This document lists and describes 11 examples of connecting people with nature. It ranks the examples from those that reach the largest quantity of people to those that provide the deepest quality of connection. The examples include inner-city parks, trail networks, indoor plants and greenery, farmers' markets, national parks, outdoor schools, summer camps, birdwatching groups, backyard gardens, NOLS expeditions, and The Mountain School of Milton Academy semester program. The criteria for a high-quality, high-quantity example is one that offers people the maximum connection to nature or reaches the greatest number of individuals.

1. 10 Best Examples of
Connecting People with
Nature
Colleen Wearn
EDUC 302

2. ● Quality of the experience
-Depth of connection
-Provides perspective and meaning
-Improves mindset, attitude, approach to life
● Quantity of people reached
-Overall number
-Reaches people at a critical point in life, or who
wouldn’t access nature otherwise
● Overall metric: being on quality-quantity
efficient frontier (to borrow from economics)
-Offers maximum quality or quantity or excellent combo
Quality
Quantity
Criteria

3. 1 (ordered roughly from high quantity to high quality)
Inner-City
Parks
e.g. Central Park, NYC

4. 2
Trail
networks
for hiking, walking,
biking, etc.

5. 3
Indoor
plants and
greenery

6. 4
Farmer’s
Markets

7. 5
National
Parks

8. 6
Outdoor
Schools
Education programs that give
children the chance to study
our environment and learn in
the outdoors
My favorite example:
http://w3.mesd.k12.or.us/os/Outdoo
rSchool/Welcome.html

9. 7
Summer Camps

10. 8
Birdwatching
groups
and other avenues to connecting
with animals

11. 9
Backyard
gardens

12. 10
NOLS
(National Outdoor
Leadership School)
Month-long wilderness expeditions
for students of all ages
http://www.nols.edu/
(Outward Bound is another similar
example)

13. 11 (because I counted wrong initially :)
The Mountain School of Milton Academy
Semester program that provides high school students the opportunity to live
and work on an organic farm in Vermont https://www.mountainschool.org/