Helping Children Connect With Nature Blog

This blog provides you with ways in which you can help children get connected with nature. First, you will delve into the benefits of a relationship with nature and then you will explore ideas for connecting children with nature in practice.

On the run-up to John Muir Day on the 21^st of April we thought that this blog would shed some light on why a relationship with nature is important for our children’s health and wellbeing. John Muir was a Scottish-born American naturalist and conservationist. He was a pioneer who dedicated his life to protecting natural spaces and living beings. John Muir Day invites us to open the door and spend time in nature, building a lifelong relationship with it.

Biophilia and Urbanisation

There is evidence that human beings have been close to nature, and interconnected to it, for thousands of years. Erich Fromm first used the term biophilia, which literally means ‘friendship of life’. The word comes from the Greek words bio (life) and philia (friendship), to describe the act of being drawn to all that is alive and vital for life. In the 1980s, Harvard University biologist Edward O. Wilson suggested that the connection humans have with other life forms and nature are rooted in our biology. In short, biophilia suggests that humans are instinctively drawn towards their natural surroundings and that connection with nature is an innate human need.

Close connection with nature started to dwindle as people moved from rural areas to the cities in what is known as urbanisation. According to this research, for more of our human history we lived in low-density, rural areas. By 1800, over 90% of the global population still lived in rural areas. These numbers show that migration to towns and cities is a recent phenomenon, limited to the past 200 years. Looking to the future, it’s estimated that by 2050 more than two-thirds of the world will live in urban settings. That’s a big change for people who used to live close to nature for most of their human history. Urbanisation, with its modern life and developing technologies, have resulted in many people, children among them, having sedentary lifestyles and being disconnected from nature.

As late as the end of the 20^th century, children grew up playing outdoors, climbing trees and building dens. The lack of video games and screens at home meant that children spent most of their free time outdoors, playing with friends. Today, many children grow up spending most of their time indoors. Whether this is due to the lack of nearby outdoor spaces, parents’ worry for their children’s safety or the easy access to screens at home, is not easy to tell and every family’s circumstances are different. However, one thing is true: children need to spend more time outdoors and in nature. The lack of connection with nature has seen the development of a new disorder, the nature deficit disorder. This disorder might not be recognised as a mental disorder but it is a reality of our times. Nature deficit disorder encapsulates the idea that human beings, especially children, are spending less time outdoors, and the belief that this lack of outdoor connection results in a wide range of behavioural problems.

Fortunately, Scotland is more green than grey with green spaces covering more than half of the urban land area. This means that even families who don’t have access to a private garden or live in the busy city centre, can usually access some sort of green space close to their area, such as a park, a hill or a green path. According to this 2018 report from Greenspace Scotland, almost half of the Scots live less than five minutes away from a green space and 30% live within five to ten minutes away.

What Are the Benefits of Connecting With Nature?

Building Confidence and Resilience

When children spend time in nature, there will be times when they will need to make decisions or assess risky situations. Sometimes, they will try a specific approach to something and fail; other times, they will be successful. This try and fail approach will help them build their confidence and learn from their mistakes. Trusting children to spend some time outdoors with friends or on their own (without adults) can help develop their independence and confidence.

Promoting Creativity and Imagination

Children are innate explorers, demonstrating their curiosity for all sorts of things. Encouraging them to spend time in nature will help them approach the world in inventive ways. When children spend time in nature, they usually come up with their own activities and try out different kinds of play, as there is room for exploration.

Developing Problem-Solving Skills

This benefit links to confidence and resilience. Spending time in nature and facing challenges encourages children to reflect on how to deal with situations and how to react in different scenarios. If a problem arises, they will use their problem-solving skills to deal with the situation.

Responsibility

This one goes without saying. Children who spend time in nature become more responsible. A child that forgets to water the flowers learns by experience that not taking care of a plant will cause it to wither and die. Dealing with challenges or risks will teach them what a risk is and how they can keep themselves and others safe when faced with one. For example, climbing a tree will encourage them to reflect on the risk of climbing, taking necessary precautions to keep them safe, and this will help them take responsibility for their choice.

Developing an Inquisitive Mind

Children who spend time in a natural environment develop their inquisitive mind by questioning, thinking, exploring and discovering. Nature is full of opportunities for exploration and reflection.

Stimulating the Senses

In contrast with spending time indoors, spending time in nature is more stimulating for our senses. Smell, sight, hearing, touch and even taste are stimulated more when in a natural environment. If you have ever walked barefoot in the garden or touched the soil with bare hands, you will have noticed a feeling of contentment. Simple experiences such as hearing the birds singing or the river flowing are known to increase a sense of wellness.

