Plugged In but Tuned Out:
The Need to Reconnect with Nature

Presented by Dr. Herb Broda, Author &
Professor of Education, Ashland University

Dr. Herb Broda of Ashland University will be giving a presentation, “Plugged in but tuned out: The need to reconnect with nature” at 7pm on September 15th at Michigan Tech (135 Fisher Hall). You can find out more information here: Herb Broda Community Flyer 9-15-11.

In this age of alluring techno‐gadgetry, we need to be very cautious about maintaining a balance between indoor & outdoor activity. Children’s natural curiosity about the outdoors is being eclipsed by the demands of busy schedules and the ever‐present glow of video screens.

• Find out why kids need time outside.
  
• How does inventive play benefit kids socially & academically?
  
• How can we create welcoming places for outdoor play and
  learning at schools and in the community?

Comments from the Presentation (from Michigan Tech Sustainability Blog Archive for September 2011)

Dr. Herb Broda’s talk last night (Plugged In But Tuned Out) did not disappoint. It was entertaining and informative, if by “entertaining” you include the feeling of being absolutely horrified by choice. (That’s why we go to horror movies after all, yes?)

Among the tidbits that made my hair stand on end, I have to say that his slide listing the recent revisions to the Oxford Junior Dictionary really stunned me.

Gone are words like “acorn”, “otter”, and “dandelion”. In fact, of the 150 words dropped from the dictionary, most were affiliated with nature.

Added to the new addition were the words “blog”, “MP3 player”, “BlackBerry” and “broadband”.

I know that languages go extinct (we’re in an era of a massive language extinction wave now), words are lost or change their spelling or come to mean entirely new things, while new ones continue to arise. But typically when entire collections of words linked by a common subject are lost (think of the vocabulary we’ve lost as automobiles replaced horse-drawn carriages), it indicates a profound shift in a society with often unknown consequences. Our language is a living description of who we are and what we value, and I would hate to think that we have collectively decided that acorns are less important than blogs (including this one!).