Sharing The Joy Of Nature

Once you get past the voiceover introduction with its relatively meaningless "new age" ramble, during which you'll be hard put to identify a concrete noun, this interactive video designed to make young children more aware of and sympathetic to the nature which surrounds them, is actually pretty good. Author and naturalist Joseph Cornell has developed an approach called "flow learning," which is actually less spacey than it sounds: basically it involves creating enthusiasm for nature and honing the attention skills. Cornell conducts a group (comprised mainly of younger children, and a few adults) through a series of 8 "games," such as "building a tree," in which participants act out various parts of the tree (the bark, the leaves, the taproot, the branches, etc.) and then get to work being a tree: taking up water (with appropriate slurping noises, of course; making food; protecting the tree; etc.). Other games include animal charades, the camera game (in which one person directs another person to open their eyes at a given moment and "take a picture"), bird calling, and portraying a tree through its seasons. Granted, not all children (and even fewer adults) will readily take to standing in a field with their eyes closed swaying back and forth from an imaginary breeze, I do believe these activities would help young children develop empathy with the environment. Recommended. (Available from: Dawn Publications, 14618, Tyler Foote Road, Nevada City, CA 95959; 1-800-545-7475.)