5 ms·

Kids losing touch with natural world -- can't identify common animals...

10 points by gscott 18y ago

mynameishere 18y ago
And a shocking 75 percent misidentified a debtor's prison with an almshouse!
cglee 18y ago
We need some context here - which kids where?
pavelludiq 18y ago
How is a 9 year old supposed to know the difference between a newt and a lizard? A lot of adults probably don't know it too. After googleing it, i found that daddy long-legs is actually 3 different species. if you show me pictures of them i couldn't name them, two looked like spiders, and one was like a mosquito or something. Maybe i was just not in touch with nature when i was a kid.
thomasmallen 18y ago
I couldn't identify many of those, and I'm very knowledgeable about the natural world. There's more to it than long-range identification. I'd tell that it was an Oak by the leaves. Who sees a Daddy-Long-Legs from beneath a glass panel? A normal view from above would make it obvious. And the newt they show is not even mature, it's practically a hatchling!
qqq 18y ago
why would you memorize what you can google on your iphone from anywhere? memorizing rarely-used facts is out of date. besides, kids can now identify more species of lolcat than ever before.
- akd 18y ago
  You can't really google a bird to figure out that it's a magpie (yet), but one does wonder what the point of being able to identify it is. I'd hope that they're learning more concepts in science than rote memorization which is a debunked educational method.
  - barcoder 18y ago
    There is a website that you can post photos of something and ask what it is though.. Sadly I can't remember the address!
Prrometheus 18y ago
Funny, they don't show a time trend. So how are they "losing touch" with the natural world?
dandelany 18y ago
Kids "losing touch" implies a TREND, something which requires multiple surveys over time, which there obviously weren't. The only thing alarming about 54% of British kids knowing what a blue tit is: the fact that _I_ don't know what a blue tit is.
- angstrom 18y ago
  I had the same question at the end. The only trend I could see is my own anecdotal evidence of journalists' tendency to draw conclusions where there is insufficient data to back up their central argument.
ojbyrne 18y ago
It's impressively stupid. BBC personality (who does TV Nature shows) comments on stupid poll published by BBC Wildlife Magazine in order to shame parents into making their kids watch those same TV nature shows, since the vast majority of them probably don't have too much access to nature. It's basically a large and deceiving ad. I wonder if "Sarah Cassidy, Education Correspondent" feels unclean.
fauigerzigerk 18y ago
I guess we're losing touch with nature because 97% of us don't have to touch it any longer to feed ourselves. Good thing if you ask me. I'd rather kids (and adults for that matter) knew a little bit about taxes, law or how to calculate compound interest of their debt. There are things about natural systems that affect us and things that are interesting, but identifying and classifying plants outside of any context is not one of them.
stcredzero 18y ago
Already covered by Monty Python years ago. ...The LARCH... ...The LARCH...

10 points by gscott 18y ago

mynameishere 18y ago

And a shocking 75 percent misidentified a debtor's prison with an almshouse!

cglee 18y ago

We need some context here - which kids where?

pavelludiq 18y ago

How is a 9 year old supposed to know the difference between a newt and a lizard? A lot of adults probably don't know it too. After googleing it, i found that daddy long-legs is actually 3 different species. if you show me pictures of them i couldn't name them, two looked like spiders, and one was like a mosquito or something. Maybe i was just not in touch with nature when i was a kid.

thomasmallen 18y ago

I couldn't identify many of those, and I'm very knowledgeable about the natural world. There's more to it than long-range identification. I'd tell that it was an Oak by the leaves. Who sees a Daddy-Long-Legs from beneath a glass panel? A normal view from above would make it obvious. And the newt they show is not even mature, it's practically a hatchling!

qqq 18y ago

why would you memorize what you can google on your iphone from anywhere? memorizing rarely-used facts is out of date. besides, kids can now identify more species of lolcat than ever before.

akd 18y ago
You can't really google a bird to figure out that it's a magpie (yet), but one does wonder what the point of being able to identify it is. I'd hope that they're learning more concepts in science than rote memorization which is a debunked educational method.
- barcoder 18y ago
  There is a website that you can post photos of something and ask what it is though.. Sadly I can't remember the address!

Prrometheus 18y ago

Funny, they don't show a time trend. So how are they "losing touch" with the natural world?

dandelany 18y ago

Kids "losing touch" implies a TREND, something which requires multiple surveys over time, which there obviously weren't. The only thing alarming about 54% of British kids knowing what a blue tit is: the fact that _I_ don't know what a blue tit is.

angstrom 18y ago
I had the same question at the end. The only trend I could see is my own anecdotal evidence of journalists' tendency to draw conclusions where there is insufficient data to back up their central argument.

ojbyrne 18y ago

It's impressively stupid. BBC personality (who does TV Nature shows) comments on stupid poll published by BBC Wildlife Magazine in order to shame parents into making their kids watch those same TV nature shows, since the vast majority of them probably don't have too much access to nature. It's basically a large and deceiving ad. I wonder if "Sarah Cassidy, Education Correspondent" feels unclean.

fauigerzigerk 18y ago

I guess we're losing touch with nature because 97% of us don't have to touch it any longer to feed ourselves. Good thing if you ask me. I'd rather kids (and adults for that matter) knew a little bit about taxes, law or how to calculate compound interest of their debt. There are things about natural systems that affect us and things that are interesting, but identifying and classifying plants outside of any context is not one of them.

stcredzero 18y ago

Already covered by Monty Python years ago. ...The LARCH... ...The LARCH...