Fostering Children’s Connection to Nature Through Authentic Situations: The Case of Saving Salamanders at School

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to explore how children learn to form new relationships with nature. It draws on a longitudinal case study of children participating in a stewardship project involving the conservation of salamanders during the school day in Stockholm, Sweden. The qualitative method includes two waves of data collection: when a group of 10-year-old children participated in the project (2015) and 2 years after they participated (2017). We conducted 49 interviews with children as well as using participant observations and questionnaires. We found indications that children developed sympathy for salamanders and increased concern and care for nature, and that such relationships persisted 2 years after participation. Our rich qualitative data suggest that whole situations of sufficient unpredictability triggering free exploration of the area, direct sensory contact and significant experiences of interacting with a species were important for children’s development of affective relationships with the salamander species and with nature in an open-ended sense. Saving the lives of trapped animals enabled direct sensory interaction, feedback, increased understanding, and development of new skills for dynamically exploring further ways of saving species in an interactive process experienced as deeply meaningful, enjoyable and connecting. The behavioral setting instilled a sense of pride and commitment, and the high degree of responsibility given to the children while exploring the habitat during authentic situations enriched children’s enjoyment. The study has implications for the design of education programs that aim to connect children with nature and for a child-sensitive urban policy that supports authentic nature situations in close spatial proximity to preschools and schools.

ART FOR CHANGE: Transformative learning and youth empowerment in a changing climate

“…These learning approaches focus less on outcomes, and more on what people want to learn and how they learn. Research from psychology (Krathwohl et al, 1964;Rowson, 2011), sociology (Everard et al, 2016), environmental education (Barthel et al, 2018;Chawla and Cushing, 2007;Ernst and Theimer, 2011) management studies and environmental management (Ballard and Belsky, 2010;, among other disciplines, emphasizes the role of experience, exploration, dialogue, and reflection in transformative learning processes. Below, we consider how each of these can contribute to more empowering responses to climate change.…”

“…When discussing transformative learning in relation to climate change, research has suggested that learning needs to be exploratory and open-ended, making room for creative, unexplored practices (Barthel et al, 2018;Chawla, 2007;Giusti et al, 2018) that shine light on the inner dimensions of sustainability (O'Brien and Hochachka, 2010;O'Brien and Wolf, 2010;Scheffer et al, 2017;Sharma, 2017). In contrast to traditional learning approaches, which tend to stay within existing boundaries and ways of thinking, transformative learning involves questioning assumptions and challenging "the given" (Bateson, 1999;Sterling, n.d.).…”

Countryside within the City: A Motivating Vision behind Civic Green Area Stewardship in Warsaw, Poland

“…Acting on such a vision could lead to the greening of cities and to a living environment for urban people that enables the broad-based development of pro-environmental values [13]. Drawing on the recent insights in ecological psychology, stewardship action may have a global sustainability implication in simultaneously shaping behavior and environmental attitudes among two-thirds of the global population in the urban Anthropocene [12,14,71]-a view with roots in Bem's [7] self-perception theory of attitude change, which assumes that people acquire positive attitudes toward an attitudinal object because of what they do behaviorally (as opposed to the opposite assumption that people behave in certain ways because they like it). For instance, food cultivation activities are a sustainability issue of great importance especially for people in cities [9,23,69].…”

“…The literature in psychology and sociology suggests that such pro-environmental behavior in turn could shape inner motivations for broad-based environmental action, such as fostering a stronger connection to nature and enhanced levels of place-based well-being [7][8][9][10]. The massive scale and pace of global urbanization may lead to an alienation process in which a significant proportion of the future human population will find itself separated from sensory interaction with natural environments, which may lead to a broad-based social-ecological amnesia [11][12][13][14]. Civic ecology and stewardship are two concepts that illuminate civic restoration and the management of urban natural environments, and they are also argued to lead to learning, a deepening of connections with nature, and strengthened social bonds [5,14,15].…”

“…The massive scale and pace of global urbanization may lead to an alienation process in which a significant proportion of the future human population will find itself separated from sensory interaction with natural environments, which may lead to a broad-based social-ecological amnesia [11][12][13][14]. Civic ecology and stewardship are two concepts that illuminate civic restoration and the management of urban natural environments, and they are also argued to lead to learning, a deepening of connections with nature, and strengthened social bonds [5,14,15].…”