Cure for ADHD- TREES #3

Richard Louv’s article: Nature-deficit Disorder and the Restorative Environment quite honestly threw me for a loop at first. It first starts talking about lack of recess and PE, and how those programs are being cut, and then it violently shifts to ADHD. At least from there it brought me back to ground when it merged the two. Nature as a treatment for ADHD? Sounds fishy at first, but I had to look at it logically. I never had a problem with paying attention, nor did I have issues with sitting still; my cousins however did. The only real difference between us is that from the time I could walk I was out the door; be it climbing trees, playing in the dirt, or just all around being outside. My cousins, and some kids in my neighborhood for that matter, had really strict overprotective parents, and weren’t allowed to go outside with the rest of us children. These were also the ones who had difficulty in school for one reason or another. So perhaps there is something to this whole nature versus ADHD supposition.

Being a Psychology Major, I would really like to test this with a group of ADHD children; unfortunately I currently haven’t come up with a solution to get past the ethical implications of denying a child access to nature. Though the article itself talks about attempting this theory in a research environment, and though I would like to attempt to measure the benefits of nature on a child, the data probably wouldn’t capture the full benefits of unadulterated nature on a subject.

 [No image credit - Public Domain Tree from Word, so Credit Microsoft I assume.]

Whose life is this anyway? #2

My sense of place? Well sadly I can’t speak much for my sense of place because I am stuck in a rut. I get up, finish any work for class that I haven’t completed yet, and go to class. Get done with class, come home, clean, cook, more work for class, and then sleep all to do it again the next day. It is because of this direct contrast to my former life that I am very glad that I am in this class and civic engagement. Before, in the long-long ago, I was very active in my “community” I helped out charities, I gave blood, heck I even stopped for people who broke down on the side of the road. I was just as nice as I could be.

Where did it all go wrong? That is a question I have asked myself many times. I mean how I could have fallen so far from my path, it is unhealthy that is what it is. Here is what my sense of place should be: I begin each day with a quick bike ride through the neighborhood. If I see trash along that route I pick it up, no need for thanks, just doing my part to make sure things look nice. After my ride, I should get going on any errands or class I may have that day. When I have completed that, I call up either my contact at Harry Chapin and see if they need some sorting, or I head to a park. If they need help I help them, otherwise I’ll just enjoy nature as it should be.

New goal- Get back to where I want/need to be. 

 [Image credit to the Concord Players and their play Whose Life is it Anyway?

Bacteria will inherit the Earth... #1

     You may not be aware of this, but there are more bacteria on the planet than other species. As far as can be figured there are 5 nonillion bacteria on earth, which is 1, followed by 30 zeroes. This odd thought came to me while I was reading Vandana Shiva’s article “What is Biodiversity and Why is it Important?” The article itself was widely informative on the topic of the diversity of our plant and animal life, and the steps mankind has taken to cause their lack of diversity. We grow crops that will survive in order to make a profit; one type of corn doesn’t grow very well, or is prone to disease that would eat into profit margins: don’t grow that corn- grow a safer market proven one. This is also occurring with animal species. There was a time where pork was taken from numerous breeds of pig, but currently we only receive our pork from 4 different breeds (Shiva 49).

     Even though we as a people keep forcing the world to adapt to our view, all is not lost. Jane Goodall in her book “Hope for Animals and Their World” which I had the pleasure to read some excerpts talks about numerous individuals who are making it their goal to turn the devastation around successfully. The most intriguing anecdotes was actually about Goodall herself, in which she helps the Tanzanian people enrich their lives which in turn helps protect the Gombe Chimpanzees.

     So whether you think we as a species have doomed ourselves and our world to extinction, or have merely placed a tiny setback that nature will overcome, ponder on the microscopic. Shiva speaks on a group of scientists from Denmark who scooped up one cubic meter of earth from a forest. Within this sample was found fifty-thousand earthworms, fifty-thousand insects and mites, and twelve million roundworms, yet one gram, one gram (restatement and emphasis mine), yielded billions of individual bacteria of four-thousand unknown species.

 Image credit to: http://hopeful-ink.blogspot.com/2011/01/wonders-of-bacteria-and-viruses-civic.html

Adding first post to check format, and to add a picture of myself. Not the best picture in the world, but I like it. It is from a wedding I attended recently.