Mary, I'm sorry no one posted a reply to your thread, because this is the hub we're all thinking about! This I know because it comes up every day in conversation and planning!
I agree with you that getting people outside is a key step - but even among those who ARE already outside, there is often a gap between realizing you appreciate nature and that next step - taking action to defend or restore or protect it.
Part of the solution lies in actually reaching people with information and messages (pictures, music, + emotional IQ) - getting through the filters we so often set up to keep the outside world OUT of our homes and private lives...
Part of it is offering actions that people understand, that people see as relevant to the problem they'd like to help solve, and that can be accomplished within that particular person's means and abilities. Tough!
In April, Linton Harrington, of the TTOR Bioreserve Program, and Katie Kirk, of Save The Bay - Narragansett Bay, spoke to a workshop at a forum on the Taunton River - both run programs with high school age students and they talked of the steps from engagement to action... a lot of good stuff in what they had to say. Perhaps we can get copies of their outlines loaded up to the Commons and others could think about these questions. I'll ask Linton and Katie if they will share.
I think there is hope - the huge growth in just the last year or two in CSA farms all over the state is very encouraging! And I think the price of gasoline is actually making people change their behavior - perhaps not as quickly as we might - but when the pump says $4.05 a gallon, a lot of people start thinking!
Susan