Excellent article, once you get past the first 4 to 6 paragraphs talking about residential developers: Leave No Child Inside. Once past the introductory paragraphs, the article covers lots of studies on the impact of nature on children’s stress, behavior, and on developing their powers of concentration, imagination and self-confidence.

In my early years, every week, I visited my grandmother’s home, in an outlying fishing village (a kampung). The house had a big yard with chickens, an outhouse (the only bathroom), and access to the beach, and lots of nature. The area was bulldozed by the time I was 7 or so, and I do regret that. Because when I still experienced playing at my grandma’s house, it was to gaze into ponds and at the sea with my cousins, to try to trap crabs and birds (unsuccessfully), to find hidden chicken eggs, and pluck strange leaves and berries as part of pretend kitchen. After my grandmother was forced to move to high-rise apartment housing, I still got to play in some nature, but it was less often, and less free. I don’t envy most children in this age who will find it harder to experience the same playtime in nature that I did growing up. (It’s not impossible, just harder and farther away.)