Accelerating the Nature Deficit or Enhancing the Nature-Based Human Health during the Pandemic Era: An International Study in Cambodia, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, and Myanmar, following the Start of the COVID-19 Pandemic

In modern society, the opportunity to experience nature is separate from everyday life, requiring time and effort. Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, restrictions on freedom of activity and communication around the world have become a crisis, causing a nature deficit by accelerating the process of separation from nature. At the same time, the pandemic has increased people’s motivation to return to nature, providing an opportunity to seek experiences and health recovery in nature. The authors conducted an international cross-sectional study in five Asian countries, investigating changes in the perception of recreational activities and health restoration in the natural environment, one of the many effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on human society. An online survey, completed by 524 respondents, has confirmed the efficacy of the SEM model, which includes COVID-19 stress, increased indoor activity, a preference for the natural environment, and the perception of health recovery. Although the five countries had different response values for each theme, the stress caused by restricted activities and communication during the pandemic was linked to a preference for natural experiences and the motivation to visit natural environments in all five countries, ultimately affecting perceptions of health recovery in nature. This study has shown that the COVID-19 pandemic, a disaster afflicting all human civilization, has changed people’s perceptions by enhancing their preference for natural recreational activities and health. It has accelerated people’s return to nature and fostered a positive perception of nature’s ability to promote good health.

Addressing Nature-Deficit Disorder Using A Multi-program Area, Multi-State Approach

Youth are spending less time outdoors compared to previous generations. Because youth spend much of their time in school, teachers can provide the critical linkages that introduce students to nature. Unfortunately, teachers often lack access to standards-based STEAM curricula focused on natural resources, do not feel comfortable taking their students outside, and may not be knowledgeable about how to incorporate nature into the classroom. Addressing the nature deficit disorder facing today’s youth and the lack of professional development for teachers requires involvement from Extension (agriculture and natural resources specialists, health and human science educators) and natural resources professionals.

Epilogue

The epilogue briefly surveys the twenty-first-century landscape of camping—a dizzying continuum from glamping and adventure styles to new streams of mobile laborers, from campground hosts to Amazon’s Camperforce. Meanwhile, advocates of recreational camping—and the outdoor recreational industry—have begun to trade in narratives of biological need and social prescription, of a nature-deficit disorder and a nature cure. Time spent recreating in nature is now promoted as a universal human need, to keep our bodies and minds in balance. Recreational camping came to promise, in the neoliberal framing, a good return on private investment in terms of family health and personal well-being, more so than democratic access to public nature. The parallel rise of this justification for leisure camping and the intensifying homeless crisis—both thrown into sharp relief by the COVID-19 pandemic—strongly suggests that the social contract may again be in transition.

Music Education for Surviving and Thriving: Cultivating Children’s Wonder, Senses, Emotional Wellbeing, and Wild Nature as a Means to Discover and Fulfill Their Life’s Purpose

Children who are supported throughout childhood and adolescence to both maintain their sense of wonder in nature, and honor and explore their wild human nature, are well positioned to mature into soulcentric adults capable of living into their purpose in service to both their culture and the whole of life. However, our society’s ecocidal culture and unjust institutions often replicate oppressions and promote egocentric behaviors that preclude thriving. Additionally, many children are alienated from nature and are thought to have nature-deficit disorder, which can include both mental and physical maladies. In this article I explore conceptions of ecojustice education to further illustrate pathways for curriculum development in music education that might encourage children and adolescents to maintain their sense of wonder in nature, fully develop their sensory capacities, support their mental and emotional wellbeing, attune more carefully to their wild nature and soul’s purpose, and contribute to the environmental and social commons—all which might support human flourishing and the continued survival of our species.

The peculiarities of emotional impact and therapeutic properties of wooden sculptures

This article explores the ability of wooden sculptures and objects to influence psychoemotional state of a person. It is noted that the expanding gap between man and nature due to the rapid development of large cities along with the natural factor receding into the background, generate the fundamentally new problematic and applied field that requires the creation of operational mechanisms to release the growing tension in the context of alienation from nature. It is stated that one of the recent achievements of the European scientific community consists in classification of this problematic as the nature deficit disorder, as well as in first steps towards resolving this issue in form of natural therapies – specific ways of human interaction with nature. The author traces and analyzes the possibility of using wooden sculpture as one of the instruments for stabilization pf psychoemotional and physical state of a person via interaction with natural material. Thus, the development of wooden sculptures and their inclusion into training, educational and rehabilitation programs indicates the properties of wooden sculpture as an affordable and effective therapeutic instrument.

Human-Animal Relationships in Literacy Education

This paper presents a case for the inclusion of human-animal relationships as a focus for literacy education. It outlines the ways in which language is implicated in human alienation from nature in a modern technology-focused life, and discusses the effects of nature-deficit disorder on human well-being. It calls for an ‘entangled pedagogy’ that attends to stories of local wildlife, and points to the importance of such a pedagogy for particular groups of literacy learners, including international students, new migrants and recent refugees, who may be unfamiliar with the flora and fauna of their new environment. As an example of entangled pedagogy the paper presents ideas for literacy lessons based on the iconic Australian magpie whose relationship with humans is, at times, problematic.

Human-Nature Connection And Mental Health: What Do We Know So Far?

The rapid deterioration of both the natural environment and mental health calls attention to investigate the link between their parallel decline. Anticipating the need for an analysis of the same, the present paper attempts to summarise the literature covering human-nature connection and its implications for mental health in terms of research, therapy and intervention. The papers reviewed are organised under three sections. The first section delineates the effects of nature exposure on health and conceptualises the various nature-based therapies and techniques in literature. The second section includes the literature on Nature Deficit Disorder- a term, given by Richard Louv, referring to the collective consequences of disconnect with nature among today’s children. Finally, the third section includes evidences that support rebuilding the connection through outdoor education and the importance of turning to indigenous ways of teaching for a better impact.

The child-nature-time relationship-New challenges for special education in the 21st century – study report

Joanna Godawa, The child-nature-time relationship-New challenges for special education in the 21st century – study report. Interdisciplinary Contexts of Special Pedagogy, no. 27, Poznań 2019. Pp. 83–98. Adam Mickiewicz University Press. ISSN 2300-391X. e-ISSN 2658-283X. DOI: https://doi.org/10.14746/ikps.2019.27.04 The objective of the article is to show an individual’s relationship with nature in the context of the nature deficit disorder. In light of the limited volume of Polish studies concerning children and nature, the author had conducted a study concerning the relationship between children with special education needs and nature. The research shown in this article is part of a broader study conducted by the author of the article and concerning the nature deficit disorder.