本季度自然之道翻译的中文版家庭自然俱乐部活动指南，即将亮相。但是本次活动指南亮相的意义，远大于翻译一份非常实用的文件。如我们所见，我们以这样的方式，分享激励我们、促使我们成长的本质力量。因此，我们希望这些种子能在您和您的家人中，更广泛地散播！

自然之道仅仅是在几年前成立的机构，当时我的孩子们还蹒跚学步。和其他家长一样，我们一直在为孩子寻找最好的成长和学习环境。有一次，我和老朋友电话交流的时候，我描述了一下在城市环境里养育孩子所面对的困难。当今中国到处都是建筑工地。我们没有家庭后院或者玩耍的操场。一出家门我就必需紧紧盯住我的孩子，让他们注意路上飞驰的汽车、路上的坑洞，还有满地散落的建筑垃圾。在自己居住的小区草地上散步、坐着，爬爬树或者往池塘里扔石头都是不允许的。而这些简单的活动，却让我的童年充满无限的乐趣。让人难过的是，我的孩子却连感受这般简单乐趣的机会都没有。

于是我的朋友推荐Richard Louv写的《森林里的最后一个孩子》这本书给我看。书中描述了全世界的这一代人所面临的生存现状，通过精心地研究得出的结果表明，与自然相处的机会越多、时间越长，对人的身体和精神都有相当大的益处。最重要的是，这本书启发我与其他孩子的父母一起，去寻找身边的自然环境。这样的活动既简单又有趣。 “儿童与自然网络” 的网站建立了并提供开展活动的具体工具和指导。


自然之道的前身就是家庭自然俱乐部，而后注册成立为正式的机构。通过阅读由“儿童与自然网络”提供的家庭自然活动指南的简要内容，并使用提供的活动设计模板和准备清单，我简单地打电话约了几户家庭，到附近的公园野餐和放风筝，就能完成一次美好的家庭自然活动。我们家很快地就找到了身边的自然活动区域，比如城市周边的公园、传统的中式花园和屋顶的花园，更不用说距离市区有段距离的果园、稻田了。


后来我们召集其他家庭加入我们的家庭自然活动，看着孩子们自由地奔跑欢笑是件美好的事情。无论季节、天气如何，每次户外自然活动对于各个年龄的参与者都非常令人愉悦。我们力求为孩子的自然成长寻找健康的环境，但是作为父母的我们、爷爷奶奶们，也在自然中找到了缓解城市生活压力的方法，同时也与其他家庭建立了友谊。

我鼓励你们和你的家人、朋友去寻找自然的乐趣。自然之道已经将家庭自然活动指南翻译成中文，它会帮助你建立信心：你也可以组织其他朋友和你一起去享受自然的乐趣。不要再等着花钱参加组织好的旅行和昂贵专家。你只要穿上舒适的鞋子，带上充满好奇心的孩子就可以。除了偶尔需要支付门票费，你的全部活动都是免费的，但你能获得非常非常丰富的回报。

This Season NatureWize will debut the Chinese translation of the Nature Clubs for Families Toolkit. But this is more than a debut of a new translation of a certainly useful document. We see it as a way of sharing the very essence of what inspired us and made us grow. And we hope those seeds will keep multiplying with your families!

 NatureWize began only a few years ago when my own children were toddlers. As any parent can relate to, we seek the very best for our children, which includes the environment they grow and learn in.  In a phone call to an old friend I described the challenges of raising my active boys in an urban environment, and that in China, where construction sites are endless. Without backyards and playgrounds, I had to carefully steer my boys out of the way of cars, potholes, or construction debris. Stepping or sitting on grass, climbing trees, or throwing rocks into the ponds was off limits in the community.  I felt sad for my boys as these little things brought me such simple joy when I was a child.

My friend recommended I read Richard Louv’s Last Child in the Woods, which described this worldwide phenomenon for this generation, as well as the well-researched academic, physical and mental wellness benefits of time and play in nature. Most importantly, the book inspired me to seek out the nature spaces around us with other parents. That seemed easy enough, as well as fun. And the website created to support such families, the Children and Nature Network, provided all the tools to do so.

Thus began our first Family Nature Club, pre-NatureWize, which we registered later. Using the simple references, templates and checklists provided in the Children and Nature Network’s Nature Clubs for Families Toolkit, I simply called up a few other families for a picnic and kite-flying in a local park. Our family soon found natural areas were actually all around us, in other public parks on the edges of the city, in classic Chinese potted and rooftop gardens, not to mention orchards and the terraced rice paddies a little further out of the City.

