Let's get them into nature then.
Q:
But how do we overcome the barriers between children and nature?
How do we give them the time?
And ensure their safety?
And create the access to nature?
A:
nature schools
According to David Sobel, Nature Schools have a few specific characteristics in common:
A nature-based curriculum, 50% of more time spent outdoors, and nature brought indoors.
(Sobel, 2017)
The best nature schools also:
1. Serve children between 2 and 6 years.
Often otherwise known as preschools.
The exact definition of 'nature preschools' isn't always agreed upon,
but their importance is.
According to the Natural Start Alliance, a program by the National American Association for Environmental Education, to be considered a nature preschool, the school must:
“put nature at the heart of the program,
it must be based on high-quality early childhood education and environmental education practices,
and it must also help lay a foundation for environmental literacy”
(NAAEE 2017).
as these early childhood years are highly significant.
- Children’s nature connection peaks at 5 years old, not raising again until adulthood (Chawla, L. 2020).
- Children under age 6 are in the stage of experience-expectant brain growth: the time when ordinary experiences build a foundation for future learning (Berk, L. 2006).
- Engaging in nature activities prior to age 11 was a significant factor in adult pro-environment attitudes and behaviors (Well, N., & Lekies, K., 2006).
2. Prioritize unstructured outdoor play.
"Play has the potential to improve all aspects of children's well-being"
(Burdette, H., Whitaker, R., 2005).
Play has the potential to:
contribute to cognitive development and social skills
(Burdette, H., Whitaker, R., 2005).
provide opportunities to fully experience objects, sounds, and their environment (Berk, L., 2006).
allow children to experience movement, creativity, and friendship (Burdette, H., Whitaker, R., 2005).
Unstructured Play has the potential to:
provide opportunities to engage in all types of play – functional, solitary, constructive, parralell, make-believe, social, and games with rules
(Berk, L., 2006).
give children necessary stimulation – while avoiding over-stimulation
(Berk, L., 2006).
increase inventiveness, creativity, and the possibility of discovery due to the use of variables (loose parts) (Nicholson, S. 1971).
Outdoor unstructured play has the potential to:
improve children’s attention, affiliation, and affect (Burdette, H., Whitaker, R., 2005).
allow opportunities for decision making that stimulate problem solving and creativity (Burdette, H., Whitaker, R., 2005).
Allow children “child-centered freedom” that allows exploration through multiple senses and intelligences (Sobel, 2017).
provide twice as much play and more creative play than non-green outdoor space (Faber Taylor, A., et al. (1998).
Outdoor unstructured play requires:
Independent children.
Families invested in nature.
Adults that facilitate play.
The role of the teacher is assisting children in play.
Sobel further describes a teacher's role as:
"assuring physical well-being, for scaffolding the structure of the day, for preparing meals, for creating space for things to happen"
(Sobel, 2017).
3. Promote accessible nature.
For many children everywhere outdoors is nature.
And that’s all there is to it.
Children in the Nature of Americans survey listed their special places in nature – most of which were backyards, nearby woods and gardens, while adults usually classified ‘true’ nature as a place requiring solitude and travel – creating a less accessible definition than children (Nature of Americans, 2019).
And for most children, quantity IS quality.
A key feature of a forest kindergarten, according to the Scottish Forestry Commission, is “regular, frequent contact in the same setting over a significant period of time… in all weathers” (Sobel, 2017). And in many studies, as in the study by Tayor & Butts-Wilmsmeyer, found that as frequency and total minutes in green spaces increased, so did the benefits (2020).
We should be "connecting children and curriculum to the nearby natural world" (Sobel, 2017).
4.
Create opportunities for environmental activism.
Adult environmental activism requires practicing environmental activism as a child (Sobel, 2008).
Care must extend to the local nature and then to global nature (Sobel, 2008).