Children are more creative when they learn in natural surroundings, according to new research from Curtin University. Primary school students in Australia and England were put to the test to see whether writing poetry in a natural outdoor setting produced more creative outcomes than writing in a classroom, and the answer was yes.

Dr Paul Gardner and Sonja Kuzich from Curtin’s School of Education ran comparative trials with 10-year-old students in both countries and the results, recently published in the Cambridge Journal of Education, gave a big thumbs-up to the positive influence of natural settings. “We found that students who had direct contact with nature by immersing (沉浸) themselves in a bush or forest setting were much more descriptive and vivid in the language they used than the classroom-based writers who ‘imagined’ being in nature through photos,” Dr Gardner said.

In total, 97 students took part in the study, split across four classrooms, including two based at an English primary school and two from a primary school in Western Australia. In each country one class visited a natural bush or forest before writing a poem based on what they saw, smelt and felt. The other class viewed a pile of images of the same bush or forest setting.

Ms Kuzich said the difference in creative language used between the classes was obvious with twice as many UK forest students using figurative (比喻的) language compared with their class-based counterparts. In Australia that figure rose to more than four times when comparing the poetry of the bush-based students with those who remained at school.

The researchers say further studies of larger groups are now recommended to gain greater understanding of the influence of natural spaces and “green learning” in schools. Future research may also be needed to examine if the green learning can be translated into other learning themes or context to see if there is a flow on effect in different environments.

In sports, sometimes a player has to take one for the team. The same appears to be true in the plant world, where reduced individual growth can benefit the broader community. The findings from the University of Michigan’s Paul Glaum and André Kessler of Cornell University help explain the persistence (持续存在) of some plant communities when theory predicts they should go extinct(绝种的).

“We looked at how chemical defense cues (信号) from plants, meant to prevent herbivores (食草动物), can also prevent pollinators,” said Glaum, a doctoral student in the U-M Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. “The surprising model result is that while this can lead to fitness losses for individuals, the population effects can be positive for pollinators and plants under some circumstances.”

Many plants, including the wild tomato species used in this study, produce chemical compounds to repel (排斥) insect pests and other hungry herbivores. But those same chemical defenses can reduce the number of visits to the plant by pollinators such as bees, resulting in less pollination of individual plants and decreased growth.

“Biologists have puzzled over how such a costly defense mechanism (机制) can be maintained in these plant populations,” Glaum said. “How would a plant population with such a strategy persist?” Glaum and Kessler developed a computer model showing that decreased growth of individual plants can benefit overall populations and community resilience (恢复力) by indirectly controlling herbivore population growth. The results introduce mechanisms of persistence into communities previously found to be prone (易于遭受的) to extinction in theoretical models.

Tomatoes and other plants produce repellent chemicals called volatile (易挥发的) organic compounds in response to herbivore attacks. The presence of these so-called herbivore-induced volatile organic compounds can make the plant less attractive to pollinators, which can reduce pollen deposition (沉淀物) and negatively affect individual plants, an effect known as herbivore-induced pollinator limitation.

Previous modeling studies have looked at the direct effects of herbivory on a three-species community: flowering plant, pollinator and herbivore. Some of those studies predicted extinctions because growing herbivore populations would reduce the number of plants, limiting resources available to pollinators. In response, the pollinator population would decline, lowering plant reproduction.

“When we are stressed, we are more likely to want to avoid not just the task at hand, but the negative emotions we feel around that task as well,” Alicia Wafaa neuroscientist and senior lecturer at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York, explains. “That’s because at a basic neuroscientific level, we have a bias toward the present and prefer the immediate reward of feeling good when the brain releases the neurochemical dopamine (多巴胺).”

Essentially, our brains are hardwired to approach tasks we find enjoyable and avoid those that produce negative feelings. “Our limbic brain (大脑边缘系统), the emotional part of our brain, is saying, ‘Let’s do this other thing and avoid that other stressful thing, while our prefrontal cortex (前额叶脑皮层) is the CEO of our brain, ” says Walf. “It’s making a plan, setting the goals, and making sure we stay on track. But there can be a disconnect when our limbic brain denies that prefrontal cortex message.” Then there’s the burst of energy we often get when we’re up against a deadline, which leads to a reward pathway within our brains and sets the foundation for procrastination (拖延症) as a habit. “When you sprint (冲刺) to the end and get to the goal, it’s so satisfying; we almost get ourselves in that pattern of ‘Well, I got it done, and it felt good,’” says Walf.

In an effort to retrain your brain, Walf recommends taking breaks to refocus your attention on the task at hand. Methods such as the Pomodoro Technique can help you stay focused, in which you work within 25-minute intervals followed by five-minute breaks and continue circling until the task of the day is completed. Integrating mindfulness techniques during those breaks， such as meditation (冥想), yoga, and journaling, can also help reduce the stress that causes procrastination. “Trying to minimize stress by deliberately refocusing on whatever the task is, versus those feelings of anxiety, is about retraining your approach to stress and behaviors,“ says Walf.

It can also help to “eat that frog”, or tackle the most difficult and most meaningful task of the day and do it first thing in the morning. If all else fails, try tricking your brain by giving yourself a small reward for working on the task you’ve been avoiding. “Little rewards really help us, especially when we’re trying to reach a large goal,” says Walf. “You have to recharge and keep yourself motivated. ”