Once upon a time, if one thought of a child and their after school activities, the outdoors would probably been the first thing that came to mind. Playing with friends, hide and go seek in the forest, rafting in the river, building a tree fort. Now, however, these visions of the ideal free time activities are becoming nothing more than a quickly fading memory.

Most kids do not want to go outside anymore. Video games can give them everything they could want from within the comforts of their own living rooms. Browse through a sales rack and one could find games for soccer, football, tennis, farming, going to the beach and even living, for goodness sake. And some of these games can be labelled as ‘good for us’, because they provide enough physical activity to be considered exercise. Take the Wii System for example, with its wide variety of virtual reality games, and motion activated remotes.

With all this who needs to go outside?

And there lies the problem. If we are stuck inside 24/7, eyes glued to a screen, we lose all those heart filled connections to the outdoors. All those memories that we used to cherish are lost. Our Earth is suffering for it.

Id we do not know how beautiful out natural environment can be, what do we care if we destroy it? One could not feel any sentimental value towards it. Most would not even notice it was gone until they see the plots for a new mall or movie theatre. And if they do not notice that the forest was gone, what are the chances of them thinking about the consequences of mangling the earth in the way we are doing?

Until however, out eyes are riveted to either TV or Facebook and see the heavy hitters: “Endangered”, “Extinct” and “Destroyed” appear. That is when the panic starts. Even then a connection cannot be made, though most of what is happen is –quite literally- in our own backyards.

Get outside, breathe in the fresh air, and let the sun warm your skin. Go for a hike or kick a ball around in the forest that you just remembered is behind you and revel in the beauty that surrounds you. That way one can release the effect soft heat newest, probably unnecessary development could be having to the world around you.