Wanted: 'A sense of wonder'

RELEASE: March 7, 2008 – Volume XL, No. 10

What if you woke up one spring morning to silence? No bird songs, calls or trills. That’s what happened 50 years ago all over rural and suburban communities in America, when the overuse of highly toxic pesticides killed millions of birds.

Rachel Carson, biologist and author, brought the public’s attention to this ecological disaster with her world-changing 1962 book, Silent Spring, which she wrote out of her fierce love of nature. DDT and similar pesticides were subsequently banned in the United States. Today, our bird populations have largely recovered.

Carson also spoke of nurturing “a sense of wonder” about the outdoors in children as “an unfailing antidote against the boredom and disenchantments of later years, the sterile preoccupation with things that are artificial, the alienation from the sources of our strength.”

Those of us who grew up in the era without personal computers, gaming consoles and the internet – a time when kids were routinely sent outdoors to play after school, with orders not to return until suppertime – would agreed with Carson about the importance of a sense of wonder.

Childhood pastimes for baby boomers and earlier generations might have included collecting bugs and salamanders in the woods, climbing trees to peer into a bird’s nest with tiny chicks, picking berries in the summer, gazing at the sky to discern shapes in the clouds, catching fireflies in a jar, finding crabs under rocks along the shore, and comparing snowflakes to see if it’s true that no two are alike.

If she were alive today, what would Rachel Carson think of the modern generation that spends more time indoors, mesmerized by TV and computer screens, than outside exploring the natural world? I’m afraid she’d be very dismayed, indeed.

She’s not the only one. Richard Louv, author of the 2005 book, “Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder,” laments, “I do think it’s a little tough to have a sense of wonder while you’re playing Grand Theft Auto.”

What’s ironic is that today’s kids can be very well informed about exotic forms of wildlife – penguins in Antarctica, crocodiles in Australia, elephants in Africa – thanks to popular TV shows and movies. But few have hands-on knowledge of the nature under their noses.

Louv’s prescription, in a nutshell, is to get children outdoors. I have a feeling Rachel Carson would not only agree with this remedy, but redouble her efforts to entice youngsters to fall in love with nature. Children who have lost touch with the natural world, she instructed, “need the companionship of at least one adult who can help them keep alive their inborn sense of wonder.”

Honoring the life and work of Carson, New Jersey Conservation Foundation is teaming up with seven other New Jersey non-profits this spring to help rekindle a love of the natural world in children of all ages. We’re calling our initiative, “Greening: Natural Connections/Growing Community.”

On March 20, 27 and 28, the Greening coalition will sponsor three productions of “A Sense of Wonder,” a one-woman play about Rachel Carson and her heroic battle to warn the world of the dangers of pesticide overuse. The play will be performed in Trenton at the Mill Hill Playhouse, home of the Passage Theatre Company, a Greening coalition partner.

We’re also planning a series of more than a dozen events and activities in the central New Jersey area – nature walks, canoe excursions, birding lessons, potato planting on an organic farm, and all kinds of other outdoor learning opportunities.

I hope you and your favorite youngsters will join us. To find out more, go to www.njconservation.org and click on the “Greening” icon under Upcoming Events or contact me at info@njconservation.org.

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