Got an e-mail that might interest some of you. There's a conference next week (Wed. Feb. 20) in Baltimore to discuss how schools, local government groups and non-profits can help urban schoolchildren better learn about nature and the environment. The Greater Baltimore Children & Nature Conference, to be held at the Waldorf School of Baltimore, will be the official Maryland launch of the "Leave No Child Inside" campaign.

The campaign to encourage children to spend more time outdoors started spreading across the nation in the last couple of years after Richard Louv's 2005 book "Last Child in the Woods" that diagnosed American children with severe "nature-deficit disorder." In this era of video games and Internet chatrooms, Louv observed that too many American children lack adequate unstructured learning and playtime outdoors. Cities from Chicago to San Francisco are looking to these campaigns to improve child development (through unstructured play) and reduce childhood obesity rates (by encouraging physical activity outside).

The conference in Baltimore has invited more than 150 leaders in local schools, businesses, city government offices and non-profits to come up with ways to beef up outdoor activities for children. The event will hold up examples of children-and-nature work already happening in Baltimore. Take Barclay Elementary/Middle, for example. The school is in the heart of the city -- surrounded by lots of gray and not much green. Recently, the school (with some help from the city) ripped off the concrete once on its playground and replaced it with grass. The school also planted lots of trees and bushes on their property to create a pasture-like habitat that draws birds, butterflies, bees -- a space where children can learn about ecosystems and plant life cycles while playing outdoors.

Conference organizer, Mary Hardcastle, the coordinator for the Maryland chapter of Hooked on Nature, a national environmental education non-profit, says she hopes programs like the one at Barclay's will spread across the Baltimore region. The conference is open to invitees only, but Hardcastle says she and the groups involved plan to develop a host of children-and-nature programs over the next several months that would be open to the greater public -- so keep your eyes peeled!

If you want to know more about the Leave No Child Inside Campaign in Maryland, you can e-mail Hardcastle at mary@hookedonnature.org.