Improving early childhood education through outdoor experiences

Natural outdoor experiences have benefits for children's cognitive development, social interactions, and physical health. However, outdoor natural environments are infrequently part of early childhood education. Findings from previous studies suggest that educators who did not have outdoor experiences as children are less likely to include outdoor experiences in their curricula. Furthermore, educators may face other barriers, such as weather or lack of transportation to natural outdoor settings. The author defined a natural outdoor setting as an area that ranged from wild to natural environments, but excluded areas such as landscaped parks, paved lots, and playgrounds. The purpose of this research was to identify how early childhood educators perceive the use of natural outdoor settings for environmental education purposes, how they relate to nature, and to identify obstacles towards implementing outdoor environments in early childhood education.

This research is built upon the Model of Thought and Action, which argues that challenges and opportunities that teachers encounter influence their beliefs and instructional practices in the classroom. By exploring beliefs and barriers to incorporating natural outdoor experiences in early childhood education, researchers can better understand how to encourage educators to implement these practices.

The research took place in an unspecified city in northern Minnesota and included 46 early childhood educators from a mixture of preschools, childcare centers, and Head Start programs. Head Start programs exist across the United States and encourage early childhood development for low income families. The author recruited participants using two approaches: first, they invited all providers from a list of childcare centers maintained by the school district. Of the 50 possible participating centers, 33 responded. Second, the author recruited participants from a nearby university's early childhood education program. All 13 students enrolled in this program elected to participate. A paper questionnaire was distributed to the lead educators from the 33 centers via mail. The university students received the same questionnaire but in person. The survey contained open- and closed-ended questions that asked respondents to indicate their level of agreement with statements regarding the significance of outdoor experiences during early childhood. In addition, the survey asked participants how difficult it was for them to include outdoor environments in early childhood education. Other questions asked how frequently respondents used outdoor experiences in their curricula and to identify perceived barriers to outdoor experiences. A portion of the survey included the Nature Relatedness Scale, which includes 21 questions that measures participants' relationship with nature. The author used statistics to analyze the data.

While the participants in this study acknowledged the value of outdoor natural settings in promoting physical health, social interactions, and cognitive skills in early childhood education, many educators did not frequently incorporate outdoor experiences into their curricula. The author hypothesized that educators may lack resources to include field trips to natural environments.

Findings suggested that participants agreed that outdoor experiences were important during early childhood education, and that these experiences improve development of physical health, cognitive skills, and social interactions. The respondents felt neutral regarding the difficulty of using natural outdoor settings in childhood programs. The average relationship to nature was positive with a mean of 3.80, indicating that respondents appreciated the environment and felt that a human-nature relationship was important. Lastly, respondents indicated that, on average, they used natural outdoor settings once a month, but specified using maintained environments more often.

The researcher also applied statistics to determine how the participants' beliefs predicted the use of natural outdoor environments. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the findings demonstrated that the more difficult that participants perceived it was to incorporate outdoor environments into curricula, the less likely they were to do so. The most commonly cited barrier to using outdoor natural environments was distance from the early childhood education center or program. Respondents indicated that using outdoor parks often required a mode of transportation other than walking, which could be difficult to coordinate and includes safety concerns. Other obstacles included a lack of time, winter weather, safety, and lack of supervision.

This study has some limitations. First, participants self-reported their use of natural settings in early childhood education and therefore may have under- or over-estimated the frequency. Second, the author indicated that the demographics of the sample were homogeneous and cautioned against generalizing the results. The findings are limited to the participating centers and are not representative of early childhood educators across states or in other countries.

The author recommends that institutions implement natural outdoor experiences within their respective EE programs. Programs should address perceived barriers to using natural outdoor settings because this seemed to be the most prominent reason why outdoor experiences in early childhood education were limited. For instance, to address the lack of areas within a walking distance, the author suggests providing early childhood educators with information about where they could take students. In addition, formal or informal professional development sessions could be used to inform environmental educators of how to prepare students for the weather or reduce the time needed for outdoor activities.