Child-Nature Interaction in a Forest Preschool

In 2012, there were only about 25 nature preschools and kindergartens in the United States. Now there are well over 250. It is a national movement that is growing. This is an exciting development because these schools have the potential to transform the world — by giving children more direct contact with nature, and with wilder nature than most urban children typically experience.

This paper begins to describe the different ways children interact with nature at one specific school: Fiddleheads Forest Preschool in Seattle, Washington. The researchers used a randomized time-sampling method to collect observational data. They modeled child-nature interaction using what they call interaction patterns — basic ways of interacting with nature that are described broadly enough to appear in many different forms and settings.

Using a nature-focused language, they describe eight interaction patterns, illustrated with photographs:

• Leaning on and hanging from flexible tree limbs
• Climbing high in a small tree
• Looking at wild animals
• Imitating animals
• Imagining nature to be something other than what it is
• Making boundaries on the ground
• Pushing the edges of boundaries
• Waiting attentively in nature

Through this interaction pattern approach, the researchers aim to show what is actually happening at a forest preschool — and how that offers a key solution to the problem of environmental generational amnesia, where each generation grows up with a lower baseline for what counts as a healthy natural environment.

Abstract

In 2012 there were only around 25 nature preschools and kindergartens in the United States; now there are well over 250. It is a national movement that is gaining momentum. It is an exciting time because in principle these schools have within them the kernels to transform the world through increasing children’s direct interaction with nature and a more wild nature than that exists in most urban children’s lives. In this paper we begin to characterize forms of child-nature interaction that occur in one specific nature preschool, Fiddleheads Forest Preschool in Seattle, Washington, USA. Based on our observational data, derived through a randomized time-sampling methodology, we modeled child-nature interaction using what we call interaction patterns: characterizations of essential ways of interacting with nature described abstractly enough such that the pattern can be instantiated in different ways, across diverse forms of nature. Specifically, we use a nature language to describe (with photographs) eight interaction patterns: leaning on and hanging from supple tree limbs, climbing high in small tree, looking at wild animals, imitating animals, imagining nature to be something other than it is, making boundaries on earth, pushing the edges of boundaries, and waiting attentively in nature. Through an interaction pattern approach, we seek to provide insight into what is actually happening on the ground at a forest preschool and how that provides a key solution to the problem of environmental generational amnesia.