Nature deficits

I'm still very much enjoying the Louv book. In fact, in one of those perfect combinations of events, I sat on the back deck for a few minutes tonight reading while two or three of my kids happily played in the planters. I would've preferred it if they'd gone into the sandbox, but they've been pretty revved up about putting some seeds in the ground on the weekend, so I just let them go to it. And then, to make things even better, my 9 year old turned up with a sowbug in a jar and lots of questions (and some great answers -- I really think she gets about a year smarter when she's outside in nature). We came up with a project for the summer -- we're going to take my digital camera out on the road to collect pictures of flowers and bugs. I explained to her that the book I was reading made the argument that parents should be teaching their kids about nature and that I couldn't teach her because I didn't know enough, so she'd have to help me to learn. She was completely and utterly onside with this. I'll use a different approach with my 11 year old. Geocaching ought to do it, especially when my spiffy new GPS unit arrives in the mail. I think it's a perfect example of how to use the technology that is so magnetic for kids to pull them out the door and into the wild. We'll see.