Mead: Children Should Play Outdoors

Wyoming Governor Matt Mead yesterday released the results from a recent survey titled “Our Children and the Outdoors: Wyoming 2010” confirming that outdoor activities are important to the physical and mental well-being of children.  The survey was sponsored by the Wyoming Department of State Parks and Cultural Resources, the George B. Storer Foundation and Teton Science Schools, and was conducted by the University of Wyoming’s Survey & Analysis Center. Conducted in August 2010, the survey is just one component of the Connecting Kids to the Nature of Wyoming Initiative, an initiative by Teton Science Schools to assess the current exposure of Wyoming children to the outdoors, and to promote the connections between children and outdoor activities.  Among the findings cited by Governor Mead, 99% of Wyoming’s parents believe that playing outside is important for their child’s physical and mental well-being, and 65% of Wyoming’s parents want their children to spend more time outdoors that they currently do.  Mead says Wyoming children actually engage in much more outdoor activity than the national average with the average 5-12 year-olds spending as much as 26.3 hours outside per week during the survey period.