Why Mother Nature Should Be Teaching Your Child's Health Class
![Why Mother Nature should be teaching your child's health class](https://ecoliteracy.org/sites/default/files/styles/hero_image_small/public/media/why-mother-nature-teaching.jpg?itok=B9-4dy22×tamp=1490386525)
In areas ranging from the design of campus buildings to incorporating outdoor recess to planning school lunch menus, nature teaches practices that promote the health of people.
For example, in schools:
- Natural daylighting improves the health and performance of children and adults in classrooms and offices.
- Children who experience nature during their day — even just a view out a window — experience less anxiety and depression and fewer behavioral conduct disorders.
- Students in Scandinavia's "Outdoors in All Weather" programs have 80 percent fewer infectious diseases than students in conventional programs.
- Children with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder and other problems often improve rapidly when artificial coloring and preservatives are removed from their diets.
- Fresh, seasonal, unprocessed "whole foods for the whole body" are healthier choices for school menus.
The Center for Ecoliteracy's online Rethinking School Lunch guide offers a framework for improving school food while integrating nutrition education and ecological knowledge in the curriculum.
Our book Big Ideas: Connecting Food, Culture, Health and the Environment explores these ideas through concepts drawn from benchmarks for science literacy.