Children explore Pond Brook in Ohio, protected last year by TPL. Photo: Darcy Kiefel
Research shows that outdoor play is not only fun but essential to child growth and development.
By Erica Gies
Twelve-year-old Izzy Miller spends three hours every Saturday volunteering for a native-plant restoration program in San Francisco's Presidio National Park. One of his favorite things about this activity is watching the lizards that inhabit one of the work sites. "It's funny to be planting and see the lizards scuttle around when you pull out a plant they were hiding under," he says.
Lizards and kids used to go together like plants and soil. But these days few children get outdoors as often as Izzy and his sister, seven-year-old Clara Bean, do.
"The noblest task that confronts us all today is to leave this country unspotted in honor, and unexhausted in resources. I conceive this task to partake of the highest spirit of patriotism."--Gifford Pinchot, The World's Work, 1908
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