Most children today are hard-pressed to develop a sense of wonder, to induce what [Bernard] Berenson called the "spirit of place" while playing video games or trapped inside the house because of a fear of crime. Asked to name their special favorite places, children describe their room or an attic -- somewhere quiet. . . . So finding wonder outside of nature is surely possible. But electronics or the built environment do not offer the array of physical loose parts, nor the physical space to wander.

Richard Louv, Last Child in the Woods