They call it "the pedagogy of place"--  using the natural environment as a learning tool for kids. And it may be the best available antidote to passive, media-dominated childhoods that can result in obesity, diabetes, and other health problems.

Rocky Rohwedder (left),  a professor of Enviromental Studies and Planning at SSU, believes that kids in today's industrialized societies  are not spending enough time outdoors  and are missing out on what nature has to teach them.

The term "nature deficit disorder " was coined and popularized by writer by Richard Louv in his 2005 book Last Child in the Woods. You can hear him interviewed about it on NPR's Morning Edition here.

Louv is also the co-founder and chairman of the Children & Nature Network, which was created to encourage and support the people and organizations working to reconnect children with nature.

Marin County historian Dewey Livingston will talk about and sign his book about Nicasio at a special event at the Petaluma Historical Library and Museum on Sunday afternoon, Feb. 22, at 3 pm. The Library is located at 20 Fourth street, and the event is free. Information at (707) 788-4398 or info@petalumamuseum.com. You can see a video preview with Livingston below.

 

 Once the most prominent building in the town, the Nicasio Hotel (above) was built in 1867, but was destroyed by fire in 1940.

Livingston's book about Nicasio, published last year by the Nicasio Historical Society , begins with the earliest known human presence in the valley. But here, as in many other places, the native people were displaced and treated badly by the new arrivals.

Today, the town of Nicasio (seen above approaching the town square) hosts its own website, which may come as a surprise to outsiders. In reseaching his book on the town and its denizens, Dewey Livingston says he also met with a couple of welcome surprises.

 Below: the Tomasini Dairy Ranch at Nicasio, circa 1890.

Was the arrest and conviction of Eric McDavid (right) a successful prosecution of an eco-terrorist conspiracy, or a case of entrapment by an overzealous undercover operative? His friends and family make a compelling case for the latter, on today's North Bay Report.

The use of terrorism and conspiracy charges to suppress free speech and dissent has been used most aggressively against members of the Earth Liberation Front and the  Animal Liberation Front, but Jenny Esquivel  observes that the same  tactics were employed to pre-emptively arrest organizers of political protests at the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis last summer.

 McDavid's friends and family have also established an online support website for him and his appeal at supporteric.org .

Injustice For an Activist: In 2008, Eric McDavid, an environmental activist was imprisoned, and subsequently sentenced to 19 years and 7 months for crimes he never committed. Loved ones will be giving a 2 hour presentation of Eric's story including the FBI's use of entrapment as part of the government's Green Scare campaign .

Thursday, February 19, 7 pm, at the Peace and Justice Center in Santa Rosa.

 Shepherd Bliss, a Sebastopol farmer and writer, and  part-time instructor in the psychology department  at Sonoma State University talks about his experience in Chile just before the 1973 coup and how it felt to return to that country34 years later, as part of an inquest into the police state execution of his close friend Frank Teruggi. It wasn't easy, but even after three and a half decades, Bliss believes that confronting government-sanctioned brutality and torture is difficult, painful and necessary.

September 11^th was also the date of General Pinochet's Chilean coup in 1973 (above). But Sheperd Bliss suggests that earlier tragedy may have had even more far-reaching consequences.

    Bliss has written about his efforts to come to terms with his recent Chilean experiences in an essay titled "The Grim Reaper, Agrotherapy, Kokopelli and Pinochet's Darkness," which was published in the most recent edition of the University of Hawaii's Manoa Journal:  Enduring War--Stories of What We've Learned. Occidental garlic grower and writer Chester Aarons also has two pieces in the same volume.

Both men will co-host a presentation titled "Storytelling, Farming and Healing," at the VIVA Culinary Institute, 7160 Keating Avenue in Sebastopol, 6:30-8:30 pm, Tuesday, Feb. 17.  Details here or by calling 824-9913.