Biophilic Boulder: Children's Environments That Foster Connections to Nature

Across the United States, the movement to reconnect children with nature has grown immensely in the past decade. Many urban children are disconnected from nature, yet nature can provide many important benefits and freedoms for these same children. Biophilic cities seek to incorporate nature into urban life at many scales. Because nature can play an important role in childhood development and because children operate at such small scales, this paper examines the characteristics of a biophilic city in the context of children’s experience. Using case studies from Boulder, Colorado, U.S.A., we illustrate various aspects of biophilic cities that are successful in fostering nature experiences for children and provide design recommendations for other cities that may wish to incorporate biophilic elements into urban design.