Pacific Standard July-August 2013 Cover

Put Down the iPad, Lace Up the Hiking Boots

December 31, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
(PHOTO: SHUTTERSTOCK)

Have you been staring cow-eyed at a computer all morning? Fiddling with your iPhone in line at Starbucks? Checking Twitter and ESPN every four minutes on your tablet? Good. Here’s a little quiz. What one word ties these three ideas together: water + tobacco + stove? How about widow + bite + monkey? Or, envy + golf + beans? Psychologists call such wordplay the “remote associates test,” or RAT, and use it to study creativity and intuition. The idea is that it requires a nimble, open mind to find the connection between seemingly unrelated ideas—in this case pipe, spider, and ... Read More

More like this: Environment
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New Studies Help Boy Scouts ‘Be Prepared’

August 17, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment

The Boy Scouts of America, while last year celebrating the 100th anniversary of its founding, reviewed and commissioned much research into how the organization is accomplishing its core mission of promoting good character traits and prosocial behaviors — as well as reaching out to a new generation of kids. Scout leaders hope that the studies will offer guidance to program leaders for the organization's next 100 years. If Scouting is to maintain influence in the next era, it must reverse its declining membership. Participation peaked in 1973 with 4.8 million scouts and has since plunged 42 ... Read More

More like this: Culture
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Thoreau Was Right: Nature Hones the Mind

January 11, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment

A long line of the world's thinkers — from Immanuel Kant to William James to Deepak Chopra — have recommended we take walks in nature to relieve stress and refocus our thoughts. And nature writers — from Henry David Thoreau to John Muir to Edward Abbey — have extolled the restorative benefits of nature. "Everybody," Muir said, "needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul." Turns out they were ahead of their time. "Attention Restoration Theory" or ART, which posits that a walk in the woods helps refocus the ... Read More

More like this: Environment, Health
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If Only Yosemite Were a Video Game

September 5, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment

Edward Abbey, celebrated hardcore environmentalist and author, prophesied in the 1960s that population growth, the rise of motorized tourism (creating the reluctance of people to escape the comforts of their automobiles) and the ensuing roads and hotels would overrun the American wilderness. It turns out he was both wrong and right. U.S. national parks are threatened — but by a lack of attendance, not a surplus. This apparent disinterest in outdoor activities has occurred in tandem with greater interest in electronic entertainment. Has Mario trumped Thoreau? And what does that mean ... Read More

More like this: Environment, Findings, NEWS
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Honorable Ambassador From Nature-Land

January 9, 2009 • By • Leave a Comment

It's not easy being a park ranger these days. Park visitation has declined, and those who do visit parks are apt to be less comfortable in nature and possess fewer outdoors skills than visitors of 10 or 20 years ago. Today's rangers must cope with an increasing number of kids who would rather be on MySpace than in green space and with adults who demand cell phone coverage in the wilderness but no longer answer the call of the wild. Emilyn Sheffield, a consultant to the National Park Service, sifts through numerous studies in her effort to find ways parks can reach out to the many visitors ... Read More

More like this: Environment, Science & Environment
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