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The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

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Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina's congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Mayorkas.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Advocates to Congress: Kids Need More Outdoor Learning

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Thursday, September 23, 2021   

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- As Congress considers making significant investments in the nation's child-care system, children's advocates argued now is the time to make nature-based, high-quality outdoor learning available for all children in New Mexico, regardless of their ZIP code.

Sarah Konradi, director of the Early Childhood Health Outdoors (ECHO) program for the National Wildlife Federation, said while kids need regular access to spaces where they can play, run and climb.

"We also want them to be able to explore, to imagine, to pretend, to create," Konradi outlined. "And so that may look like a little digging area in the shade of a tree, where they can explore worms and bugs."

ECHO has published new recommendations, which call for broadening investments in playgrounds to include outdoor extensions of the classroom, areas where kids create rules for new games, learn how to work together to build pirate ships, and other activities that help boost cognitive learning and social skills in natural settings.

Konradi pointed out child-care providers also see benefits from outdoor learning environments. Instead of monitoring recess on a traditional playground, educators can engage with kids as they explore winding pathways, plant pollinator gardens and create "mud kitchens."

Konradi noted building outdoor learning spaces does not necessarily require a lot of money or effort.

"Changes that we are advocating for can be extremely cost-effective," Konradi asserted. "They can be done very incrementally. This doesn't have to be an extreme playground makeover to be successful."

When children get to spend a part of their day in natural settings, Konradi added there is also an opportunity to pause, and take a deep breath.

"And spaces where children can just observe, contemplate," Konradi remarked. "And with nature around us, we know that as adults going out into those kinds of environments is very restorative, and it can be for children as well."


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