You're Not Allowed to be Bored

Our planet, Earth, is so incredibly large and filled with so many fascinations and wonders that you could never see it all in one lifetime. Sure, you could look at pictures and videos of these places online but that doesn’t really compare to actually being at, say, the Grand Canyon in Arizona or the Black Forest in Germany. To really enjoy this planet, you have to go outside and experience it firsthand. There are several hundred things to do outside but it’s important to find an activity take really sparks your interest and keeps you going back for more. Saying “I’m bored”, is simply not an option. If you’re “bored” you’re not paying enough attention to your marvelous surroundings or perhaps you’re on a hike when hiking is your least favorite thing to do. No matter where you live, or what time of year it is, there is several different activities outside that you can do or try for the first time. Living in Florida, where it might as well be considered summer year-round, I’m going to start with activities that take place on the water.

A student at the Pure Life Surf School Surf Camp
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To begin, a major sport here is surfing which is the art of riding a foam board, usually with a smooth coat of fiberglass, along the face of waves naturally formed in the ocean. Surfing and surfboard design have greatly evolved over time so there are different kinds of boards for different types of waves and people, meaning if you’re a beginner or an experienced “shredder”. Most surfboards are in the range of 5’5”-8’ but a modified form of surfing, called Stand-Up Paddle boarding uses boards than can be 10’ or larger which require the use of a paddle to move through the water. Furthermore, an entirely different surfing experience can be had when the factor of wind is introduced. Appropriately named, windsurfing is the art of surfing combined with sailing, using a much larger board than when regularly surfing and have a large sail attached to the board to allow for controlling your direction along the wave. Both can be self-taught but it is much wiser to seek instruction before attempting these sports because of the risks involved which can include drowning or severe injury when being struck with a board. There are several surf schools all over the coasts of Florida but one of the best is the Pure Life Surf School located just south of Port Orange. For a school that specializes in windsurfing, SandyPoint Progressive Sports located in South Daytona is a good place to check out. This activity is good for young kids (ages 4+) and all others who possess a strong swimming ability. 

Nature is a Child's Best Teacher

Parenting can be difficult, especially when you're new to it. According an article on Brain Development from the infant information website Zero to Three, "a child's brain undergoes an amazing period of development from birth to three (years old) - producing 700 new neural connections every second; this growing brain development is influenced by many factors, including a child's relationships, experience and environment." The focus of this posting will be of a child's environment during their first few years. To begin, there are several hundred differences in the homes of the 1990's during which I was raised and the homes of 2016. During the 1990's, in-home computers were new and bulky much like the televisions; cell phones all had antennas and touch screens were a dream of the future. The future is here now though and in the average middle-class household one can find televisions less thick than a fist, tablets and smartphones that will answer you when spoken to and reply to your touch on their smooth screens. In addition to this, there are more than 10 different models of video gaming systems available that have the potential of creating an addiction in the early years of a child's life, causing them to spend much more time indoors than their parents ever did.

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In response to this, the National Recreation and Park Association (NRPA) teamed up with the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) to create the 10 Million Kids Outdoors campaign. According to NRPA, "children are spending just minutes per day learning and playing outdoors and more than seven sedentary hours per day in front of electronic media." In addition to this, the continue to say that in "the last two decades: child obesity rates have more than doubled, more children are Vitamin-D deficient, the United States has become the largest consumer of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) medications in the world, and the use of antidepressants in pediatric patients has risen sharply. Studies point to sedentary and indoor lifestyles as contributing factors in these alarming trends." This campaign is therefore designed to encourage kids to spend more time outdoors which will help improve their health and wellness and give them an appreciation for nature.

An Invitation to Your Backyard

Living in the age of technology has helped us vastly expand our ever-growing library of knowledge by making information readily available with a few simple clicks of a computer mouse or a tap or two on the screen of our smartphones. Feats of recent technology have also accommodated this generation with various means of entertainment including video games, high definition movies and various accounts of social media to name a few. Being surrounded with all these means of entertainment seems to have caused a rift in the once thriving relationship between humans and nature as more people are spending their time indoors, behind a screen than in the great outdoors where marvelous wonders are occurring, waiting to be observed! Take for example the video directly above of the carnivorous plant, Drosera capensis also known as the Cape Sundew, as it gradually encompasses its wasp victim. How fascinating it must have been for the person who first discovered that plants can eat insects! More so fascinating though is how this plant manages to catch insects. The tentacles covering D. capensis are coated in a thick, gluey substance called a mucilage which appears to insects as droplets of water, so when the insect land for what they think is a drink of water, they become trapped on this sticky substance and in trying to escape they actually cause the plant to start curling inward, encompassing the insect for later digestion. Now while the observation of this particular plant serves no real purpose outside of entertaining the observer, other forms of nature are studied which have helped to further our technological advancements.

Nature's B-2 (top) & Human's B-2 (bottom)
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To the left is an image comparing a common buzzard (from my best judgement; could be a hawk or falcon) in flight and a B-2 stealth bomber. The similarity in the profile of both the bird and the bomber suggest that birds were observed and studied for their streamlined design, which allows them to have the least possible resistance to the flow of air resulting in increased speed and ease of movement, qualities that would greatly improve the efficiency of our aircraft. This is just one example of several that show how much we can learn from observing nature and while studying plants and animals through online courses or databases can be very informative, there is no real substitute for experiencing them in their natural environment.