Play in natural environments can strengthen a child’s ecological identity and lead to environmentally responsible behaviorsThis study compared children’s inquiry-based behavior on a natural playscape environment with their play behavior on a more traditional preschool playground. A goal of the study was to gain further insight into how these distinct play settings impact children’s play, science exploration, and environmentally responsible behavior (ERB). Several questions were of specific interest: To what extent do children go beyond observations and explorations and use science-specific representations and language during their play on playscapes? What locations on the playscape afford science-specific activities? And how do these activities relate to their play on the playscape?
Data was obtained from a video analysis of preschool children (ages 3 – 5) visiting a natural playscape and of same-age children on a traditional playground. All the children were drawn from four classrooms at a laboratory preschool serving low to medium socioeconomic status families. There were 32 children in each group.
The two playspaces differed in a number of ways, including size and familiarity. The natural playscape was much larger than the school playground and was a place the children had never visited before. There was also a difference in complexity, with the school playground being far less complex. The natural playscape had rich sensory appeal and offered varied opportunities for children to engage with such natural elements as water, plants, and rocks.
Children’s inquiry-based activities were coded into four categories: observation, exploration, representing/recording, and language. Types of play and areas of interest were also coded. Results indicated that in the natural playspace, children spent most of their time in four different areas of interest (water, woods, cave and gravel pit) and engaged in all three types of play in these areas (functional, constructive, and dramatic). On the traditional playground, the only location where all three types of play were observed was the sandpit.
Differences were also noted in the number of inquiry-based activities in the two different playspaces. On the school playground, no representing/recording activities were noted, while this type of inquiry was observed in four of the areas of interest in the natural playscape.
Overall, the natural environment offered more affordances for explorations and inquiry than the traditional playground. The authors theorize that such nature-related activities influence children's environmental identity, which leads to environmentally responsible behaviors.
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