Plant a tree if you want your child to come first!

A study published in the Journal Plos Medicine shows that higher percentage of children, with less green spaces around, have IQ less than 80, compared to those living in green surroundings. All other variables remaining equal. it goes on to prove that a 4% increase in green surroundings leads to 2.6 points increase in IQ [ Ref. The Guardian, Aug 24,2020].

To consider IQ as a measure of intelligence is flawed and to go around measuring intelligence is so last year. We know this. But I am just excited that finally we have a concrete measure for something that we've always known - that greener spaces make children [and others] happy and stress free. A happy, stress-free child is more likely to complete tasks and achieve whatever s/he set out for herself.

Children come for my forest walks, and I don't know about their IQ, and their parents clearly underplay 'academic achievement' so I don't know if they come first in class. Some of them are anyway home-schooled. But without exception, ALL of them are bright, energetic, curious little people, who are very happy. And calm. NONE of them throw tantrums like the children I see in Malls [yes I've been a few times!]. And they come from a range of socio-economic backgrounds, united only in their happiness of being in nature. 

When trying to attach economic value to ecosystems and biodiversity, we struggle to quantify things like - the sheer joy of walking in a forest, the calm we feel when sitting by a river. This IQ measure might just make it easier for my students...