A session to Support Your Nature Education Exploration and Forest School Inquiry, with Sinéad Rafferty.

Children are often the first to notice a worm crawling on a sidewalk, a puddle to jump in, or a ladybug resting on a slide. They are also notorious for pocket-filled collections of rocks, sticks or leaves. If children come into the world intrinsically connected to “nature” and biologically designed to form attachments with the world, then what are we doing as educators, and more broadly as a culture, to nurture such connections?

This interactive workshop explored modern trends in thinking about “nature” and how this influences practice in early childhood education. The current movement to connect children and nature is an important one, but seems to be moving forward without deeper and more critical considerations of what “nature” is. Through hands-on, collaborative, and reflective experiences, participants explored meanings of “nature” and ecological literacy as it relates to our life and early childhood practice. Participants investigated meanings of “nature-deficit disorder” in the lives of children and ourselves. This workshop helped to deepen our understanding and perception of “nature” so that educators may more genuinely tune into children’s emerging relations with the world.