In a review of the environmental education literature, professors Donald J. Burgess and Jolie Mayer-Smith found that research about childhood experiences in wilderness settings was lacking, as were data describing what an active love of nature looks like in young children. In response to this, they created a study in which they documented the reactions and comments of urban students in a wilderness setting. They discuss their findings in Listening to Children: Perceptions of Nature and address how children perceive nature and identify the types of experiences that encourage a love of the natural world.
Burgess and Mayer-Smith (2011) used the framework of environmental values created by Stephen R. Kellert to evaluate children’s reactions to nature. Kellert is the first person to methodically assess and classify how people view nature (Burgess and Mayer-Smith, 2011).
The categories of environmental values created by Kellert are very interesting and they need to be explained in order to discuss Burgess and Mayer-Smith’s findings. Kellert describes values as “the convergence of emotion and cognition” (Burgess and Mayer-Smith, 2011). Through his categories of nature values, he explains the different ways individuals value and perceive nature. Here is a summary of Kellert’s value categories as described by Burgess and Mayer-Smith (2011):
Scientific-Ecological Valuing – Interests focus on looking for knowledge or information
Naturalistic Valuing – Interests focus on exploring and discovery
Symbolic Valuing – When nature is viewed as a source for language or imagination
Aesthetic Valuing – Formation of emotional connections to nature
Humanistic Valuing – Similar to Aesthetic
Utilitarian Valuing – Viewing nature as a source for materials or reward
Moralistic Valuing – When ethical and spiritual connections are formed with nature
Dominionistic Valuing – Viewing nature as something to master or control
To conduct their study of how children perceive nature, Burgess and Mayer-Smith (2011) observed two classes of 5th grade students (n=35, age 10-11) while they attended Mountain School, a three-day environmental education class held in the wilderness of North Cascades National Park in Washington. Burgess and Mayer-Smith (2011) worked closely with graduate students, parents, rangers and classroom teachers during their study. They conducted pre-interviews one week before the Mountain School program began, conducted post-interviews one month after the program ended, documented children’s reactions in the field during hikes, and reviewed student journals containing students’ field notes, checklists, worksheets, creative writing entries and drawings.
While using Kellert’s framework, Burgess and Mayer-Smith (2011) found that the framework wasn’t broad enough for their study so they added their own themes and sub themes to each category. In the end, they added 33 themes and sub themes to the framework (Burgess and Mayer-Smith, 2011).
A thorough analysis of the data revealed that the Mountain School program changed children’s perspectives and how they viewed nature. Burgess and Mayer-Smith (2011) saw changes in students’ scientific-ecologocial, naturalistic and symbolic valuing of nature. Students began the program making general observations about nature. During the program they demonstrated an understanding of ecological relationships and ended the program being able to reflect about nature in a creative way (Burgess and Mayer-Smith, 2011).
The authors also observed changes in how students connected with nature on an emotional level. While they began the program having objective and indifferent thoughts about nature, they ended the program talking passionately about their first-hand experiences and the students who at first had some level of fear about nature had their fear reduced by the end of the program (Burgess and Mayer-Smith, 2011).
Burgess and Mayer-Smith (2011) also observed students gaining a new respect for nature and the ability to communicate this new respect to others.
Learning Experiences Encouraging Change
What type of experiences encourage the type of change described above?
Burgess and Mayer-Smith (2011) claim that direct experiences with nature encourage emotional connections and change how children view the natural world. They also state that physically challenging experiences and reflective experiences reinforce children’s emotional connections with nature (Burgess and Mayer-Smith, 2011).
Burgess and Mayer-Smith (2011) provide a thorough explanation about these experiences in their paper and also include student quotes as examples of how student perceptions were changed by the Mountain School program.
Listening to Children: Perceptions in Nature can be viewed online and is available for download as a 17-page PDF. Included with the article are the pre- and post-interview questions used by the authors.
Burgess, Donald J. and Jolie Mayer-Smith. 2011. Listening to children: perceptions of nature. Journal of Natural History Education and Experience.
5: 27-43. Web. <http://naturalhistorynetwork.org/journal/articles/listening-to-children-perceptions-of-nature> [accessed 17 January 2013]