DOCUMENT RESUME CG 024 232 ED 345 165 Nebbe, Linda Lloyd AUTHOR Nature as a Guide: Using Nature in Counseling, TITLE Therapy, and Education. ISBN-0-932796-33-8 REPORT NO PUB DATE 91 242p. NOTE Educational Media Corporation, P.O. Box 21311, AVAILABLE FROM Minneapolis, MN 55421-0311 ($10.95). Books (010) -- Guides - General (050) PUB TYPE MF01 Plus Postage. PC Not Available from EDRS. EDRS PRICE Animals; Class Activities; *Counseling; Counseling DESCRIPT1RS Techniques; Elementary Education; Elementary School Students; Horticulture; *Physical Environment; School Counseling ABSTRACT This book contains practical activities for teachers, counselors, and other helping professionals utilizing elements in if nature. The premise for the utilization of nature therapy is that people develop an awareness and reverence for life, they will also - develop self-understanding and self-respect. The first four chapters provide a rationale for nature therapy. The therapeutic approaches of nature therapy are defined for instrumental, relationship, passive, cognitive, and spiritual therapies. The next three chapters explaia the approaches to nature therapy, whicr, is broken down into animal assisted, horticultural, and natural environment therapies. Each and section contains the history, research, problems, evaluation, handbook resources for each therapy. The last five chapters form a which contains ways to utilize nature therapy. Individual and group techniques are discussed, and examples are provided for experiences and activities in the area of nature therapy. The experiences are written as lesson plans, and are organized into animal, horticultural, and environmental activities. Guidelines are provided state for bringing animals into the office or classroom. Federal and breeding the laws are described, and issues are discussed concerning office or classroom pet, animals used in science projects, insect birds, cats, collections, white mice, hamsters and gerbils, rabbits, project dogs, farm animals, and wild animals. A sample Humane Society the is included that can be conducted during the summer or after school day during the school year. (LLL) *********************************************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. *********************************************************************** 46\ _ ;* P P MN! \(\4_,;/ 411V 7 &+ 4S coil& rpi esck .4- seli ng 11111/1111ftwommoseiffi101111. 'PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS MATERIAL U S DEPARTMENT OF ENJCATION BEEN IN OTHER THAN PAPER COPY HAS Otfice 01 Educahonat Resewch and Newovement INFORMATION EDUCATIONAL RE SOuRCES GRANTED BY CENTER 'ERIC, ed as th,s doc,,ment has bee., ep,etha t. C. )1 mon.rat.oh IcCe,re,0 1,0,n the oteson cse covnahnfj .1 ,nacie 10 miyove C Minor changes ha.re Deer, reproduct.oh (mods lATIONAL RESOURCES ot:erfionsSIdI0,1^Ir"SCIC- u E I TO T Hr. Ro.hIsot v.ess wfoesen, main do not neceSS-8,,r INFORM 4TION CL4TER (ERIC) OE RI 00e,ton 0, 001,r,/ Lloyd Nebbe by Linda peN CV WIMMI AVAILABLE BEST COPY Nature as a Guide: Using Nature in Counseling, Therapy, and Education By Linda Lloyd Nebbe f) Introduction Copyright 1991 Educational Media Corporat:an® Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 90-086233 ISBN 0-932796-33-8 Printing (Last Digit) 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any form without the expressed permission of the publisher in writing. Manufactured in the I .ted States of America. This book has been printed on recycled paper. Publisher Esticationall 011111 iledia lisorporation Box 21311 Minneapolis, MN 55421-0311 Production editor Don L. Sorenson Graphic Design Earl Sorenson Artists Lucy Groth Linda Weber 4 Nature as a Guide Dedication I would like to dedicate this book: to my parents, and Peter, to Sugar, Thunder, Ahoo, Fortune, to my family. .9 iii Linda Lloyd Nebbe Introduction Acknowledgments would like to thank: My family:Dennis, Carver, Nathan, Charity, Beth, David, Scott, and Kei; and my parents, Glen and Priscilla Lloyd, and parents in la w, Carl and Frances Nebbe, for their encouragement and faith and patience. Dr. Dominick Pellegreno, Department of Professional Studies in Education, Iowa State University, my major professor, mentor, and friend. Dr. George W. Beran, Department of Veterinary Medi- cine, Iowa State University, for his inspiration and challenge. Beth Granger for