Forest school nature play offers multiple benefits for six and seven year old childrenForest School is an initiative that gives children a means to substantially engage in hands-on learning in a natural environment. Well known in Scandinavia, Germany, and the United Kingdom, Forest School is often incorporated into mainstream preschool and elementary schools where children access local woodlands during the school day to engage in nature-based activities that support healthy development. Previous research suggests that benefits from Forest School participation include increases in motivation, concentration, confidence, knowledge of the natural environment, and awareness of others. The purpose of this study was to “investigate the children’s perceptions, knowledge and experiences of play in the natural environment both prior to and following their engagement in Forest School.”
The study was part of a pilot program that introduced Forest School in an elementary school in the United Kingdom. Study participants included seventeen children (six boys, 11 girls) aged 6–7 years who participated in twelve Forest School sessions that were each two hours in length. During these sessions children engaged in a mix of structured and free-play activities. Before and after the pilot program the researchers conducted small focus group discussions with two to three of the study participant children to discuss their ideas and experiences with play in general, nature play in particular, barriers to outdoor play, and what they learned from and enjoyed about Forest School. A qualitative approach, triangulated across three researchers, was used to analyze the data obtained through the focus group interviews.
The results suggest that overall the Forest School pilot yielded changes with regards to “children’s knowledge of natural play, their natural play experiences, and their knowledge and understanding of the world around them.” More specifically, the data suggest that the Forest School experience: fostered a greater awareness of the play affordances offered in a natural environment, with activities being replicated outside of the school sessions; gave the children opportunities to challenge their own concerns about and develop a greater sense of comfort and safety with nature play; develop their knowledge and understanding of the environment, such as learning the names and habitats of local wildlife; helped nurture children’s biophilia by encouraging them to “emotionally connect with and develop and appreciation of the natural world.”
With all of these positive benefits, it is also notable that the children’s reports of barriers to outdoor play (i.e., parental concerns about safety relating to proximity to busy roads, fears of abduction, and weather) were reported consistently before and after the program. Greater parental involvement in the Forest School, as well as other school or community-based programs to help connect children to nature, could help parents to increase their knowledge of and comfort with the natural environment and thereby reduce the extent to which they create barriers to their children’s free play in nature. The study offers useful insights into the potential for Forest Schools and nature play more broadly to offer multiple benefits for children.
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