{"id":6582,"date":"2022-05-08T08:00:24","date_gmt":"2022-05-08T13:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/braindevs.net\/blog\/blog\/?p=6582"},"modified":"2022-05-06T16:34:41","modified_gmt":"2022-05-06T21:34:41","slug":"too-good-to-be-true-even-short-nature-walks-improve-cognition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/too-good-to-be-true-even-short-nature-walks-improve-cognition\/","title":{"rendered":"Too Good to Be True? “Even Short Nature Walks Improve Cognition”?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Good news makes me nervous.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

More precisely: if I\u00a0want<\/em> to believe a research finding, I become\u00a0very suspicious<\/em> of it. After all: it’s easy to fool me when I want to be fooled.<\/p>\n

Specifically: I’m an outdoors guy. I’ve worked at summer camps<\/a> for ages, and love a good walk in the forests around Walden Pond.<\/p>\n

So, when I read research showing that even a brief nature walk produces cognitive benefits,\u00a0<\/em>I’m both VERY EXCITED and EXTRA SKEPTICAL.<\/p>\n

Let’s start with the assumption that it’s just not true.<\/em><\/p>\n

Persuade Me<\/h2>\n

The research I’m speaking of is in fact a review article<\/a>; it summarizes and compares the results of 14 studies. (The review article was flagged by Professor Dan Willingham, one of the leaders in translating science research for the classroom.)<\/p>\n

These 14 studies shared important commonalities:<\/p>\n

First<\/strong>: they looked at “one-time” exposure to nature. They didn’t look at — say — outdoor education programs. Instead, they looked at — say — a brisk walk in a park near the school.<\/p>\n

Second<\/strong>: these “one-time exposures” were all relatively brief — somewhere between 10 and 90 minutes.<\/p>\n

Third<\/strong>: these “brief, one-time exposures” did NOT deliberately focus the participants on nature. That is: students didn’t walk in the park to learn about trees and birds. They walked in the park\u00a0to have the experience of walking in the park<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I might be skeptical about one<\/em> study. I might be skeptical of two<\/em> studies. But if 14 studies<\/strong> (or a substantial percentage of them) all reach the same conclusion … well, maybe I’ll be persuaded.<\/p>\n

Equally interesting: these studies ran the K-16 gamut. We’re not looking at a narrow age-range here: more like two decades.<\/p>\n

Conclusions (and Questions)<\/h2>\n

So, what did this potentially-persuasive bunch of studies show?<\/p>\n

YES: <\/em>in 12 of the 14 studies, brief, one-time, passive exposure to nature does benefit cognition.<\/em><\/p>\n

More specifically, researchers found benefits in measures of directed attention<\/em> and working memory<\/em>.<\/p>\n

They looked for, but did not find, benefits in measures of inhibition<\/em> (another important executive function).<\/p>\n

And, crucially, they did not measure academic performance. If a walk in nature enhances attention and working memory, we can reasonably predict that it will also improve learning. But:\u00a0these studies did not measure that prediction<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Because this review covers so many studies, it’s easy to get lost in the details.<\/p>\n

One point I do want to emphasize: the impressive variety of “exposures.”<\/p>\n

Some students walked or played in a park, woods, or nature trail.<\/p>\n

Some simply sat and read outdoors.<\/p>\n

Amazingly, some walked on a treadmill watching\u00a0a simulated nature trail <\/em>on the monitor.<\/p>\n

In fact, some simply sat in a classroom “with windows open on to green space<\/em>.”<\/p>\n

In other words: it doesn’t take much nature to get the benefits of nature.<\/p>\n

Inevitable Caveats<\/h2>\n

First: in these studies, exposure to nature helped\u00a0restore<\/em> attention and working memory capacity that had been strained.<\/p>\n

It did not somehow increase overall attention and WM capacity in an enduring way. Students recovered<\/em> faster. But they didn’t end up with more of these capacities than they started with.<\/p>\n

Second: most of these “exposures” included some modest physical activity.<\/p>\n

How much (if any) of the benefit came from that physical exertion, instead of the greenery?<\/p>\n

We don’t yet know.<\/p>\n

A Skeptic Converted?<\/h2>\n

I have to say, I’m strongly swayed by this review.<\/p>\n

In the past, I’ve seen studies<\/a> that might contradict this set of conclusions.<\/p>\n

But the number of studies, the variety of conditions, the variety of cognitive measures, and the range of ages all seem very encouraging.<\/p>\n

Perhaps we can’t (yet) say that “research tells us” brief exposures to nature benefit students. But I feel much more comfortable speculating that this belief just might be true.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Good news makes me nervous. More precisely: if I\u00a0want to believe a research finding, I become\u00a0very suspicious of it. After all: it’s easy to fool me when I want to be fooled. Specifically: I’m an outdoors guy. I’ve worked at summer camps for ages, and love a good walk in the forests around Walden Pond. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":6585,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[15,188,119],"class_list":["post-6582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lb-blog","tag-classroom-advice","tag-nature","tag-outdoor-education"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6582"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6582\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6586,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6582\/revisions\/6586"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}