Research is proving the dangers of limiting kids' time playing in natural environments. Source: Herald Sun May 8 2011, Picture: Getty Supplied

A FEW years ago there was a TV ad which showed city kids screaming in fear when they saw a sheep.

Apparently, that isn't so far-fetched: research claims Aussie kids are losing contact with nature and its health, wellbeing and educational benefits. Report author Dr Karen Martin of the University of WA's Centre for Built Environments says kids' increasing alienation from the great outdoors is a growing trend that needs to be reversed.....

"Environments containing natural elements - such as trees, rocks, water - provide people with unique and unrivalled mentally-restorative settings," Martin says in her report Putting Nature Back into Nurture.

"It's evident from international research that nature contact is associated with positive physical and mental health for adults.

What's so great about the great outdoors?

Much research concludes that humans are dependent on nature not only for material needs such as food, water and shelter, but, perhaps more importantly, for psychological, emotional and spiritual needs.

A 2008 report for the Victorian Government called Healthy Parks, Healthy People claims that: "Humans have forgotten how much the natural world means to them. It has been reported that modern people are experiencing a spiritual famine and that alcohol, food, and drug addictions are futile attempts to fill the spiritual emptiness that has arisen from loss of contact with nature."

Specifically, Dr Martin says the evidence to date suggests:
+ A decreased risk of children being overweight when nature is present in their neighbourhood.
+ Playing in natural environments helps build children's motor skills.
+ Nature enhances children's learning and development.
+ Nature exposure is beneficial to children's mental health.
+ Children manage stress better with more contact with nature.
+ Time in nature assists children with ADHD performance levels.

What's keeping our children inside?

Dr Martin believes many kids now find adventure and excitement through sedentary indoor activities such as watching TV or playing video games.

"Parental fears of their kids being injured or abducted means that children have less access to free and unstructured play outside. When they go to the park it's to play on one of those 'plastic fantastic' playgrounds that provide little thrill to any child aged over five."

For a separate study, she helped interview kids on what they wanted from outdoor play spaces: "Overwhelmingly, they wanted trees, water and rocks."

More and more city schools and childcare centres recognise the benefits of exposing kids to nature. Forest Childcare Centre in Sydney has a vegetable patch, fruit trees and a chicken coop.

"Most families today reside in cities with unnatural and overwhelming surroundings," centre director Kay Doyle says.

"Numerous studies have shown that nature provides a rich basis for hands-on and multi-sensory stimuli that are important for cognitive development in early childhood. Our aim here is to reconnect our children with nature and help them grow up caring for our environment."