Assessment of Learning with Nature in Preschool

Online Journal for TVET Practitioners, 2023

Urbanisation has limited people's exposure and interaction with nature (Mohamad Muslim et al., 2017; Rahmatullah et al., 2021). Compared to those who grew up in rural areas, a significantly lower number of children who grew up in urban areas had experiences in nature-related activities (Noor Hafizah et al., 2019). In terms of children learning and development, learning through play via exposure to nature and its elements have greater impact on their cognitive development than classroom activities and social learning alone (UNICEF, 2018). Saleh et al. (2018) explains that nature provides both formal and informal learning to children, in which learning without direct participation by their educators is equally important as learning in a formal environment. Hence, a school's environment should allow them to participate in diverse natural surroundings. A school's physical environment should encourage learning as children will be more motivated to be innovative and creative if the environment encourages experimental play (Safaripoor, 2016; Shaari et al., 2021). When a child's connection to nature is lacking, they will face difficulties with their senses and attention during learning and are more susceptible to chronic physical and mental illnesses (Shaari et al., 2021; Woodward & Zari, 2018). Moreover, exposure to heavy pollutants and environmental stressors, particularly from urban and industrialized areas, can significantly affect mental and physical development (Di Cesare et al., 2019) and predispose humans to various non-communicable diseases in later stages of life such as Diabetes, obesity, and cancer, which are currently

4th UUM International Qualitative Research Conference (QRC 2020) , 2020

The debate about children's decreasing experience of and contact with nature has increasingly captured researchers' interest over the past decade and has been going on for many years (Fägerstam, 2012). Exploration in natural worlds offers concrete and real learning experiences for young children. The "necessity of experience" as advocated by Edward Reed (1996) argues that primary or first-hand experiences opens people to boundless possibilities for learning, including creative new discoveries. Yet, children today have less opportunity to spend time in nature places than they did 20 or 30 years ago (Hofferth & Curtin, 2006). More importantly, as far the early childhood education is concern, the exploratory studies of children's experiences with nature is scarcely investigated at preschool settings especially in Malaysia. Therefore, this study was carried out to explore the experience of children with nature at preschools in Malaysia and to examine preschool teachers understanding about nature-related activities for young children. A semi-structured interview question is the main instrument for data collection. The participant consisted of two preschool teachers from two private preschools. They were selected through convenience sampling. The data was analysed using thematic analysis procedures where it was read carefully to understand emerging themes. It was then coded, categorized, labelled manually and synthesized for patterns and reduced into themes for the narratives. The results identified three major categories of children's experience with nature at preschools, namely: observing and studying nature elements, using nature elements for nature art activity and nature recreation (playing in nature). The analysis revealed that preschool teachers did not organise nature-related activities very often although they find it very important. The findings discovered some current implementations, perceived benefits and barriers for nature-related activities implementation at preschools. This study recommends the nature-related activities as an effective way to stimulate children's senses, provide opportunity for experiential learning to them as well as to support their social skills. It also fulfilled an existing research gap by describing how children experience nature at preschool settings and preschool teachers' perspectives about it. Ultimately, the outcome of this study envisions a perspective on nature-related activities at preschool as a promising early years experiences to natural worlds by promoting first-hand learning opportunity to children.

Proceedings of 2nd Early Childhood Care & Education International Rendezvous 2016, (ISBN 978-967- 13960-2-5), 2016

This paper explores the use of nature elements and nature environments within the school grounds in learning activities and its potentials to strengthen children's learning and development in the context of a primary school in Malaysia. Employing a case-study method, one-to-one interview session was conducted with two informants, an 8 and 9 a year old child to explore their learning experiences with and in nature, to understand the perceived benefits acquired through learning activities with and in nature, as well as to discover the contributing factors of the implementations in school. An analysis of these interviews yields two school subjects are dominantly associated with learning activities with and in nature namely Physical Education, and World of Science and Technology (Dunia Sains dan Teknologi). Findings supported that nature elements and settings within school grounds have potentials to increase children's physical fitness, promote social-emotional enrichment, enhance enthusiasm and independent learning, improve academic performance, empower collaborative learning between teacher and students, and foster experiential learning through real engagement with nature elements. According to the informants, contributing factors for the use of nature elements and nature settings in the school by teachers were first, their function as useful learning resources for children's conceptual understanding and task assessment, and secondly the convenience of using them for physical activity and socialization. Finally, implications of this study for primary school education in particular were discussed.

Asean Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education

Malaysian Nature Education in Preschool (MyNEPs) is an initiative to incorporate nature education in the preschool syllabus. It involves learning and hands-on practice in a natural environment setting on five nature elements (climate, flora, fauna, insects, and microbes). This research aims to assess the efficacy of the MyNEPs module towards preschool children through pre-, intervention, and post-assessment. This research adopted an experimental ISSN : 1985-5826 AJTLHE Vol.13, No.1, June 2021, 41-59 42 research design using quantitative approaches. A total of 29 preschool children from Bangi, Selangor were involved in this study. Data collected were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics involving normality tests and paired sample t-test. The data normality was measured using the Shapiro-Wilk test, and the result indicated that the data is normally distributed where p=0.072 > 0.05. The overall t-test result shows significant differences (p=0.006) between pre- and p...

