Why NWF Wants More Recess Time for the Kids
The National Wildlife Federation wants your kids to get more recess time.
That's the gist of a new push from an advocacy group whose goal is to get 10 million kids outside over three years.
The effort comes amid reports that children spend most of their time indoors.
"A child is six times more likely to play a video game on a typical day than to ride a bike, according to surveys by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the CDC," USA Today reports.
But that's not the only problem, the federation says, and this is where recess comes in.
"After school commitments from homework to extracurricular activities, shorter or nonexistent recess during the school day, lack of access to outdoor play spaces and parental safety concerns about unsupervised outdoor play have all led to kids spending an alarming amount of time within the confines of four walls," the federation said in a statement.
In addition to working with parents, caregivers and institutions such as schools, NWF says there will be a K Street component to its effort.
NWF's Patrick Fitzgerald says the federation supports Sen. Mark Udall of Colorado and Rep. Ron Kind of Wisconsin on the Healthy Kids Outdoors Act, which hasn't gone anywhere in the 112th Congress.
So far this year, NWF has spent $400,000 on lobbying, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics.
That's the gist of a new push from an advocacy group whose goal is to get 10 million kids outside over three years.
The effort comes amid reports that children spend most of their time indoors.
"A child is six times more likely to play a video game on a typical day than to ride a bike, according to surveys by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the CDC," USA Today reports.
But that's not the only problem, the federation says, and this is where recess comes in.
"After school commitments from homework to extracurricular activities, shorter or nonexistent recess during the school day, lack of access to outdoor play spaces and parental safety concerns about unsupervised outdoor play have all led to kids spending an alarming amount of time within the confines of four walls," the federation said in a statement.
In addition to working with parents, caregivers and institutions such as schools, NWF says there will be a K Street component to its effort.
NWF's Patrick Fitzgerald says the federation supports Sen. Mark Udall of Colorado and Rep. Ron Kind of Wisconsin on the Healthy Kids Outdoors Act, which hasn't gone anywhere in the 112th Congress.
So far this year, NWF has spent $400,000 on lobbying, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics.
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