How to Raise a Wild Child | Scott Sampson | TEDxLangleyED

Over the past generation, we have witnessed a massive indoor migration. The average North American child now spends seven to ten hours a day gazing at screens and closer to seven minutes playing outdoors. This new reality has been labeled “the extinction of experience.” Abundant research demonstrates that indoor, sedentary lifestyles threaten the health of children and youth, with runaway rates of conditions like obesity, attention deficit disorder, and Type II diabetes. In contrast, unstructured outdoor play turns out to be critical for children’s physical, mental, and emotional health. Also threatened time are the places we live, with sustainability depending upon people understanding and caring about nearby nature. In this presentation, Scott Sampson offers three simple tools that any caregiver can use, starting today, for free, to connect the children in their lives with nature and reawaken a deep sense of amazement. It’s time to balance screen-time with green-time! Scott Sampson serves as President and CEO of Science World British Columbia in Vancouver, where much of his work focuses on rethinking and catalyzing the kind of education we need for the 21st Century. He is a dinosaur paleontologist and science communicator who has appeared in many television documentaries and served as science advisor for a variety of media projects. He has published numerous scientific and popular articles and authored multiple books, including "How to Raise a Wild Child: The Art and Science of Falling in Love with Nature" (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2015). Scott regularly gives presentations to audiences of all ages, on topics ranging from evolution and science to education and nature connection. He is perhaps best known as “Dr. Scott the Paleontologist,” host and science advisor of the Emmy-nominated PBS KIDS television series "Dinosaur Train," produced by the Jim Henson Company. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx