Nature is one of the best medicines for difficult times. An intimate awareness of the natural world, even within the city, can calm anxieties and help create healthy perspectives. This book will inspire and guide you as you deal with the current crisis, or any personal or worldly distress. Melanie Choukas-Bradley is a naturalist and certified forest therapy guide who leads nature and forest bathing walks for many organizations in Washington, D.C. and the American West. Learn from her the Japanese art of "forest bathing": how to tune in to the beauty and wonder around you with all your senses, even if your current sphere is a tree outside the window or a wild backyard. Discover how you can become a backyard naturalist, learning about the trees, wildflowers, birds and animals near your home. Nature immersion during stressful times can bring comfort and joy as well as opportunities for personal growth, expanded vision and transformation. The "Resilience Series" is the result of an intensive, collaborative effort of our authors in response to the 2020 coronavirus epidemic. Each volume offers expert advice for developing the practical, emotional and spiritual skills that you can master to become more resilient in a time of crisis.

Find solace in intimate connections with the natural world, even if that world is your backyard or an apartment balcony.

Uncovers the roots and consequences of and offers solutions to the widespread alienation and disconnection that beset modern society Since the beginning of the 21st century, people have become increasingly disconnected from themselves, each other, and the world around them. A “crisis of connection” stemming from growing alienation, social isolation, and fragmentation characterizes modern society. The signs of this crisis of connection are everywhere, from decreasing levels of empathy and trust, to burgeoning cases of suicide, depression and loneliness. The astronomical rise in inequality around the world has contributed to the critical nature of this moment. To delve into the heart of the crisis, leading researchers and practitioners draw from the science of human connection to tell a five-part story about its roots, consequences, and solutions. In doing so, they reveal how we, in modern society, have been captive to a false story about who we are as human. This false narrative that takes individualism as a universal truth, has contributed to many of the problems that we currently face. The new story now emerging from across the human sciences underscores our social and emotional capacities and needs. The science also reveals the ways in which the privileging of the self over relationships and of individual success over the common good as well as the perpetuation of dehumanizing stereotypes have led to a crisis of connection that is now widespread. Finally, the practitioners in the volume present concrete solutions that show ways we can create a more just and humane world. In a time of social distancing and enforced isolation, it is more important than ever to find ways to bridge the gaps among individuals and communities. The Crisis of Connection illuminates concrete pathways to enhancing our awareness of our common humanity, and offers important steps to coming together in unity, even across distances.

A potent new book examines the overlap between our ecological crisis and video games Video games may be fun and immersive diversions from daily life, but can they go beyond the realm of entertainment to do something serious—like help us save the planet? As one of the signature issues of the twenty-first century, ecological deterioration is seemingly everywhere, but it is rarely considered via the realm of interactive digital play. In Playing Nature, Alenda Y. Chang offers groundbreaking methods for exploring this vital overlap. Arguing that games need to be understood as part of a cultural response to the growing ecological crisis, Playing Nature seeds conversations around key environmental science concepts and terms. Chang suggests several ways to rethink existing game taxonomies and theories of agency while revealing surprising fundamental similarities between game play and scientific work. Gracefully reconciling new media theory with environmental criticism, Playing Nature examines an exciting range of games and related art forms, including historical and contemporary analog and digital games, alternate- and augmented-reality games, museum exhibitions, film, and science fiction. Chang puts her surprising ideas into conversation with leading media studies and environmental humanities scholars like Alexander Galloway, Donna Haraway, and Ursula Heise, ultimately exploring manifold ecological futures—not all of them dystopian.

Including contributions on qualitative and digital research from Europe, Asia, Africa, Australasia and the Americas, this volume explores the creative and thoughtful ways in which researchers have adapted methods and rethought relationships in response to challenges arising from crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic, disasters or violent conflict.

Communicating the Climate Crisis puts communication at the center of the change we need, providing concrete strategies that help break the inertia that blocks social and cultural transformation. Reimagining “earth” not just as the ground we walk upon but as the atmosphere we breathe—Eairth—this book examines our consumption-based identities in fossil fuel culture and the necessity of structural change to address the climate crisis. Strategies for overcoming obstacles start with facing the emotional challenges and mental health tolls of the crisis that lead to climate silence. Breaking that silence through personal climate conversations elevates the importance of the problem, finds common ground, and eases “climate anxiety.” Climate justice and faith-based worldviews help articulate our moral responsibility to take drastic action to protect all humans and the living world. This book tells a new story of hope through action—not as isolated, “guilty” consumers but as social actors who engage hearts, hands, and minds to envision and create a desired future.

This book asks how education can be developed to facilitate the radical social, cultural and economic transformations needed to deal with the ongoing climate emergency. The author illuminates important links between the work currently being done in climate change and education and the broader and older theories of radical education: an area of education theory and practice that has long grappled with the question of how to use education to create a more just society. Highlighting both current work and long traditions that include popular, progressive, feminist, anti-racist and anti-colonial education, the author draws on interdisciplinary research to make the case for how radical education can help tackle the climate change crisis. It will have direct relevance for scholars of environmental education and radical education as well as activists and practitioners.