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For the past 12 years Growing Up Boulder was a part of CU Boulder's  Community Engagement, Design and Research (CEDaR) Center. Now one of the most successful child-friendly city initiatives in the world, GUB is transitioning to an independent nonprofit, a model for how the university can develop, nurture and then spin off nonprofit activities.

Pollinator-themed designs are now being accepted for a new Colorado license plate honoring bees. Pollinators are necessary for many crops and sustain many of the wildflowers and flowering trees and shrubs on Colorado’s wildlands, says Louise Chawla, CEDaR fellow and professor emerita in the Program in Environmental Design. Chawla serves on the leadership committee of People and Pollinators Action Network, a statewide group that works for healthy ecosystems and biodiverse habitat for pollinators.

In February 2021, Louise Chawla, CEDaR fellow and professor emerita in the Program in Environmental Design, was invited to give an opening speech for a weeklong Festival of Early Infancy (birth to 6 year olds) in the city of Strasbourg, France on the topic of “Connecting Children with Nature to Foster Wellbeing and a Caring Relationship with the Natural World.”

Do you love bees and want to help them? You can make a difference by showing your support for a new Colorado pollinator license plate.  This month the state legislature is considering a new special license plate that will support

Louise Chawla, environmental psychologist and CEDaR fellow, recently completed a review that brings two bodies of research together: one on connecting children and adolescents with nature, and the second on supporting healthy coping when they realize they are part of a planet in peril. The review shows that when children and adolescents feel connected to nature, they are more likely to report good health and a sense of well-being, more likely to get high scores for creative thinking, and more inclined to show cooperative, helping behaviors. On the flip side, city families stuck indoors during COVID-19 reported mounting stress and deteriorating behavior in their children.

Whether they’re dealing with smoke from wildfires, living through severe storms, or staying inside because of COVID-19, children are being forced to see the world differently in 2020. How they are learning and what they are learning about the world is quickly changing as many environmental and health threats occur simultaneously. Chawla was recently asked to write a comprehensive literature review for the British Ecological Society journal People and Nature, about how children connect with nature these days. CU Boulder Today caught up with Chawla to discuss her findings in the context of a year with many environmental challenges.

A literature review by Louise Chawla, professor emerita at the University of Colorado Boulder and CEDaR fellow, finds that children are happier and more likely to protect the natural world when they have a greater connection to it, but this connection is complex and can also generate negative emotions linked to issues like climate change. The review was published in the British Ecological Society Journal People and Nature.

Louise Chawla, professor emerita in the Program in Environmental Design and CEDaR fellow, received a 2020 SHIFT (Shaping How We Invest for Tomorrow) Award for Research for her investigations of connections between access to nature, children’s health and wellbeing, and childhood sources of lifelong care for the natural world.

About 175 people attended the fourth annual Colorado Pollinator Summit, “Protecting Colorado’s Biodiversity," which was planned by the Community Engagement, Design and Research center and others. The Nov. 1 event featured plenary talks and panels on urban neighborhoods, landscaping for biodiversity and holistic farming in Colorado.

Louise Chawla, CEDaR fellow and professor emerita, Mara Mintzer, Growing Up Boulder program director, and Victoria Derr, authors of "Placemaking with Children and Youth: Participatory Practices for Planning Sustainable Communities," received the 2019 Environmental Design Research Association (EDRA) Achievement Award for their publication at EDRA’s 50th anniversary conference. The book has received endorsements from many of the most respected child/youth environmental researchers, practitioners and advocates.