her friendship and continuing encouragement. Very special friends arid teachers: Sugar, Thunder, Fortune, Stevie, Alvis and Porky, Ahoo, Peter, Bandi, Olivia, Albert, Spirit, Bruce, and many many others. Friends and colleagues from Dayton Oaks Camp, Iowa Wild- life Rehabilitators Association, P.E.T. P.A.L.S., The Black Hawk Humane Society, the Boone County Humane Society, and Cedar Falls Schools Dr. Loren A. Will, Department of Veterinary Medicine, Iowa State University; Dr. Tina Ellenbogen, The Delta Society; Dr. Bernard Clausen, The College of Natural Sciences, The University of Northern Iowa; Clair Struck; Mary Beckman; Judith Harrington; Jeanne and Russell Phipps; Alvis and Erma Lester. My first editor and typist, Linda Plueger, for her enthusiasm and encouragement. Others who have edited, typed, and encour- aged. My artists, Lucy Groth and Linda Weber. Chapter 11 was compiled by Linda Nebbe with help from many people. The following people contributed: Tom Colvin, Executive Director, Black Hawk Humane Society; Dr. James Taylor, D.V.M., Cedar Falls, Iowa; Mike Bonser, Iowa Conservation Officer; and many administrators, teachers, and students in Cedar Falls, Iowa. Th'ise who have encouraged and inspired me through their work: Hope Ryden, Micheal W. Fox, Joseph Cornell, Conrad Lorenz, Sterling North, Helen Hoover, John Denver, Albert Schweitzer, and many many others. 6 iv Nature as a Guide Table of Contents Rationale Part I: 1 Once Upon a Time 3 Chapter 1 Humans and Nature 9 Chapter 2 What is Nature Therapy? 19 Chapter 3 Nature TherapyIs It for Everyone? 27 Chapter 4 Approaches 31 Part II: 33 Animal Assisted Therapy Chapter 5 55 Horticulture Therapy Chapter 6 Natural Environment Therapy 65 Chapter 7 Part HI: A Handbook 79 Ways to Work with an Individual Chapter 8 83 and Nature Therapy 93 Group Techniques Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Guidance and Teaching Activities 103 Guidelines for an Animal in the Office Chapter 11 197 or Classroom 215 Chapter 12 The Humane Society Project 223 References Animal Activities 105 1. Adaptions 107 2. Going Wild 109 3. Create a Critter 111 4. The Nest 113 5. Observation 115 6. The Butterfly Tree 117 7. Critter Races 120 8. Observe an Ant Colony 122 9. Cricket Chirp Thermometer 123 10. Sound Exploration Linda Lloyd Nebbe Introduction Horticulture Activities 11. Make a Jack-O-Lantern 125 12. Naming 127 13. Uniqueness 129 14. Tree Rings 132 15. Forcing Bulbs 134 16. Forcing Branches 137 17. Dyeing Flowers 139 18. Grow a Weed 141 19. Plant and Grow Some Flowers or Plants 143 20. Garbage Can Gardening 145 21. Plants in the Office 147 22. Recycling Paper 146 23. Bottle Plants 150 24. Boat Races 152 25. A Natural Feast 154 Environment Activities 26. Pyramid of Life 159 27. Symbols 162 28. Clouds 164 29. Sensory Hike 166 30. Death 169 31. Perceptions 171 32. Scavenger Hunt 173 33. What Do You Need? 175 34. Gifts 177 35. Fighting Back 180 36. Changes 183 37. Hand Wave Voting 185 38. Cemetery Rubbings 189 39. Issues 191 40. Life's Questions 193 41. Contract of Commitnwnt 195 . vi 8 Nature as a Guide but especially the young, need to I have always felt that all people, order for them to really understand their relationship to the earth in balanced individuals. One cannot become well-adjusted, mature, and without knowing something about begin to understand this relationship living plants and animals. here I have seen many During the thirty years as a farm manager communicating trusting no one, including himself, and a boy who came calf that he feeds, and thus begir with no one. Then he attached to a small different perspective and to gain some self- to look at things from a vegetable garden produce some- confidence. Or seeds he plants in the thing to be eaten and shared. been looked upon as places Generally the farm and gardens have They desperately need this, where boys could learn how to work. people simply don't know probably more today than ever. Many young of them ever really been how to do much of anything. Nor have very many be plants or animals. Common exposed to living things, whether they commodity. It is because of this that I feel an sense has become a rare be one of youth's greatest involvement with plants and animals may society generally has lost touch with needs today. For that matter, our itself from the earth and brought the living world and thus