Biophilia: Restoring our Love for Nature

While doing my research I can across a new and interesting term, BIOPHILA!

The term "biophilia" literally means "love of life or living systems


This term was first made mainstream by a man by the name of Edward O Wislon in his book called "Biophilia" Wilson suggests that biophilia describes "the connections that human beings subconsciously seek with the rest of life.”

I found this to have a profound implication for me as both a student and as an educator. I think that if we want to get are students to become involved and enthusiastic about sustainability and environmental education than the first step must be to make sure that are students have a certain appreciation, or what we might call love, for nature.

In David Orr's speech, " The End of Education" he tells of how the average teenager is able to recognize 1000-2000 corporate logos but less than 10 plants or animals native to their region. This statistics demonstrates our societies general disconnect to natural world. In his book “Last Child in the Woods,” Louv call this a “nature-deficit”. Here he attributes the rise of child obesity, attention disorders, and depression to our society’s nature-deficit. In other words, if we want to teach our children the principles of ecology we first need to reconnect them with the natural world and restore our general love for nature.

Many children grow up with a general disconnect and it our responsibility as educators to restore there love of nature through project-based, hands on learning activities that take place in nature. Whether it is through the arts with writing and poetry (see Pamela Michael's essay " Helping Children Fall in Love with the Earth: Environmental Education and the Arts" found in the book "Ecological Literacy") or through science on a nature walk or a trip to the garden, there is always a way to get the students involved.