Youth Recreation

For kids, wilderness is a natural playground that provides exercise and emotional well-being. Yet, America’s youth are spending less and less time outdoors.

Through our youth recreation program, we’re making sure that America’s kids experience wilderness first-hand.

Why get youth outside?

America’s children are spending less time outside than ever before. We see the consequences in their health, in classrooms and on neglected lands. Youth recreation can help restore our youth and our lands, and make both healthier and more resilient.

Youth organizations on national forests

Many national forests are near urban areas, making them the perfect place to get city kids outdoors. Yet organizations that provide outdoor experiences for youth find that they are often unable to use national forests because of U.S. Forest Service rules.

Youth recreation partnerships

Diverse and non-traditional allies are all coming together to get our kids outside. Whether it is First Lady Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move!” and President Obama’s America’s Great Outdoors initiative or the YMCA and REI, people everywhere are recognizing that we desperately need to reconnect kids with nature.

 

Photo courtesy of Flikr creative commons: Eva Cristescu

  • Tim Woody

    Witness testimony today by Noble’s Offshore Installation Manager Todd Case as he was questioned by the National Transportation Safety Board revealed that the Kulluk drill rig -- which Shell attempted to tow across the Gulf of Alaska with a single tow vessel before it broke loose and ran aground last New Year’s Eve -- should have had multiple tow vessels for safe transport.

    Case was aboard the Kulluk when it went adrift and ran aground on a small island south of Kodiak.

  • Tim Woody

    U.S. Representatives Don Young and Doc Hastings have introduced H.R. 1964 in an effort to scrap the Department of the Interior’s recently finalized, comprehensive plan for the western Arctic’s National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, the nation’s largest tract of public land. The bill is scheduled for a hearing tomorrow on Capitol Hill.

  • jdickson

    Identifying smart steps the Obama Administration, including the Department of the Interior and Bureau of Land Management, can take to continue building a responsible program for renewable energy  are part of a “blueprint for action” released by The Wilderness Society today.