There is an urgent need for young people to learn to know the natural world of which they are a part. Outdoor education is the only means by which people can recover their stone-age identity and discover that they are wildlife, no different in the basics of life than any other species. For most of their story, human beings lived in harmony with the world. Only recently has the combination of numbers and undisciplined greed led humankind to alienation and departure from the natural way. Outdoor education programs that undertake to bring alienated youth back into touch with their own wild natures share four major features: (1) earthlinks, the complete technology of daily living (program components, such as working with food from scratch, that provide intimate links with the environment); (2) stories (myths or science that describe and explain the world); (3) wonder (realization of being alive and related to the environment); and (4) personal identification (expanding sense of self beyond the limits of one's skin). It is essential that all four elements be present. Earthlinks alone makes exploiters. Science alone makes smarter polluters. Wonder alone makes helpless mystics. Personal identification is impossible without the other elements. Why disturb the world outside? Because the world outside is the same as the world inside and you are it. Going away from cities and towns is the only way to find this out. (SV)