What is Take It Outside?
The Bureau of Land Management's Take It Outside Initiative was prompted by a growing national concern that children are spending significantly less time outdoors that previous generations; becoming more disconnected from nature; and increasingly showing symptons of an epidemic in childhood obesity. These issues were articulated in Richard Louv's 2005 book "Last Child in the Woods." In response to this problem, BLM and many other Federal agencies are taking on the challenge of attemping to reconnect the Nation's youth and families with the many benefits of spending time outdoors.
Idaho's Be Outdside initiative has partnered with KIVI Channel 6 news about getting outside. Visit their website to see interesting ideas and fun activities you can do to get outside and enjoy nature! Click here to see the site.
Kids learn about the Salmon River |
BLM Takes It Outside!
BLM's Take It Outside Initiative focuses on promoting and expanding existing BLM programs that engage children and families in outdoor activitites. Try some of these family outings.
Eagle Watch 2009 in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho
Family Outings
Other Take It Outside Related Websites:
- Care Share Campaign: Sharing rangelands respectfully with others.
- Idaho Off-Highway Vehicle Information Project: State and federal agencies in Idaho promoting responsible use of off-highway vehicles.
- Leave No Trace: Striving to educate all those who enjoy the outdoors about the nature of recreational impacts as well as techniques to prevent and minimize such impacts.
- Tread Lightly: Offering a variety of tools to help arm recreationists and the industries that serve them with essential outdoor ethics.
- Hands on the Land: a national network of field classrooms connecting students, teachers, and parents to their public lands and waterways.
- Be Outside. Idaho Children in Nature: A website dedicated to getting children and families outdoors to enjoy nature.
- Learning Landscapes: A national website that provides educational and enrichment opportunities associated with the 258 million acres of public lands that BLM manages for all Americans. Visitors can get fit, commune, contemplate, serve, renew, revive, and re-center.
Idaho Birding Trail: A network of sites and side-trips that provides the best viewing opportunities to see birds in Idaho.
BLM teaches children about birds of prey at an Idaho Children in Nature event in Boise.
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Take It Outside in South Central Idaho
Shoshone received a grant from BLMs Take it Outside Initiative and tied the dollars to local schools to assist in getting k-12 kids off the couch and out on public lands. The field office paid for bussing and equipment, and provided staff in order for kids from Shoshone, Wendell and Gooding schools to participate in field trips to local caves, the Little City of Rocks annual fifth-grade field trip, Craters of the Moon National Monument interpretive events, Shoshone Falls, state Fish Hatcheries, the Envirothon competition and others. This year, with the participation of Shoshone Field Office staff and volunteers, nearly 1000 local students had a unique outdoor experience on public lands.
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