Improving Physical and Mental Health and Wellbeing

Spending time in nature contributes greatly to:

Physical health. A walk in nature or a hike to the nearby hill increases fitness levels. Children who grow up learning to keep active face fewer physical and mental illnesses in their lives. Moreover, exposure to sunlight and absorption of vitamin D contributes to a strong immune system. Lack of vitamin D can cause rickets in children and make the bones weak. Spending some time in the sunlight, taking the necessary precautions, can contribute to children’s health and development.
Mental health. Being in touch with nature either by cycling, hiking, walking or just being in nature can increase the level of contentment and reduce fatigue and anxiety even in children. Keeping them active reduces tension, releases energy and allows high levels of relaxation for both body and mind. Several studies have found that exposure to nature can reduce symptoms of ADHD and anxiety.
Mindfulness. Spending time in nature helps children focus on the here and now. When they dig a hole or watch an ant carrying its food, they stay connected to the present.

Providing Outdoor Learning Opportunities

A walk in nature can trigger a range of learning opportunities. Rather than limiting the experience to reading a school book, children go out and experience for themselves. Creating bonds with the natural world will help them make connections with real life.

Contributing to the Protection of the Environment

Last but not least, fostering a connection between children and nature contributes to raising young people who care about the environment. Children grow into adults and our world needs people who will love and protect the environment. If they have never had experiences in nature or haven’t experienced the joy of watching a bird building its nest, how will they build that connection? The only way to enable them to grow comfortable in nature is to open the door and let them out to explore the wonder of the natural world.

Ideas for Getting Children Into Nature

Whether you’re a teacher or a parent looking to find ways to get your children into nature, read on. Below, you will explore a range of ideas that will help children get out and about, along with helpful resources created by our Scottish team at Twinkl. Before you take your child outdoors or create an activity for them, remember that providing a reasonable balance of risk and safety is necessary, and offering some level of challenge allows children to learn new skills.

Bring nature indoors. Bring plants inside your house or classroom and ask children to take care of a plant by watering and keeping it clean. This Creating a Biophilic Learning Environment PowerPoint is great for teachers who want to bring nature into their classrooms. Parents can take some ideas too!
If you have a garden, ask them to help you with gardening, such as sowing seeds or mowing the lawn.
Encourage your child to help with outdoor chores, such as shovelling the snow in the winter, stacking wood, washing the car or taking out the rubbish and recycling. All of these actions will help them get closer to natural materials, such as wood and water, and become more sustainably sensitive.
Organise escapes to a park or beach and set up treasure hunts. You can either hide things and ask them to look for them or encourage them to find as many insects or flowers as they can in a set amount of time.
Scotland has a rich natural environment. If you can, why not create escape opportunities with your child across the country? The Cairngorms National Park and Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park are just a few of the natural environments where children can delve into nature.
Take them to a natural environment that is rich in life and explore the area with them. Help children identify flowers, trees and bugs. Use our series of Wild Scotland PowerPoints to help you learn what nature is up to each month.
Go fruit or vegetable picking in areas where this is allowed.
Go cycling or hiking. The sense of accomplishment at the end or the amazing views will reward your child for their physical efforts. Why not walk the John Muir trail with them?
Instead of staying inside, take the learning outdoors. Why not use resources such as these John Muir Outdoor Challenges Cards to incorporate nature into learning?
Encourage children to make art projects using natural materials. Picking flowers to create a sun-catcher, using berry juice as paint or collecting rocks to colour are ways to include nature into activities and bring them home.
Help them build something: a den, a tree house, a bug hotel, bird feeders.
Use technology to your advantage: go exploring and bring a camera with you. Ask your child to take pictures and videos of what caught their eye. Once back home, look at them together and decide on the best shots. Why not create a photo album with them?
Gaze at the clouds in the morning and at the stars at night.
Go birdwatching and listen to birds singing.
Lead by example. Stay connected to nature and bring it in your daily life. Children learn by mimicking behaviours.

The ideas above are not exhaustive. For more ideas for activities you can do with children in nature use these comprehensive John Muir Topic Webs for First and Second Level learners or this lovely Scottish Wildlife Mini Home Learning Topic for Early Level learners. If you’re a teacher and you’re interested in learning more about nature pedagogy and outdoor learning environments, why not have a look at these amazing Creating an Outdoor Learning Environment and Nature Pedagogy PowerPoints?

Educating children about nature and providing them with opportunities to explore and connect with it can help reverse the trend of our times, resulting not only in improved health and wellbeing in our children but also in higher chances for our nature’s preservation and survival.

Ideas for Nature Escapes

Scotland’s National Nature Reserves

Scotland’s National parks and natural heritage sites, Visit Scotland

John Muir Trust