In today’s society the concepts of the environment and of nature have become so abstracted that they are seemingly unattainable for today’s youth. The common thought associated with the environment is maybe a rolling evergreen forest or the dying coral reefs—practically untouchable.

The ideas of going green and protecting “the environment” are synonymous with a limited definition of environment—a much more constricting definition than what many kids born before 2000 grew up learning. Today there is a high pressure to fix the state of impending environmental catastrophe awaiting the human race on the other end of the present. For this reason, children are taught the importance of the environment and not how to connect to it. While awareness is a completely valid idea to be teaching today’s youth, this type of teaching is inhibiting the ability of kids to see beyond the “green” definition into the possible relationship to be had with the world.

The environment should not be a concept so idealized and compartmentalized that it can no longer be connected to—because nature, environment, it’s everywhere. It’s all around us. It exists between the floor board slats, in the ocean foam, in the window panes of the high rises, in the ramshackle sheds of rural America.

What the environment means to people today is a flat comparison of what it represents in a grander picture. Environment and nature are just words, but what they mean crosses the boundaries of our definitions.

“[The environment is] the place we all exist in, I guess.” (Rosie, 18)

“My definition is the place [we] live in and the features of it. So, for example, the people…the place, is it developed? What’s the weather like?” (Tommy, 18)

Asking most young adults “what the environment means to them” gets a textbook ready answer. It’s import that the developing adults of today and future rulers of tomorrow can interpret the environment and see past the solely plant-based façade forged for today’s youth, but rather the way of thinking is an abstraction as well.

Seeing the environment as a passive place for us to be in, gives each one of us an easy way out of what’s going on in it—as if we are not responsible for it. But as active inhabitants, it is our duty to realize that the world we live in is the one we create every single day—by perpetuating social norms or tearing them down. It is a connection, a relationship, an interaction.

“It’s really simplistic, but my definition of the environment is the world that humans interact with on a daily basis.” (Reilly, 18)

And all it takes is just one definition to change everything.