Nature is everywhere—even in urban areas
This post originally appeared in Dr. Rachel A. Larimore’s weekly Samara newsletter on October 5, 2021. If you’re interested in receiving these emails, scroll to the bottom of this page to subscribe.
I flew on an airplane last week for the first time in 19 months. It was surreal to say the least.
As I sat in the airport, I was thinking about the airport photo I took of a house sparrow which is now standard in my presentations. I usually show this picture when I’m talking about how nature-based education aims to disrupt the human/nature divide and instill that our actions impact the natural world and nature impacts us. In other words, we’re part of the system.
In this same conversation about moving away from a human/nature binary I also encourage educators to re-think what counts as “nature.” Too often we think of nature as being “somewhere else,” but in fact it’s all around us—always. If you’ve seen me present lately you’ve seen images of urban nature and heard me mention how plants and animals manage to thrive even in the most human-impacted urban spaces.
With this in mind, I thought I’d share a few resources about urban nature if you’re curious about re-imagining what counts as nature and where nature is found. Check ‘em out…
→ The Urban Research Center at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County
→ The Natural History Museum in London's Urban Nature Project
→ Urban Coyote Research Project (Check out an interview with the project leader Dr. Stan Gehrt on NPR)
→ Open Access research articles on urban ecology gathered by Nature magazine (I particularly liked the research on roosting preferences of turkey and black vultures.)
→ Another grouping of articles by The Conversation—all focused on urban nature
Keep changing lives,
Rachel
Rachel A. Larimore, Ph.D., Chief Visionary of Samara Learning
About Rachel
Dr. Rachel A. Larimore is an educator, speaker, consultant, author, and former nature-based preschool director. As the founder and Chief Visionary of Samara Early Learning her work focuses on helping early childhood educators start nature-based schools or add nature-based approaches into their existing program. Learn more about Rachel here.
