Another oldie-but-goodie. NPR did a fantastic series about the evolution and importance of play. The article I’ve linked to here is the first in the series. Eventually I plan to post them all into a right-nav bar for easy access. But start here and then explore for yourself; after all, the first story in the series (featured here) talks about the importance of imagination and self-exploration in play, and finding things out for yourself:
“…For most of human history, what children did when children played was engage in free-wheeling, imaginative play, elaborate narratives of pirates and princesses. Basically, they spent most of their time doing what looked like nothing much at all.
They improvised play, whether it was in the outdoors, the fields and the forests, or whether it was on a street-corner or somebody’s backyard. They improvised their own play. They regulated their play. They made up their own rules.
But Chudacoff argues once TV and toys began to supply children with ever-more-specific scripts and special props for their stories, the size of children’s imaginative space begins to shrink, and that’s not the only way that imagination comes under siege, according to Chudacoff.
In the second half of the 20th century, he says, parents were increasingly concerned about safety, which again affected play.”
The way children develop reasoning about the natural world is largely influenced by how and where they are raised, a new study finds.
For decades, the consensus was that as young children begin reasoning about the biological world, they adopt an “anthropocentric” stance, favoring humans over non-human animals when it comes to learning about properties of animals. But it appears human-centered reasoning among children is not universal after all.
“It’s an onslaught of information coming in today,” says Times technology journalist Matt Richtel. “At one time a screen meant maybe something in your living room. But now it’s something in your pocket so it goes everywhere — it can be behind the wheel, it can be at the dinner table, it can be in the bathroom. We see it everywhere today.”
Richtel has spent the past several months researching the toll technology and “information juggling” are taking on our lives — and our brains. His series “Your Brain On Computers” describes how multitasking on computers and digital gadgets affects the way people process information — and how quickly they can then become distracted.
Who knew technology could be this cute? Actually, lots of people, but I digress…
A team from Ithaca College has developed a way for babies with physical disabilities to get around and learn about their environment. It’s a motorized wheelchair, but instead of using a joystick, which is too complicated for little baby hands, all the baby has to do is rrrreeeaaccchh….. and the chair will move in that direction.
Imagination Playground Park, South Street Seaport area of New York City
Several researchers, psychologists, and journalists are exploring the idea of creativity right now. Two in particular stood out to me recently.
One was author Po Bronson and his article for Newsweek about the Creativity Crisis he and co-author Ashley Merryman believe is taking place in the United States with our current education system:
Like intelligence tests, Torrance’s test—a 90-minute series of discrete tasks, administered by a psychologist—has been taken by millions worldwide in 50 languages. Yet there is one crucial difference between IQ and CQ scores. Enriched environments are making kids smarter. With creativity, a reverse trend has just been identified and is being reported for the first time here: American creativity scores are falling.
Kyung Hee Kim at the College of William & Mary discovered this in May, after analyzing almost 300,000 Torrance scores of children and adults. Kim found creativity scores had been steadily rising, just like IQ scores, until 1990. Since then, creativity scores have consistently inched downward. “It’s very clear, and the decrease is very significant,” Kim says. It is the scores of younger children in America—from kindergarten through sixth grade—for whom the decline is “most serious.”
The potential consequences are sweeping. The necessity of human ingenuity is undisputed. A recent IBM poll of 1,500 CEOs identified creativity as the No. 1 “leadership competency” of the future. Yet it’s not just about sustaining our nation’s economic growth. All around us are matters of national and international importance that are crying out for creative solutions, from saving the Gulf of Mexico to bringing peace to Afghanistan to delivering health care. Such solutions emerge from a healthy marketplace of ideas, sustained by a populace constantly contributing original ideas and receptive to the ideas of others.
