
Jennifer Colleen Douglas is an American writer/producer and activist. She has worked in film, video, television, radio, print and Internet projects. She is the writer and co-producer of the 2012 documentary film, Save KLSD: Media Consolidation & Local Radio.
The reasonable person model (RPM) is a psychological framework which argues that people are at their best when their informational needs are met. Positing that unreasonableness is not a human trait, but rather the result of environment, the RPM attempts to define the environments/actions that foster reasonableness, defining three key areas that assist with this: model building, being effective, and meaningful action.
Blanche Evans Dean was an American naturalist, conservationist and schoolteacher.
Bluebonnet Swamp Nature Center is a 103-acre nature conservation park administered by the Recreation and Park Commission for the Parish of East Baton Rouge, and located at 10503 N. Oak Hills Parkway, Baton Rouge, Louisiana 70810. It is open to the public Tuesday - Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sunday from noon to 5 p.m. for a nominal fee. The facility was opened as BREC's first nature conservation based park on 17 May 1997.
Stephen P. Hinshaw is an American psychologist whose contributions lie in the areas of developmental psychopathology and combating the stigma that surrounds mental illness. He has authored more than 325 scientific articles and chapters as well as 14 authored and edited books. Currently, he is Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, and Professor In Residence and Vice Chair for Child and Adolescent Psychology in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco. His work focuses on child and adolescent mental disorders, clinical interventions, mechanisms of change in psychopathology, and stigma prevention efforts, with a specialization in ADHD and other neurodevelopmental disorders.
