How does engaging with nature impact on the health and wellbeing of children from disadvantaged communities?

在人类进化的大部分时间里，人类生活在与自然密切相关的地方，大规模城市化的开始在进化规模上相对较晚。出于这个原因，生物亲和性假说(威尔逊，1984)提出，当人类暴露在自然--他们的自然栖息地--时，感觉最好。为了支持这一假设，例如可以证明，在大自然中，甚至只是在房间里添加植物，可以降低言语焦虑(Buttelmann&Römpke，2014)，并且从很小的时候起，儿童就更喜欢与活的动物互动，而不是玩具(LoBue等人，2013年)。然而，与自然的直接接触一直在稳步减少，特别是来自弱势社区的儿童，他们往往没有办法进入更多的自然环境。因此，野生家禽和湿地信托基金设计了一项野生世代计划，将弱势社区的儿童与自然联系起来。该博士项目的目的是评估这一方案，并调查儿童如何从中受益。这项评价将采用混合方法，包括定性和定量措施，包括各种不同的方法，如参与性方法、行为研究和观察。降焦虑效果：狗、鱼和植物直接比较。S，27(2)，267-277。LoBue，V.，Bloom Pickard，M.，Sherman，K.，Axford，C.，&DeLoache，J.S.(2013年)。幼儿对活体动物的兴趣。《英国发展心理学杂志》，31(1)，57-69。威尔逊，E.O.(1984)。生物亲和性：人类与其他物种的联系。马萨诸塞州剑桥：哈佛大学出版社。

For most of human evolution, humans lived in close proximity with nature and the start of mass urbanisation happened relatively recent on an evolutionary scale. For this reason, the biophilia hypothesis (Wilson, 1984) proposes that humans feel best when they are exposed to nature - their natural habitat. To support this hypothesis, it could for example be shown that being in nature or even just adding plants to rooms, decreases speech anxiety (Buttelmann & Römpke, 2014) and that from a young age, children prefer to interact with live animals as opposed to toys (LoBue et al., 2013). However, direct contact to nature has been steadily decreasing, particular in children from disadvantaged communities, who often don't have the means to access more natural environments.For this reason, the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust has designed the Generation Wild programme to connect children from disadvantaged communities to nature. The purpose of this PhD project is to evaluate this programme and investigate how the children benefit from it. A mixed-method approach will be employed for this evaluation covering both qualitative and quantitative measures consisting of a variety of different approaches, such as participatory methods, behavioural studies and observation.ReferencesButtelmann, D., & Römpke, A. K. (2014). Anxiety-reducing effect: Dog, fish and plant in direct comparison. Anthrozoös, 27(2), 267-277.LoBue, V., Bloom Pickard, M., Sherman, K., Axford, C., & DeLoache, J. S. (2013). Young children's interest in live animals. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 31(1), 57-69.Wilson, E. O. (1984). Biophilia: The human bond with other species. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.