

Kids losing touch with natural world -- can't identify common animals...  - gscott
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/attenborough-alarmed-as-children-are-left-flummoxed-by-test-on-the-natural-world-882624.html

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thomasmallen
I couldn't identify many of those, and I'm very knowledgeable about the
natural world. There's more to it than long-range identification. I'd tell
that it was an Oak by the leaves. Who sees a Daddy-Long-Legs from beneath a
glass panel? A normal view from above would make it obvious. And the newt they
show is not even mature, it's practically a hatchling!

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mynameishere
And a shocking 75 percent misidentified a debtor's prison with an almshouse!

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dandelany
Kids "losing touch" implies a TREND, something which requires multiple surveys
over time, which there obviously weren't.

The only thing alarming about 54% of British kids knowing what a blue tit is:
the fact that _I_ don't know what a blue tit is.

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angstrom
I had the same question at the end. The only trend I could see is my own
anecdotal evidence of journalists' tendency to draw conclusions where there is
insufficient data to back up their central argument.

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ojbyrne
It's impressively stupid. BBC personality (who does TV Nature shows) comments
on stupid poll published by BBC Wildlife Magazine in order to shame parents
into making their kids watch those same TV nature shows, since the vast
majority of them probably don't have too much access to nature. It's basically
a large and deceiving ad.

I wonder if "Sarah Cassidy, Education Correspondent" feels unclean.

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fauigerzigerk
I guess we're losing touch with nature because 97% of us don't have to touch
it any longer to feed ourselves. Good thing if you ask me. I'd rather kids
(and adults for that matter) knew a little bit about taxes, law or how to
calculate compound interest of their debt.

There are things about natural systems that affect us and things that are
interesting, but identifying and classifying plants outside of any context is
not one of them.

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pavelludiq
How is a 9 year old supposed to know the difference between a newt and a
lizard? A lot of adults probably don't know it too. After googleing it, i
found that daddy long-legs is actually 3 different species. if you show me
pictures of them i couldn't name them, two looked like spiders, and one was
like a mosquito or something. Maybe i was just not in touch with nature when i
was a kid.

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cglee
We need some context here - which kids where?

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Prrometheus
Funny, they don't show a time trend. So how are they "losing touch" with the
natural world?

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stcredzero
Already covered by Monty Python years ago.

...The LARCH... ...The LARCH...

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qqq
why would you memorize what you can google on your iphone from anywhere?
memorizing rarely-used facts is out of date.

besides, kids can now identify more species of lolcat than ever before.

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akd
You can't really google a bird to figure out that it's a magpie (yet), but one
does wonder what the point of being able to identify it is. I'd hope that
they're learning more concepts in science than rote memorization which is a
debunked educational method.

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barcoder
There is a website that you can post photos of something and ask what it is
though.. Sadly I can't remember the address!