has alienated the environmental crisis. We have lost to the fore what we are calling respect for life. The earth has great Gardening is good therapy for young and old. which makes it all possible. Simply healing power. It is the plant of cou rse without :he plant should realizing that we could not exist on this planet this is true can occupy much of a be significant. Learning how and why miraculous creations. They lifetime and be only a beginning. Plants are challenge and a hope for men of hold so many secrets that they present a the not so learned. Plants are indeed all ages, rich and poor, learned and people who are hope for our time and for the many a source of great about the future. Knowing and disturbed, frustrated, and concerned that with understanding plants can give them hope and rer,-utrance of the seasons are part of even death there follows life and the great cycles dependent on mortal man's greater rhythms of the universe that are not manipulation. at Robert Steffen, farm manager for thirty years Boy's Town, Nebraska vii Linda Lloyd Nebbe Introduction The following was a letter written to the President of the United States. Democrat Franklin Pierce, in 1855. Chief Seathi 'Seattle), of the Suwarmish tribe of the State of Washington, is said to have written it, regarding the proposed purchase of the tribe's land. The Great Chief in Washington sends word that he w:shes to buy our land. The great Chief also sends us words of friendship and goodwill. This is kind of him, since we know that he has little need of our friendship in return. But we will consider your offer, for we know that if we do not do so, the white man my come with guns and take our land. What Chief Seathl says, the Great Chief in Washington can count on as truly as our white brothers can count on the return of the seasons. My words are like the starsthey do not set. How can you buy or sell the sky the warmth of the land? The idea is straizge to us. Yet we do not own the freshness of the air or the sparkle of the water. How ^an you buy them from us? We will decide in our time. Every part of this earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine Iwedle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every clearing and humming insect is holy in the memory of the experience of my people. We know that the white man does understand our ways. One portion of the land is the same to him as the next; for lw is a stranger who comes in the night and kikes from the land whatever he needs. The earth is not his brother, but his enemy, and when he has conquered it, he moves on. He leaves his fathers' graves behind and he does not care. He kidnaps the earth from his children. He does not care. His fathers' graves and his childten'sbirthright are forgotten. His appetite will devour the earth and leave behind only a desert. The sight of your cities pains the eyes of the redman. But perhaps it is because the redman is a savage and does not understand. There is no quiet place in the white man's cities. No place to hear the leaves of spring or the rustle of insect wings. But perhaps I am a savage and do not understandthe clatter only seems to insult the ears. And what is tlwre to life if a man cannot hear the lovely cry of the whippoorwill or the argunwnts of the frogs around a pond at night ? The Indian pre.fers the soft sound of the wind darting over the face of the pond, and the sme:l of the wind itself cleansed by a mid-day rain, or scented with a pine. The air is precious to the redman. For all things share the same breath the beasts, the trees, the man. The white man does not seem to notice the air he breathes. Like a man dying for many days, he is numb to the smell. If I decide to accept, I will make one condition. The white man must treat the beasts of this land as his brothers. I am a savage and I do not understand any other way. I have seen a thousand rotting buffaloes on the prairie, left by the white man who shot them from a pass* train. I am a savage and Ida not umkrstand how the smoking iron horse can be more important that the buffalo that will kill only to stay alive. What is man without the beasts? If all the beasts were gone, men would die from great loneliness of spirit, for whatever happens to tlw (Yeasts also happens to tlw man. All things are connected. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of the earth. viii