Here’s an update from Natural England by way of relevant evidence and reports, policy agenda developments, large scale delivery sector initiatives, resources and news items from the UK and abroad, with a focus on schools, education and learning. This supports the Strategic Research Network for People and Nature to develop better coherence and collaboration in research and to improve links between research, policy and practice in these areas.
Children and Nature Network Research Digest.
Fostering resilience through nature engagement
Nearby nature and engagement in nature-based activities are increasingly recognized as critical for the well-being of children under stress or at risk for stressful life events. This Digest offers evidence-based suggestions for using nature to prevent or combat some of the negative impacts of childhood adversity.
Nature Journaling in the High School Classroom
J Bollich – The American Biology Teacher
Many of today’s adolescents have little to no connection to their environments or the native plants and animals that share their spaces. This is primarily due to a significant decrease in the amount of time children spend outdoors now, compared with children in the mid to late 20th century, compounded by a lack of natural history and outdoor experiences in schools. Nature journaling is an effective way for life science teachers to get adolescents outside and incorporate nature studies into their lessons. Students engaged in regular, sustained nature journaling could experience an increase in literacy and critical thinking skills, an increase in understanding and connections to their native landscapes, and a decline in anxiety and depression.
They should all enjoy it, right? An autoethnographic narrative on teaching early childhood student teachers in the natural outdoor environment.
T Du Plessis – He Kupu
Growing up with ample experiences in nature and forming a strong connection with it left me to assume that all people equally value its influence and impact on the holistic development and wellbeing of children. That is, until I recently started working in tertiary initial teacher education. Coaching student teachers on facilitating learning for children in nature shed new light on these suppositions of mine when some of them did not share my sentiments. Wait, they don’t? This autoethnographic narrative of my personal experience with teaching early childhood student teachers in a nature-based, outdoor learning environment highlights a number of benefits of teaching and learning in and from nature. Literature is analysed within the narrative to review the challenges and some alternative strategies, when not all early childhood education students in the natural outdoor learning environment portrayed equal enjoyment of being in and learning from nature.
How Education Can Be Leveraged to Foster Adolescents’ Nature Connection
S Heyman et al. – Chapter in Outdoor Environmental Education in the Contemporary World
Scientific research on the relationship between nature and health/wellbeing has increased dramatically in recent years. Contact with nature during childhood, both within formal and informal learning contexts, has diverse demonstrated positive effects on young people. In this chapter, we present the results of an interdisciplinary systematic literature review that brings together key insights on the relevance of outdoor leaning from the health and education sciences perspectives.
Forest School – The UK Context: How This Nature-Based Outdoor Education Became a New ‘Term’ in the UK and What Challenges Does it Face in 2022?
J Cree – Chapter in Outdoor Environmental Education in the Contemporary World
Forest School has, in the UK, become synonymous with most outdoor education approaches, which has caused much confusion in the field – particularly in the UK Primary School sector (4–11 years old). It is now present in many settings both formal and informal throughout the UK and is beginning to influence national education policy and strategy. Often the Forest School term is used and yet it is a ‘lesson’ using the outdoors to enhance the curriculum. This chapter will look at the evolution of Forest School in the UK since the term was adopted in 1993 and trace how it has changed, and it will look at the effects of long-term contact with a natural area and whether this encourages deeper ongoing nature connection, understanding and ‘caring’ for the place in which the Forest School programmes happens.
Is Policy the Whole Story? International Trends and Perspective in Policy Making and Enactment in Outdoor Environmental Education
Dafna Gan et al. – Chapter in Outdoor Environmental Education in the Contemporary World
Children’s lifestyle in the developed world has shifted from out of doors to inside the home; accordingly, children are distanced both emotionally and physically from their natural environment. This is despite literature that indicates the importance of the connection to nature during childhood for students’ cognitive, physical, emotional and social development, and embracing pro-environmental perspectives. In this study, 30 articles on outdoor education policy were reviewed. Countries worldwide are familiar with the advantages of outdoor education and have implemented it in various policies. Despite its importance, discrepancies impede policy implementation. This article indicates the importance of policy making that corresponds with the unique characteristics and culture of the countries addressed. Implementing the approach and ideas of outdoor education requires appropriate teacher training for both those proficient in this type of teaching and those who are experiencing it for the first time.
Outdoor Environmental Education: Grounding a Tradition Within Environmental Education
D Goldman and I Alkaher – Chapter in Outdoor Environmental Education in the Contemporary World
Outdoor education and environmental education developed as separate educational movements, each with distinctive aspects but also closely related, sharing some common content and underlying educational pedagogies. This chapter seeks to anchor this association leading to outdoor environmental education (OEE) as a contemporary form of environmental education in which the outdoors provides a setting conducive for meaningful teaching and learning in environmental education. Many educational systems still do not acknowledge the outdoors as legitimate learning settings that can promote meaningful learning in the contemporary world. This chapter closes in addressing some of the ongoing practical challenges confronting OEE that arise from this situation.
Connecting students to outdoor learning via forest school
D Cudworth – Chapter in Understanding Education Studies
The promotion of sustainability and knowledge of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) should become part of teaching and learning in all educational settings. By offering students, at one Higher Education Institution (HEI), a module based on Forest School practice, this chapter discusses the module developed such knowledge and understanding of sustainability and pro-environmental sensibilities. The chapter also discusses the relationship with nature connection and wellbeing. With some sessions taking place outside students were able to immerse themselves in nature and reflect on theory and practice in relation to education for sustainability and their own wellbeing.
Constructing Forest Learning: A Pedagogy for Practice
M Mackinder – Book
Constructing Forest Learning explores the origins of Forest School in Denmark and compares the two different approaches taken in Denmark and England, setting out a ‘model’ pedagogy for practice from a theoretical perspective using a constructivist lens.
Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats: a SWOT analysis of a long-term outdoor environmental education program in Israel
A Gal – Journal of Outdoor and Environmental Education
The article presents a SWOT analysis of a long-term outdoor environmental education program (the conservation of the endangered Lesser Kestrel), on-going since 1996. The aim of the study was to understand the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) that enable the ongoing existence of the Lesser Kestrel outdoor environmental education program at this school. The results relate to the Lesser Kestrels, students, teachers and school administration, parents, and the regional council. The strengths and opportunities seem to outweigh the threats and weaknesses of such a program, enabling the program’s long-term success. In summary, long-term outdoor environmental education programs which enable the achievement of environmental education goals over time can have significant positive impacts, both environmentally and with the communities involved, and are sustainable, given appropriate attention is given to relationships involving experts and funding bodies.
What counts as nature in designing environmental links to health education curriculum in initial teacher education?
B Cumbo and R Welch – Sport, Education and Society
In this paper we report on a teacher education co-design project that explored Australian pre-service primary generalist teachers’ ideations of the pedagogical links between health education and nature. We present a thematic analysis of the quality of student-nature interactions in the groups’ learning designs through: (i) exploration; (ii) embodiment; (iii) cultivation; (iv) appropriation; and (v) representation. The analysis and discussion has implications for the way quality health education is linked to nature-based learning environments, teacher education and contemporary curriculum enactment that incorporates nature and the environment as part of the learning design.