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Beattie, A. Elizabeth

University of British Columbia

This study employed a phenomenographic, Mosaic, case study approach to understanding young children’s outdoor learning by analysing a select group of young children’s engagement with their chosen activities in an outdoor setting. This group was comprised of 20 Grade 1 students (5 to 7 years) at a public school in Vancouver, British Columbia. The students’ learning was investigated through a Personal Construct theoretical framework. The data collected included notes based on both video recordings made by the children and detailed researcher observations including interviews and interactions with the children. Use of sticks was observed to be the most important element in the students’ chosen outdoor activities. Thus, the students’ engagement with sticks by creating/improvising activities in an urban forest setting can be described as stick-based, physical, and tactile outdoor learning. In this way, the outdoor activities that prominently feature the use of sticks can become important to the development of children’s engagement with environmental education and science learning. Therefore, it can be concluded from the study’s outcomes that: 1) effective childhood outdoor curriculum and pedagogy should include the children’s chosen outdoor activities and emphasize physical and tactile interactions with natural items; 2) young children’s chosen outdoor activities can be considered cultural and social in nature, which may promote children’s inclusion and feelings of competence in the culture of environmental education and school science; 3) the incorporation of children’s chosen outdoor activities in childhood curriculum and pedagogy may offer an opportunity to better understand how children’s agency affects environmental education and science learning within local and natural settings.

Text

2024-01-05

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/87133

Curriculum Studies

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/