N Need for Nature Connectedness in Urban Youth for Environmental Sustainability Tanya Clark 1 , Tara Rava Zolnikov 1,2 and Frances Furio 1 1 School of Behavioral Sciences, California Southern University, Costa Mesa, CA, USA 2 Department of Community Health, National University, San Diego, CA, USA Introduction Environmental sustainability is one of the most significant global challenges in the twenty-first century (World Health Organization [WHO] 2015; Barrera-Hernández et al. 2020). Educating individuals on how to engage in pro-environmental behavior is crucial for solving environmental degradation issues (Biggar and Ardoin 2017; Ernst and Theimer 2011). Experts believe that environmental education (EE) for youth is a key factor in mitigating this dire sce- nario (Barrera-Hernández et al. 2020). Research shows that connecting children and adults with the natural environment is a powerful environmental sustainability intervention (Martin et al. 2020). Additionally, studies show that nature connected- ness is positively correlated to well-being, further reinforcing the power of this intervention to influence ecological change (Barrable and Booth 2020). Environmental education is a widespread mechanism for introducing youth to the complex- ities of environmental sustainability (Liefländer et al. 2013; Kopnina 2012). From 1994 to 2013, the number of published studies on measurable student outcomes in EE grew steadily and con- tinues to increase (Ardoin et al. 2017). EE research is a relatively new field and in general environmental attitudes, knowledge, and behavior are traditional outcomes (Ardoin et al. 2018). Research shows that the scope of EE activities is broad, ranging from traditional group workshops to outdoor geo games (Hoang and Kato 2016; Schneider and Schaal 2018). Research suggests that the optimal way to establish a connection to nature for the purpose of inducing pro-environmental behavior may not be by means of cognitive knowledge but rather via emotion, appreciation, and sustained contact (Lumber et al. 2017). A large body of EE research has concentrated on environmental knowledge or attitudinal outcomes, while less studies have focused on the promotion of nature connectedness (Liefländer et al. 2013). However, the Nature in Self Scale has been used to show that EE partic- ipation can culminate in a strong short-term rise in nature connectedness (Liefländer et al. 2013). As such, enhancing one’ s internal connection to nature should be considered a primary focus for EE (Frantz and Mayer 2014) and in particular a goal for children’ s EE (Otto and Pensini 2017). © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 R. Brears (ed.), The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Urban and Regional Futures, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-51812-7_66-1