The Outdoor Federation recently released its Outdoor Recreation Participation Report and it’s a bit of good-news / bad-news. The good news: 50% of Americans participated in outdoor recreation activities in 2007 and racked up an impressive 11.35 billion outdoor excursions in 2007. The participation numbers represent a 3% increase over 2006 numbers meaning more Americans are enjoying the great outdoors.

Now for the bad news: young Americans’ (ages 6-12) participation in outdoor activities actually dropped 11% in 2007.  According to surveys young people are introduced to the outdoors by parents, friends, and family so it’s a little surprising the increase in overall outdoor activities didn’t influence younger Americans.

It’s not difficult to imagine the reasons for the decline in outdoor participation among children when there are so many entertainment options these days (video games, internet, television, etc.). The survey found the #1 reason children participate in outdoor activities is for fun so it seems to me we need to find new ways to make the outdoors exciting and engaging for the younger generation. New outdoor activities like mountain unicycling, geocaching, and mountain boarding can help but it’s up to adults to encourage young folks to get outside and enjoy the great outdoors!

Related posts:

1. Sports Participation Numbers
2. Camping participation affected by gas prices (sorta)
3. Free entry to National Parks, recreation areas tomorrow!
4. Outdoor classes for women
5. Outdoor GPS Buyers Guide

Tags: kids

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 13th, 2009 at 7:01 am and is filed under outdoor news. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.