In response to Bronson’s article, Darell Hammond, CEO of Kaboom, a non-profit working to get more parks installed around the U.S., agreed, and wrote a commentary supporting Bronson’s article in the Huffington Post, as well as offering solutions on what can be done about this drop in creativity:
With objects as simple as boxes, rubber bands, and Styrofoam peanuts, children can create their own narratives and games; build something and tear it down; or simply play to enjoy shapes and textures.
We need to let our kids spend more time roaming freely in forests, backyards, fields, parks, and beaches — all environments rife with opportunities for creative play. And we need to rethink our playgrounds as places that not only let children run around and let off steam, but that also challenge, stimulate, and inspire their imaginations.
The first Imagination Playground Park, which opens this week at Burling Slip in the South Street Seaport area of New York City, is one such example. The park includes a sandpit, cascading water channel, rope climbing structure, and loose parts — such as burlap bags, buckets, shovels, brooms, carts and fabric. It also includes Imagination Playground blocks — blue blocks made from biodegradable foam that come in a variety of shapes and sizes and provide endless possibilities for creative play.
Just viewing nature can make us feel better. This has been found in several different situations, but perhaps none so profound as with Alzheimer patients. As reported by Claire Moore, ABC News:
Alzheimer’s is the most common form of senile dementia and is characterized by a buildup of plaques deposited in the brain. It affects up to 10 percent of adults over the age of 65 and 50 percent of those over 80.
Nationwide more than 4 million people have the disease. The Chicago-based Alzheimer’s Association that is sponsoring the congress estimates more than 12 million Americans will have Alzheimer’s by 2025 as baby boomers move onto their 70s and 80s.
Elizabeth Brawley has devoted her professional life to “designing for Alzheimer’s” — everything from handrails and chairs to lights and entire rooms that fit the needs of adults with dementia, a fatal condition most commonly caused by Alzheimer’s.
Her most recent project is the American Landscape Society of America Alzheimer’s Garden Project — a series of nine gardens designed to accommodate those with Alzheimer’s. “We know that just getting outside is good for you. For Alzheimer’s patients it can help reduce anxiety, improve sleep patterns and give the caregiver a break,” says Jack Carman, a landscape architect who is Brawley’s partner in the garden project.
Research has shown that sick and elderly people who were able to view trees and sky recovered faster — with fewer painkillers and complaints — than those left staring at brick walls. Numerous studies have also shown reductions in blood pressure, anxiety, pain and other symptoms of stress when patients were offered just a videotape or a photograph of a natural scene.
But so far there is very little research on how sunlight and being in a natural environment affect people with Alzheimer’s in particular. So Brawley, Carman and the Alzheimer’s Association are currently applying for government and private funding to study the five memory gardens they have completed in Oklahoma City, Muskegon, Mich., Hastings, Minn., New York City and Macon, Ga.
The first memory garden opened in July 1999 on a half acre park in Macon, Ga.
“So far, it’s been hugely successful because everyone from the community uses it. It’s not just for people with Alzheimer’s but it does provide them with a sanctuary,” said Mary Gatti, executive director of the Central Georgia chapter.
Although healing gardens are hardly a new idea, said Chapman — they’ve been discussed for the past 40 years by some researchers — the importance of an outdoor environment has been ignored to practitioners and nursing homes for too long.
The National Post also carried a story about the healing of gardening. There has also been research on ADHD kids and nature, as well as general mental wellness. More on this later, but the article also mentioned studies about how just viewing flowers makes us happier:
A behavioural research study conducted a few years ago at Rutgers University found the presence of flowers — at the bedside or outside a window — triggers happy emotions, heightens feelings of life satisfaction and affects social behaviour in positive ways that exceed what was previously believed.
An earlier study, conducted by health care design expert Roger Ulrich, compared the hospital records of patients recovering from gall bladder surgery and found those with a view of trees— rather than a view of a brick wall — spent less time in the hospital and required fewer and less-potent drugs to remain comfortable.
I think it’s wonderful how this is becoming more widespread and more accepted. The University of Washington, Seattle, offers a certificate degree in designing healing gardens.
Mental Flowers 