In a Year of Disrupted Learning, What Can We Learn From Nature?

Even before grit became a trendy personality trait, Tacomans had it. Tacomans know how to persevere and keep going when things get tough. Grit fits in with adaptability and resiliency, the art of bouncing back and forging through tough circumstances. 

Our forest neighbors know a thing or two about adaptability and resilience too. Part of the art of surviving as a tree is knowing when to expend energy and when to conserve it, especially as circumstances change.  Fall is the time when this adaptability becomes most visible. It’s subtle at first, cued by changes in shortening days and cooler nights. As daylight decreases, so does chlorophyll production in tree leaves. Chlorophyll is the chemical in leaves that converts sunlight into energy, but it’s also responsible for the green shade of leaves. The tree shifts gears when chlorophyll production wanes and increases its production of sugars. These sugars produce more anthocyanin pigments, which helps turn leaves red as chlorophyll fades. Other chemicals, carotenoids, take on a more significant role in leaf color too as chlorophyll fades--carotenoids give us yellow and orange leaves. For trees, fall is all about shifting resources and conserving energy in order to make it successfully through the winter. 

For most of us,  fall means shifting our focus from summer break to back-to-school. However, when it comes to school, there’s significant evidence that even our pre-Zoom normal wasn’t working for many students, teachers, and parents. What we think of as “normal” instruction has mostly excluded time spent learning in and through nature, despite the long tradition and well-documented benefits of learning in nature. 

When learning in nature, children also learn and practice additional skills. Some of the most important include creativity and curiosity, problem-solving and group communication, and taking structured risks. Children who regularly spend time outside also have lower rates of obesity, anxiety and stress--the health benefits are both physical and mental. 

It’s not just children who benefit--adults also see improved well-being after being out in nature. Patients have been shown to recover faster in hospital rooms with a view of trees, and the practice of forest-bathing is now prescribed to treat a range of health complications from anxiety to heart attack recovery. For both children and adults, time spent in nature improves memory and brain function. 

The list of benefits from accessing healthy green spaces, especially in urban areas, is extensive. This year more than ever, all of us, but especially children, need the benefits that come along with being out in nature. Getting these benefits doesn’t require extended trips to parks either. Just spending a few minutes looking out a window towards greenery or taking short walks around the neighborhood, pairing educational brain breaks with nature breaks, can be a big boost for well-being and performance. Put another way, we all--children, teachers, parents, activists, people simply trying to exist in this world--could benefit from taking recess outside, several times a day.  

To help parents and teachers, we’ve created the Nature Explorers Zine. It’s a nature-based educational activity kit for children that’ll be released every month, both as a webpage and as a paper kit. It’ll be filled with activities for kids to follow, from observational prompts, to word searches, to crafts. Each zine is designed to help kids discover the world around them, to teach them how to look closely, follow the patterns of seasons, and above all, connect to nature. 

This year is hard for everyone. Every way we’re used to marking a year doesn’t make sense for the one we’ve been living in now. So we propose we turn back and take our cues from an even older tradition: marking the year by observing the world around us. What changes are happening that we can see outside our windows? What can we learn from observing how things change over time? What does it mean for the leaves to fall? What plants thrive in the rainy season? What birds are we seeing more or less of now?

There is an incredible amount we can learn by stepping outside, where we can be a student, teacher, and participant all at the same time. 

Resources:

https://www.parentingscience.com/outdoor-learning.html

https://www.thoughtco.com/why-do-leaves-change-color-in-fall-607893

https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2020/sep/06/forest-bathing-in-south-wales-wye-valley