We then started to regularly call other families to join us, and watched our children run and laugh in freedom. Every nature outing has been a joyful one, for all ages, during all seasons and weather. We sought a healthy environment for our children to develop naturally in, but we, the parents and grandparents, also found we were healed of urban stresses and found friendship with other families.

I urge you to seek out nature with your own families and friends. NatureWize has translated the Nature Clubs for Families toolkit into Chinese to help give our Chinese families confidence that you can also gather other friends to go along with you. Don’t wait for costly experts and organized tours. All you need are good shoes; your kids will bring along the curiosity. And, besides occasional entrance fees, your activity can be free of costs and very, very rich in rewards.

Summer blends into Autumn

A new season is upon us. As summer blends into Autumn, and green blends into bolder, more beautiful colors, NatureWize is also redefining our own place in this cyclical journey. Our vision to connect more families to the wellness benefits of nature is sharper than ever. Throughout the summer families and youth returned to the forests, and the rivers, the orchards and farmlands, and went home laughing, toned, and enlivened [See our Summer Camp Photos here, and Family Explorer Photos here]. In our last event, we watched the children running about collecting the seed burrs on their socks, and picking up the fat, ripened seeds of the trees and grasses. What a wonderful lesson to see how the earth so cleverly spreads the pods of latent life! We at NatureWize would like to follow this natural strategy, to spread more seeds of joy and good health! So, if in this season you see a few changes (see our strategies below), we hope it provides a new freshness as a brisk walk in the forest in Autumn.

Strategy 1: Spread the Seeds of Joy and Good Health

How do we best spread the seeds of joy and good health? We at NatureWize have been running nature activities for families for three years now, reaching almost 100 different families to live more active, healthy lifestyles, while appreciating and protecting nature at the same time. We see the interest is growing, and what a wonderful thing! Imagine a world with more happier, healthier people interacting with more and more beautiful nature! However, NatureWize’s capacity (currently just two staff and a small Advisory Board) to reach more families is limited. So instead, we are going to start relying on you to spread those seeds.

Coming soon, we will have just what we need, too: Chinese Nature Clubs for Families Toolkit. This summer we worked to translate this document from the esteemed worldwide Children and Nature Network. We also developed additional resources to make this document a little more with “Chinese characteristics”, with photos and testimonials from none less than the NatureWize families as well as literature and other Chinese information resources and networking sites. With this toolkit, families and groups will no longer have to wait for the next NatureWize event as they can freely create their own activities whenever and wherever they want. We hope the tools provided will make it easier and give more confidence to families to share the joy and happiness they have experienced in nature. Watch for our announcement when the toolkit has been published!

Strategy 2: Bring Nature Back to the City  and Closer to Home

Who says we have to drive anywhere to commune with nature? What are we doing to make our homes and neighborhoods more natural, more clean? It is sad we feel we have to drive away to get clean air, to get away from our own refuse. Why couldn’t we use some of that refuse to make compost for our plants that provide natural beauty, healthy food and clean air? Let us use less of things we do not need. Let us make more of the things we do need. A simple pot of herbs or vegetables placed in public can completely change an urban community’s landscape, and perspective.

This summer, NatureWize also launched a new project, Urban Farmer. Perhaps a better name would be “aspiring” urban “gardeners”, as we are indeed amateurs at planting vegetables, and our “farm” is really a bunch of pots clustered in our community’s courtyard garden. Learning how to plant organic vegetables in a city environment is the first component of the project. The second component is learning how to manage our home waste through a combination of composting (to be used later in the garden) and recycling, as well as simply making our own common household products like soap and paper out of natural materials. Essentially, this project re-sensitizes us to the daily products we use and discard every day, and the impact of this on our health and communities. Growing a garden brings beauty to our homes, and reconnects us to our most basic need for nutrition. Composting illuminates a new kind of wealth—of turning those wasted food scraps back into the nutrition for the plants that later feed us. We are in the City, but nature is still intimately a part of our lives! Sunny describes this in detail in her blog [link], so be sure to read more!

So, in this new season, we at NatureWize will begin to focus more on these strategies. We sincerely hope it revolutionizes how we spread those seeds of joy and happiness as we all share more of our nature outings with other friends and families, and bring nature back into our homes and neighborhoods.

Please stay tuned for updates about Urban Farmer workshops and related community markets {link to UF pages}, as well as the publication of the Nature Club for Families Toolkit - Chinese! We have an exciting season ahead.