Four journal entries completed over a period of a year are used to frame a discussion about the role of the parent and nature in the development of a young child's ecological identity. The journal entries -- completed by the parent and co-author of this paper -- relate experiences and observations of the child's explorations of the Stawamus River in British Columbia. Based on these observations, implications are offered for environmental education, especially in relation to the role of the parent working together with nature as key educators for a child. The model presented focuses on how learning happens in an other-than-human context.
Three central themes help shape this model of learning: “(1) the relationship between child and nature in terms of affordances and experiential learning; (2) how the on-going immersion in 'natural places' can support a child's moral development in terms of empathy; and (3) the role of place, its myriad of beings, and parents in a child's understanding of relational existence.” The discussion of affordances builds on, but also expands, the work of Gibson who defines affordances in terms of the possibilities of meaningful action afforded by the environment. The expansion of this concept focuses on how social and cultural factors can affect the actualization of affordances.
Some theories about affordances propose three types of actions that affect the actualization of the affordances: promoted (supported), constrained (inhibited), and free (not constrained) actions. According to these theories, promoted and free actions can overlap, as can constrained and free. The three, however, can't overlap because it's believed that an action can't be both promoted and constrained. This is where the authors disagree. They use the example of the child exploring the river as an illustration of how all three action areas can overlap. The child is in the field of free action as he explores on his own. He's in the field of constrained action as he behaves outside of cultural norms (e.g., greeting the river). He's in the field of promoted action, because his mother has prepared him for this experience through repeated and prolonged immersion in the outdoor environment. He's also in the field of promoted action because the place itself supports the child's explorations. The river and the child are in an interactive relationship. Experiencing the river in a relational way allows the child to see himself and the natural world as being intimately connected. Both the river and the parent helped the child develop this understanding of himself and the natural world.
Frequent and prolonged engagement with the natural world plays a critical role in the development of a child's ecological identity, but this is not the only contributor. Other contributors include “an expanded concept of affordances, an encouraging culturally critical mediating parent, an active and engageable natural world, an expanded freedom for the learner, and a rich experiential pedagogy.”
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