Last child in the Woods: Saving our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder

   Richard Louv states, "The findings are stunning: environment based education produces student gains in social studies, science, language arts, and math; improves standardized test scores…" I agree completely with Louv that environment based teaching probably does help with a plethora of subjects and overall performance.  I feel as though Louv is over simplifying the situation by giving all the credit to environmental based learning.  Gardner's theory of multiple intelligence states that there are 8 multiple intelligences that students use to learn.  Most people favor only a few of these intelligences which is a really big complication for teachers because it means every student will learn differently.  As a future science teacher it has become apparent to me that my biggest challenge might not be my understanding of many areas of science, but instead how to relay the information I know effectively to my students.  In a typical classroom teachers focus on Mathematical logical and linguistic styles of learning because they are simple to teach; in other words only some students are learning to their max potential.  In an environment based learning system more of the 8 multiple intelligence's are easily accessible just because of the classroom set up.  In an outdoor setting students tend to be more hands on, which is very important for making meaningful connections between their lives and the subject material.  As a physics tutor my students always learn better if they can relate what we are learning to their every day lives.  The more freedom teachers have in the methods they can use to teach students the more likely it will be for students to make meaningful relationships with the information being taught.  The environment based learning lends itself to making connections to the world around us which in turn improves our memory of a subject.  Overall I agree with Louv about the exceptionality and benefits of environment based learning, but  I  do think Louv over simplifies why the benefits of environment based learning exist.​