An invitation to take C&NN's Vitamin N Challenge
Share with others how you connect your family and community to nature. Pick one or more of 500 actions from Vitamin N: The Essential Guide to a Nature-Rich Life, try them out for a day, a week or a month — and tell your friends and the world about your experience. Please use hashtag #VitaminN — or send an email to vitaminN@chiildrenandnature.org.
Today, parents, grandparents, pediatricians, teachers and others are looking for ways to connect children to the natural world. This summer, to bring together that motivation with ideas from the community, the Children & Nature Network (C&NN) is launching the #VitaminN Challenge. The challenge is an opportunity to get more nature into our lives and to share ideas. C&NN co-founder Richard Louv’s new book, Vitamin N, presents over 500 nature-oriented actions for families, organizations and communities. In addition, C&NN’s online resources and a list of similar books, blogs and nature-focused websites offer a wide range of ideas that will help you take the Vitamin N Challenge. But, most importantly, C&NN is looking to YOU for ideas for getting more #VitaminN! Here’s how to participate:
1. Choose Your Challenge
Vitamin N Challenges come in many shapes and sizes. Yours may be a single project or experience. It may be a lifestyle change over the course of a week, month, or year. To choose your challenge, think about where there is room for more Vitamin N in your life. How can it serve your family, school, place of worship, library, health care facility or community? Maybe your challenge means designating one day each week “family hike day” or a “Muddy Monday.” Or starting a family nature club. Or exploring the nearby nature in your urban neighborhood. Or creating a school garden. Or perhaps you’d like to lead your community in a habitat restoration project. Or any of the other 500 suggestions in Vitamin N.
2. Share Your Experience
Tell the Children & Nature Network about your personal Vitamin N Challenge. How did you get your dose of Vitamin N? What worked and what didn’t? Let C&NN know how your life and the lives of others were changed.
- SHARE your tips, photos and videos on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram. Make sure you use the hashtag #VitaminN. Check out recent #VitaminN posts on social media.
- WRITE a blog post for C&NN. Tell others about the impact your dose of Vitamin N has had on your family or community. Send your 800-word essay, with a photo of yourself and three-line bio, to vitaminN@childrenandnature.org.
- EMAIL C&NN with your idea, photo, tip. Send your message to vitaminN@childrenandnature.org.
- COMMENT below.
Need ideas? Check out the gallery of #Vitamin N posts from people around the world on C&NN, or adopt any of the actions suggested in Vitamin N or similar books. Tell C&NN and the world about your experience taking the challenge! Send C&NN your thoughts at vitaminN@childrenandnature.org.
In the coming weeks and months, C&NN will feature the best ideas on its social media channels and in a Vitamin N e-newsletter to our extensive networks. The ten best essays and social media submissions will receive a signed set of Last Child in the Woods, The Nature Principle, and Vitamin N.
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Comments
Excellent article and initiative! As a healthcare provider having worked in various settings and capacities, I’ve found that the benefits of nature are seldom utilized in the clinical setting. It’s a vital aspect of both maintaining and recovering good health. Jonathan Mase is taking the #VitaminN challenge, and so should everyone else!
Jonathan A. Mase
I’m glad you shared this as a blog post as I was unfamiliar with your earlier work. Your excerpt reminds me of John Steinbeck’s book.Thank You