A few weeks ago, the fourth grade spent time at Carkeek Park in NW Seattle during their Local History and Geography Block. I witnessed how powerfully they were moved by the simplest of things (watching ducks slide downstream, discovering with delight a rogue mushroom on a mossy fence post) and I was reminded how important it is for children of all ages to be in nature.

I think it is our responsibility in our time, in our cultural context, to raise children who behave in environmentally responsible ways. And while it is our tendency to want the children to learn facts about the natural world and for us to want to explain the environmental impacts, what may be even more important at this stage of their development is the lived experience of simply being in nature. Such experience becomes the foundation for not only knowing about nature but the source for feeling compelled to protect her for ourselves and for future generations.

David Sobel’s short article “Everyone Ought to Have a Ditch” reminds us that such time in nature doesn’t have to be in pristine national parks or on extensively planned backcountry trips—it could be right under a bush just in the front yard or behind a fallen log on the way to a nearby park. I wonder if you had a “ditch” when you were a child and what that was like? I wonder what the children of this fourth grade will remember about their childhood and whether they will be able to recall their own “ditch” and their time spent in nature? Most likely those are the experiences that will last them a lifetime.

– Daichi Hirata, Interim Grade 4 Teacher