Natural Partners: Learning From Young Students’ Writing After Science Lessons Outdoors

Abstract

In a time when learning is increasingly moving to the digital world, extinction of hands-on experiences is becoming endemic for young students. Children need real-life experiences for optimal development and learning. Nature, when conceptualized as the third educator beyond the parent and teacher in the Reggio Emilia philosophies, can be an important partner in real-life learning and offers benefits for children’s intellectual, social, emotional, and physical well-being. This study examines how the return to real-life learning with nature as the third educator impacts educational outcomes and child experiences. Specifically, the study uses mixed methods to explore what happens when science lessons in a public school are moved outdoors for young children, focusing on the outcomes for student writing fluency for less-developed and/or emergent multilingual writers. The study employs repeated measures to compare writing fluency after indoor and outdoor science lessons for sixty-seven students, framed by a mosaic of qualitative data collected from four focal students exploring how they experience the outdoor learning environment. Quantitative findings indicate no statistically significant difference for student writing fluency between indoor and outdoor conditions, meaning that children’s writing fluency flourishes similarly indoors and outdoors. The qualitative data from focal students provide support for taking science lessons outside, including reports of increased opportunities for movement, the availability of nature objects that enhance science learning (i.e., loose parts), and chances to employ positive self-directed play within and between lessons. This research adds to the small number of studies examining the intersections of nature-based learning and literacy for young children. Critically, the finding that outdoor lessons do not detract from students’ writing production removes one mental barrier preventing teachers from taking their students outside, thereby affording students the expanded opportunities for social, emotional, and physical growth that nature provides.