Developing ecological literacy in a forest garden: children’s perspectives

Abstract

Today, cities become more dense, green spaces disappear and children spend less time outdoors. Research suggests that these conditions create health problems and lack of ecological literacy. To reverse such trends, localities are creating urban green spaces for children to visit during school time. Drawing on ideas in ecological literacy, this study investigates school children's perspectives on a forest garden, a type of outdoor educational setting previously only scarcely researched. Data were collected through walk-and-talk conversations and informal interviews with 28 children aged 7 to 9. Many children in the study expressed strong positive feelings about the forest garden, the organized and spontaneous activities there, and caring for the organisms living there. We observed three aspects of learning in the data, potentially beneficial for the development of children's ecological literacy: practical competence, learning how to co-exist and care, and biological knowledge and ecological understanding.

Assessing Ecological Literacy and Its Application Based on Linguistic Ecology: a Case Study of Guiyang City, China

“…When discussing the development of the ecological literacy of children in forest parks, some researchers point out that training children in forest parks will allow them to use all their senses to observe and acquire meaningful situations in the natural world. They will get sense of belonging and become ecologically literate (Hammarsten et al 2018). Therefore, among the inhabitants of Guiyang City, children will stimulate ecological emotion under the guidance of their parents and teachers, while adults will generate ecological emotions based on their own experiences and perception of nature.…”

Redesign of an Outdoor Space in a Swedish Preschool: Opportunities and Constraints for Sustainability Education

“…In Sweden, and the Nordic countries generally, 'love of nature' is an important element of education (Jansson et al 2014) and children are expected to learn the names of local birds, animals and plants (Frisch et al 2010;Spannring 2017). There is also a long tradition of outdoor education in the Nordic countries (Hammarsten et al 2019), including excursions to 'natural' sites. Another related area is the notion of green schoolyards' (Jansson and Mårtensson 2012), as well as gardening as a widespread educational practice (MacQuarrie et al 2015).…”

“…Inversely, from the perspective of ESE, early childhood is a particularly important period since it strongly affects both how we understand and experience the world, and the extent to which we see ourselves as capable of making a change in the world. Research suggests that early childhood experiences of nature shape emotional relations to the natural environment, supporting agency and environmental awareness (Hackett et al 2017;Hammarsten et al 2019). Outdoor education thus lays the foundation for future engagement with and education for sustainability.…”

“…The children took pictures of the outdoor space during the project. Some preschool teachers worked on this part of the project and let the children go out together (four at a time) to photograph what they wanted (Einarsdóttir 2005;Hammarsten et al 2019). During the term that followed, the teachers and the children worked with the photographs as narrative and image-making (cf.…”

Analysis of the influence of outdoor education activities on seventh grade students

“…It is possible to come across many studies on outdoor education (Adams and Savahl, 2017;Askerlund and Almers, 2016;Bennett, 2019;Knight, 2018;Povilaitis et al, 2019;Remington and Legge, 2017;Ritzén, 2018;Sharma-Brymer, Brymer, Gray, and Davids, 2018;Thomas, 2015). Considering some of these; for instance, Hammarsten et al (2019) share positive results in forest garden training with students at the age of 7 and 9. It was determined that students developed strong positive emotions about forest garden trainings, organized works, spontaneous activities and organisms living there.…”