I recently took a large group of university students in first-year biology for a forest field trip. At the outset, I inquired as to how often they walked along a wooded path.  A few liked to take their dogs on the trails, yet the vast majority (over 90%) had never, in their life, gone into the forest.  I was astonished.

As a child, I made regular sojourns into the neighborhood wilderness.  Whether it be the park or ocean down the road, the local trails by the stream, or simply the small wooded area of our backyard, I lost myself in adventures of the imagination fuelled by being outside.  I found it hard to fathom that these young adults had abandoned the great gift of hiking.  Or perhaps, more precisely, that their upbringing had never exposed them to this experience. … →