Exploration is about how we experience our most meaningful geography. A geography education without actively learning how to explore places is as frustrating as teaching music lessons without sound. Besides that, in its widest sense, exploration has the potential to be one of the most enjoyable and rewarding things we humans will ever do. It can be good for developing problem-solving, teamwork, social and other vital skills. Therefore, we should be given the opportunities to learn properly how to do it.

The sad reality is that millions of children are socially and geographically deprived (剥夺的). Their learning environments lack the diversity of place and experience-based opportunities that they need to develop well and as a result, they will not reach their full potential.

There is plenty of research showing that many children have little time and space to explore, play and learn outdoors. Perhaps most shockingly, Dirt is Good conducted a survey which found that three-quarters of UK children spend less time outside than prisoners, that the amount of time children spend playing in natural places has decreased and that a fifth of children do not play outside on an average day.

There are a large number of good and complex reasons why parents do not let their children play (and so learn) outdoors and not overcoming these barriers comes with its own risks. Changing the parenting cultures that are overly limiting many children’s freedom will potentially need efforts of generation after generation.

Partially as a response to this situation, an increasing number of doctors are providing social prescriptions (处方). Instead of being offered medicine for a mental or physical illness, young patients are being prescribed time with nature, volunteering, doing sports or some other activities instead.

Teachers are, in many ways, in a better position to provide time and space for children to benefit from experiences that help them not only to learn, but also to be well. Teachers can   spare both formal and informal time and space for exploration that helps not just children who are ill, but also those who are well to remain well or become even better.

The 67-year-old Shangdong Province native, Ge Yuxiu, has lived in Qinghai for 51 years. For almost half that time, he has been on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau(高原), where he has devoted(投入)his life to photographing and conserving wild animals.

Despite serious heart trouble, Ge is determined to stay on the high-altitude plateau and continue to do something to help protect wildlife in the area.

Ge’s love for photography grew after his photo of soldiers reading news written on a black-board was published in Oinghai Daily in 1979. He probably would have never turned to photographing wild animals without a visit to Bird Island in Qinghai Lake in 1995 after he had retired (退休)from the army and had begun working in the financial sector(财政部门).

Covering less than half a square kilometer, the island is home to over 100, 000 migratory birds(候鸟). “I became addicted to the bird kingdom,” Ge said, adding that he has so far visited the island more than 200 times to take photos.

He never expected that his attraction to the island would tie his destiny (命运)with Przewalski’s gazelle(普氏原羚), a relatively small, slender antelope unique to China. Ge went to the island in late 1997 to take photos of swans (天鹅)when he saw seven yellowish-brown animals running across the grasslands, in a line. On hearing one of his companions shouting “Przewalski’s gazelle”, he took out his camera and took photos of them. He was later told by wildlife conservation experts that he had captured (捕捉)the world’s first image of this kind of antelope.

“I was so excited to hear that,” he said. He excitement, however, soon gave way to anxiety after he learned that the animals were endangered. Only found around Qinghai Lake, there were just 300 of them surviving in the wild at the time. The incident became a turning point in Ge’s photography career, as he decided to devote his efforts to saving the gazelle and other endangered animals. He often spent time in the wild observing the gazelle and occasionally visited local herdsmen (牧人)to learn what they knew about the animal.

Thanks to joint efforts, the population of Przewalski’s gazelle has now increased to about 2, 700.