Proceedings of The 6th Asia-Pacific Education And Science Conference, AECon 2020, 19-20 December 2020, Purwokerto, Indonesia, 2021

The high number of children with special needs in Indonesia requires serious handling from various parties. An accessible approach is needed for children from lower economic backgrounds, as well as for those in areas far from health and educational services. Learning activities in nature using natural media can be a good suggestion and solution. This study aims to examine the positive impacts of nature-based learning on the well-being of early-aged children with special needs. The method in this research is a one-shot experimental design. This study used a qualitative and descriptive technique to analyze the data. The results showed that learning carried out in nature can significantly improve children's well-being and their development achievement.

Nature-based learning is an increasingly popular type of early childhood education. Despite this, children’s experiences—in particular, their form and function within different settings and how they are viewed by practitioners—are relatively unknown. Accordingly, the use of nature as a setting and a resource for learning was researched. A description and an emerging understanding of nature-based learning were obtained through the use of a group discussion and case studies. Practitioners’ views demonstrated their eagerness to share experience that ranged from positive examples to challenges encountered within practice. Case studies recorded in a Scottish nature kindergarten and two Nordic counterparts take a situated view of nature-based learning. Findings indicate that nature is utilised as setting, as resource and as educator within children’s learning and this holds true within different countries. Local, social and cultural contexts exert influence on pedagogical practice and implications for practice based upon these are given.

Universal Journal of Educational Research, 2019

Today's pre-service early childhood educators will become the teachers of next generation young children. To create an environmentally sensitive society, they have a crucial role. It is important to understand how they perceive nature and its integration to teaching practices. In the current study, 26 Turkish pre-service early childhood educators were asked to draw nature and respond three-open ended question; "(1) What is nature? (2) Would you like to integrate nature into your future teaching practices? Why? (3) How would you plan to integrate nature into your future teaching practices?" Written answers to these questions and pre-service early childhood teachers' drawings were analyzed thematically. Findings revealed that pre-service early childhood educator defined nature as "(1) living and non-living; (2) source and (3) system" and their drawings included "flora, atmospheric features, fauna, geographical features and human-made stuff", respectively. All participants revealed that they would like to integrate nature into their future teaching practices and mostly given reason for nature integration was increasing children's environmental awareness. More than half of the participants reported that they would integrate nature into their future teaching practices via outdoor activities, it is followed by science and indoor activities. Through critically evaluating these findings, suggestions were presented for teacher training programs and future researchers.

Direct experiences with nature in childhood are essential for enhancing psychological and physical development in children. However, researches on childhood nature-related experiences and their effects are largely biased toward more developed Western countries. In this study, we created a questionnaire on childhood experiences with nature and surveyed 357 adults (>20 years old) around Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia, to determine whether younger generations had fewer nature-based experiences than older generations and whether people who grew up in urban areas had fewer experiences than those who grew up in rural areas. We found that playing in rivers or waterfalls and collecting and eating tropical fruits were the most common nature-related activities experienced in childhood. There was a minimal decline in nature-related experiences among generations. However, people who grew up in rural areas had more nature-related experiences than those who grew up in urban areas. The loss of nature areas and increase in population density may accelerate the decline in nature-related experiences in urban areas. Therefore, efforts to create urban parks and other public spaces for reconnecting urban children to nature will become increasingly important for urban planning and environmental education in tropical developing countries such as Malaysia.

Asian Journal of Behavioural Studies

The past few decades have shown that the opportunity for children to have a direct connection with nature and outdoor environment declined due to rapid urbanization. Children face various physical and health problems as consequences from this phenomenon. This paper presents a review on benefits of nature on children’s developmental needs. The review also highlights children’s experience in nature and the effect of disconnection from nature. In summary, it is crucial to understand children’s view towards nature and environment in creating spaces that reconnect them with nature. Designing for children today is indeed designing for the future as well.Keywords: Children, nature, connection, developmental needseISSN 2398-4295 © 2018. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA cE-Bs by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open-access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association ...

International Journal of Early Childhood Special Education, 2021

This study aims to describe the planning, implementation, and assessment of natural school-based learning in Early Childhood Education-Barokallah Samarinda. The research method used is qualitative research. Data collection techniques are through in-depth interviews, observation, documentation, and field notes. The data analysis technique used is the interactive flow model of Miles and Huberman (1994), by collecting data, reducting data, presenting data, and verifying or concluding. The credibility test uses data validity through triangulation. The results showed that 1) Nature-based learning planning in Early Childhood Education-Barokallah Samarinda, namely determining Basic Competence, determining teaching materials, learning activities, tools, and materials used to carry out activities. 2) Implementation of nature-based learning in Early Childhood Education-Barokallah, through playing ground. Nature-based learning is carried out in the classroom or outside the classroom and childr...