Categories Good SOIL Jim Vitale January 6, 2025

Why Overnight Camp | Pt 7: Camp cultivates affinity for nature

By Jim Vitale

This article is part of our “Why you should send your child to overnight camp” series. The series introduction explored the current research on outcomes for overnight campers and offered a list of the most important outcomes. Here, we go more in depth with one of those outcomes.

 

The Superior Hiking Trail

When we hit the trail that summer I was not feeling excited for the week ahead of me.

At the time, I was a youth director in Minnesota. I was taking my youth group on a week-long backpacking trip on the Superior Hiking Trail with Camp Amnicon’s high adventure program. We would hike about 40 miles over 5 days, carrying with us all the supplies we would need for the week.

A van dropped us off at a trail-access point and we hopped out, shouldering our 40lbs packs and psyching ourselves up for the hike. We stepped onto the trail and were immediately greeted with a steep ascent. No working into it. No warm up. Just straight up a hill. A number of kids grumbled and complained about it. I put on my enthusiastic youth director face and encouraged them on, though in my mind I was complaining right along with them.

As our elevation increased, so did my anxiety. I was not looking forward to a week of carrying a heavy pack, setting up and tearing down tents, cooking over a fire, filtering river water, and bathrooming outside.

We also had with us a youth—we’ll call him Nate—who, as far as I could tell, had only been outside to get from his house into his car and his car into school. He was an avid gamer, a pop-culture guru, and an all-around great kid—but no outdoorsman. While I was annoyed with that first immediate hill, I think it was soul-crushing for Nate who, up to that point, had never done anything like this.

Our week on the trail had its ups and downs (sorry—terrible joke). We had moments where everyone was laughing and enjoying each other’s company; and moments where everyone was tired and sore and ready to be done.

It was particularly amazing to see how the group rallied around Nate. There was at least one moment when the group split the contents of his backpack and carried them for him. There was an almost constant chorus of encouraging words any time we hit a difficult section of the trial. I was impressed with the empathetic awareness of these highschoolers who knew Nate was having a tough time and—instead of bullying or making fun of him—did their best to encourage and support him (see our article on empathy for more!).

The youth group was a bit of a high school stereotype, with athletes and nerds and band kids scattered throughout. In any other scenario, Nate would not have gone near a football player, and yet here he was, hiking and camping with a couple of them. There was a particularly cool moment where Nate and a football player both realized they were into a videogame called Skyrim. They spent the next several hours discussing it, and I could tell the football player was impressed by Nate’s vast knowledge of the lore and gameplay.

Interestingly enough, that conversation took place during what we later found out was the hardest section of the hike, a point where the trail goes straight up a mountain. When our counselors told us as much after-the-fact, we all laughed. We had barely noticed the difficulty of the ascent, so invested were we in this conversation about Skyrim.

On the second-to-last day of our hike, we made the decision to stay put at our campsite. We had initially intended to do one more full day of hiking, but the group was getting weary and we needed a break. So we stayed—and it was a fantastic decision. Some of us hiked a small mountain near the campsite just for the fun of it. And then the whole group went off to do a creek walk, swimming and splashing in the cool, refreshing water. And there was Nate, soaking wet, exploring and splashing like everyone else.

When the time came for the van to come and pick us up, I realized that I was feeling sad to leave. A far cry from the anxiety I felt at the beginning of the hike, now I wished I could spend my whole life out on the trail. Some in our group (including Nate) were ready to go home, but I was ready for another month of this. We all climbed into the van and I (silently) vowed to return to the Superior Hiking Trail again one day.

 

Affinity for Nature

In their National Camp Impact Study, the American Camp Association marks affinity for nature as a key outcome of overnight camps. Children and youth who spend time out in nature come to appreciate (and maybe even love!) nature more. It makes sense, particularly for youth like Nate who’ve spent very little time outside. Children and youth (and some adults too!) have all sorts of impressions of what time in nature is like, but it isn’t until they actually go out into the woods or out on a lake that they really find out.

At Camp Mount Luther, we work hard to make sure that these experiences of nature are overwhelmingly positive. While it’s true that many of the youth who come to camp already love nature (maybe they’re veterans of camp, or go on camping trips with their family, or go hunting with a parent), there are some who have had very little experience with the great outdoors.

According to an article from the Washington Post, “The average American today spends nearly 90 percent of their time indoors.” Similarly, the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) reports, “The average American child spends as few as 30 minutes in unstructured outdoor play each day and more than seven hours each day in front of an electronic screen.”

Statistically speaking, even the kids who come to camp already loving nature likely spend most of the rest of the year inside and in front of a screen. A positive experience at camp can disrupt this pattern and, at the very least, provide a positive experience of nature. And if a child (or adult) has one positive experience of nature, they might be more likely to pursue another one in the future.

 

Other Benefits of Nature

Aside from general positive feelings about nature, time outside can also provide some very tangible positive outcomes for your child.

The Washington Post reports that “numerous studies have found that kids living in greener environments have better moods, higher self-esteem and more resilience, says Sarah Milligan-Toffler, president and CEO of the Children and Nature Network, an organization that helps connect children to the outdoors. Research has also found that long-term exposure to nature reduces stress and anxiety in children and lowers their levels of aggression, she says.”

The NWF looks holistically at body, mind, and spirit and reports the following benefits of outside time. For the body, outside time provides much-needed exercise and raises vitamin D levels (which is necessary for health in a variety of categories). Also, gross though it may sound, the NWF says, “When we let our kids play in dirt, we’re not only allowing them to explore the wonders around them, we are also exposing them to healthy bacteria, parasites, and viruses that will inevitably create a much stronger immune system.”

Mentally, time in nature is reported to reduce ADHD symptoms. Additionally, schools with environmental education report higher standardized test scores. And environmental-based education increases critical thinking skills in youth (see our article on creative thinking for more).

Finally, time out in nature is good for the spirit: children’s stress levels decrease in green spaces. The NWF states, “Studies have shown that simply having contact with dirt, whether it’s through gardening, digging holes, or making pies out of mud, can significantly improve a child’s mood and reduce anxiety and stress.” In addition, unstructured playtime is key for healthy childhood development. And time outside also appears to foster kindness and community.

Of course, simply sending your child out to play in nature is not going to solve all of their problems or make them an automatically well-rounded, healthy person. But research suggests that time in nature is a profoundly important component of raising well-rounded, healthy human beings.

At Camp Mount Luther, we know first-hand the hesitations about sending your child to an overnight camp. We’ve lived through them ourselves. And we encourage you to give it a try—difficult though it may be (see our article on grit!)—the more time children spend in nature, the more likely they are to love it; the more they love it, the more they’ll seek it out; and the more they seek it out, the better it will be for them in almost every way!

So come give camp a try!

 

Read more entries in this series