Children in nature: exploring the relationship between childhood outdoor experience and environmental stewardship

This study examines the relationships between childhood participation in appreciative, consumptive, and abusive types of outdoor activities and the connection to nature, environmental attitudes, and four types of pro-environmental behaviors in high school students. A questionnaire was given to 140 racially mixed, suburban, largely college-bound Texas high school students. The major results indicate a positive correlation between appreciative types of childhood outdoor activities and both connection to nature and environmental citizenship behaviors. Appreciative outdoor activities in childhood were found to predict 10.7% of the variance in connectedness to nature and 12.3% of the variance in adolescent citizenship behaviors. Connectedness to nature was found to predict 8.9% of adolescent citizenship behaviors and was also responsible for 3.8% of the variation in the conservation behaviors of the participants. Results also indicated that those individuals who participated in more consumptive outdoor activities in childhood were slightly less likely to maintain a pro-environmental attitude.