Informal learning activities can help young children learn about the natural world

This review presents a description of four research-based strategies that could be used with young children to foster an understanding and appreciation of the natural environment, including tropical and coastal environments. Each of the four strategies -- activities in a natural outdoor setting, school gardening, play-based learning, and drawing activities -- has its own characteristics and effects on children's environmental-related attitudes and behaviors. This review also includes a brief overview of environmental education and a discussion about how such education, if initiated during the early childhood years, can make significant contributions to young children's development and to a more sustainable world.

The author suggests that informal learning is the proper context for the four nature-related strategies. Informal learning takes place outside of a classroom environment and is more interesting and engaging for young children than formal education. For early childhood environmental education purposes, natural outdoor settings can range from relatively natural to relatively wild environments but are distinguished from maintained or built spaces, such as cut grassy areas, landscaped park settings, or playgrounds. School gardening can also take a variety of forms (potted plants, composting, raised beds over asphalt, in-ground plantings, etc.) and engage children in a wide range of activities. The goals of school gardening include promoting academic, behavioral, recreational, and social outcomes as well as increasing children's sense of belonging, self-esteem, and compassion. This review offers three ways of thinking about environmental education play-based activities: open-ended play, modeled play and purposefully framed play. The inclusion of drawing activities as an environmental education strategy is based on the idea that art is a powerful communication tool. Children's drawings can be used to probe their understandings of the natural environment and thus serve as a useful approach in conducting research.

This review concludes with recommendations for parents and educators in their efforts to help young children learn about the natural world. Recommendations are offered for future researchers, as well, with an emphasis on identifying environmental education strategies for early childhood education in tropical and coastal areas.