Back To Nature

Governor's School 2010 - Bring It!

2010-06-24T13:28:00.002-05:00

Hello scholars of The New Jersey Governor's School on the Environment. Just a quick welcome from an underused Nature Blog I started years ago. I'd like to use this space as a place for you to communicate your work to me this summer. Stay tuned and I look forward to seeing y'all.

2009-07-31T09:48:00.003-05:00

Hello. As I am now able to blog from my mobile device anywhere I go, I am now committed to striving for regular blogging as writing practice. I will begin sharing my blog with you very soon. Notice the heading of the blog up top.

Scholar Followup Assignments 2008

2008-07-21T10:17:00.002-05:00

BaToNa scholars: please take time writing your papers. I provided for you a detailed handout on how to go about writing this final paper. If you are unsure as to the assignment details, please give a call or send an e-mail to my main e-mail address.

Please send me a word document form of your paper to my e-mail. I will deterime what I might like to post here later on. I also encourage each of you to continue posting here on your thoughts now that you've returned home.

Be well and enjoy your summer remaining.

Go Team Todd!

Governor's School 2008 Commences

2008-07-21T10:05:00.001-05:00

This past Saturday, the NJ Governor's School on the Environments commenced its 20th year by saying farewell to 48 amazing scholars. I will be using this blog to communicate with my 12 scholars and others regarding back-to-nature issues and ideas.

Welcome Scholars of the New Jersey Governor's School on the Environment - 2008

2008-07-03T08:33:00.003-05:00

Hey there scholars! You are enrolled in my summer 2008 'Back To Nature' course here at The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey. You will also be accessing and making entries here on this 'Back To Nature' blog-spot throughout the next 2 weeks and hopefully throughout your senior year as well.

Be sure to ask plenty of questions, pay close attention, contribute, and immerse yourselves in these next two weeks as if life depends on it...as that just might be the case.

Naturally Yours,

Todd Klawinski

GSE Instructor

Back To Nature

Summer 2008

What I Want, and What it Might Take to Get There - Entry One

2006-10-02T18:30:00.000-05:00

I remind myself constantly that 'there is nothing wrong here' with the state of the world around me. But rather, plenty of possibilities to explore in powerfully making a difference in how humans relate to nature. Since I was younger I have been bound to nature intrinsically, to varied degrees and through many stages of my own development. I have grown up with the consideration and consultation of nature at the forefront of my own self expression and identity.

In playing the game of life as a full-on participant, out of the stands and onto the field so to speak, here are a few thoughts that arose this past weekend when I had some recent quiet time - in flight from a visit to Illinois. This is a random list of many random lists intended to capture ideas in writing for future reflection and commentary.

I am committed to the following statements occurring as opportunity for others and their lives.
I am committed to the possibility of creating a national presence of a back-to-nature movement through public relations, education, research, and authentic community building.
I am committed to building and/or rebuilding our relatedness to nature. Specifically, I recognize the power of doing so with young children and parents/caregivers.
I am committed to increasing the annual percentage of time that I spend out of doors, and enrolling others in the possibility of decreasing their own time spent indoors.
I am committed to an extraordinary shift of paradigm in our culture's relationship to nature, from nature simply as intrigue, entertainment, and anthropocentrically valuable, to a culture that has nature as vital, necessary and as an empowering way of understanding life on our planet.
I am committed to collecting and analyzing research and other work highlighting quantitative and qualitative data that support such a shift in paradigm.
I am committed to creating and/or strengthening intensive training initiatives for educators and parents/caregivers with an overall vision of empowering and enabling adults in this mission.
I am committed to developing, or contributing to, long term research projects that track children's development and their relationship to nature from early childhood.
I am committed to finding grant monies, and conducting fundraising activities to finance such studies and trainings.
I am committed to incorporate myself with other professionals, parents/caregivers, and students involved in this work.
I am committed to beginning work on, and achieving, higher education degrees in environmental education or a similar discipline in support of this vision.
I am committed to further investigating possibilities for convergence of our 'scientific/technical' and 'spiritual/emotional' relationships to nature.
I am committed to more closely investigating the timeline of our historic relationship to nature.
I am committed to more closely analyzing statistical quantitative and qualitative observations of how our natural lanscape has changed over time.
I am committed to identifying what I am pretending to understand about nature and our/my relationship to it.
I am committed to creating new possibilities in the area of relatedness to nature.
I am committed to creating opportunity for myself and others to engage in public speaking events on these issues at diverse locations and with diverse audiences.
I am committed to gathering my thoughts/notes and writing about these issues in support of a shift in paradigm.
I am committed to breakthroughs in being in integrity.
I am committed to living powerfully, thinking big, and living a life I love.

Students Back To Nature

2006-07-13T00:42:00.000-05:00

Random Thoughts In The Bag...

2006-07-12T20:27:00.000-05:00