OUTDOOR ENVIRONMENT FOR CHILDREN
The quality of education and better cognitive development and growth of the brain in children is determined by the kind of activities that the children interact with (Nicholson et al., 2015). An outdoor environment is an environment that enables children to exercise freedom of movement and gain the benefit of space and nature, which is beneficial in various ways. In this case, the children can move from one place to another. The aspect of breaking indoor monotony and facilitate learning in a variety of environments (Waite, Bølling & Bentsen, 2016). About various researches, it is clear that the use of the outdoor environment to children is essential and has a lot of benefits regarding their daily growth both physically and mentally. In this paper, we will focus on understanding several beliefs, ideas, and the approaches that have been adopted in facilitating environments outdoors.
Ideas
According to Nicholson et al., (2015), some of the purposes for creating outdoor environments for Children include the following which will ensure a better quality of education and growth in terms of cognitive and even better health;
Paint with bubbles
This is whereby children whip a badge of vibrant bubbles, paint them, and finally make prints. This exercise enables children to get exposed to a variety of learning environments.
Water spray alphabet hunt
This is the aspect of children playing around with letters to exercise letter recognition as well as letter sounds using water in spray bottles. This enables the children to apply and enjoy the different outdoor environment.
Color hunt
This entails coming up with different color shapes in a page which is composed of different colors. The children look at the colors and print more if necessary. This enables the children to be more creative as they come up with varying shapes of paintings.
Climbing trees
The children can engage themselves in climbing short trees as a way of getting exposed to outdoor activities. This helps the children to be exposed to sunlight, thus helping them to get vitamin D which is responsible for strengthening bones.
Chasing a friend
This is a way of playing with friends. This one helps them to interact thus to develop social behaviors (Nicholson, Kurnik, Jevgjovikj & Ufoegbune, 2015). They also learn to share things and more so problems with others. It also enables the children to enjoy an environment which is free from instructions and therefore be in apposition to make their own decisions.
Construction of things using twigs and mud
This helps the children to develop intellectual capacities such as brain development. This one is achieved through the aspect of doing and use of experiment. In this case, the children think, question, and create a hypothesis for what they are about to do. The following ideas enable the children to enjoy the following benefits;
Intellectual benefits
This allows the children to learn by doing and experiment (Sharma-Brymer, Brymer, Gray & Davids, 2018). This helps in developing the analytical mind, for example, judging between the distances of two ropes before jumping or else trying to find out where insects go during the winter season.
Emotional benefits
In this case, the children in a position to enjoy some of the indoor restrictions like making noise, exploring a new environment by moving around. The children can jump, run, and hop. Generally, they enjoy the outdoor environment. Researchers have found out that exposure to nature reduces symptoms of ADHD and anxiety.
Social benefits
When the children play around with others, they are in a position to enjoy interaction opportunities with their playmates. This teaches them how to share and how to solve problems among their friends.
Physical benefits
The exposure to outdoor environment enables the children to get access to sunlight. This means that the children are in a position to absorb vitamin D, which strengthens bones, thus contributing to a healthy immunity system. Some of these practices involve standing with one foot, falling over, etc.
Environmental benefits
This helps the children understand their external environment and love it. This ensures that they will in a position to protect it when they become adults because they loved it from their childhood.
Beliefs
Many beliefs have been attached to the exposure of children to the outdoor environment. Some of the risks that the parents attach include the following;
Injuries
The parents believe that when their children are exposed to the outdoor environment, there is a big possibility that they will get injured. A good example is when the children climb trees, jumping, chasing each other, and falling over.
Exposure to diseases
According to research, it is evident that the children are prone to waterborne diseases since they don’t know the type of water to avoid and the one to use. Therefore parents discourage them from the outdoor environment to ensure they stay healthy.
Theft
The parents believe that when the children are exposed to the outdoor environment is subject to theft. Due to the fear of losing their children, the parents decide to keep the children indoors.
Approaches
Some of the methods include;
Managing the environment
This includes managing the physical environment, instructional strategies, and communication that exists in the background to which the children are learning.
Teaching the subject content by use of learning trajectories
Even though the children are willing to learn, most of their parents are not willing to teach the children what they want to show (Waite, Bølling & Bentsen, 2016). The children have to acquire the general pedagogical knowledge, the content knowledge, and collective knowledge. This is obtained when the children are exposed to the outdoor environment.
Using tiered intervention approaches
This model is used to stimulate the learning of the children in the field, such as mathematics and social, emotional developments. This helps to master the type of skills that each child has already acquired using a matrix of instructional methods. This method is based on the use of a combination of instructions which develop the content knowledge of the children versus the socio-emotional knowledge.
Risks
There are various risks faced when ensuring active physical development for children. These risks include the following;
Injuries
Most of these children are subjected to external injuries when they are engaging themselves in outdoor activities (Gardner & Jones, 2016). Parents have to face this risk in the moment of ensuring active physical development to their children. The injuries may arise when the children are climbing trees, jumping, falling over and chasing their friends.
Exposure to diseases
Parents face this risk in the event of developing their children physically since the children do not have that knowledge of what is harmful and not harmful to their bodies.
Theft
This is a significant risk to parents whereby the children can be stolen by passersby when the children are exercising their freedom in outdoor activities.
In ensuring that the children are well exposed to the external environment and outdoor activities that makes them gain much more in terms of social learning and interaction, there are both important values and risks that are involved in the process. This section peers to highlight the central values gained by children when engaged in outdoor activities either physically, health-wise, and in terms of the wellbeing of the children. The section also skims through the few risks involved when the children are taken outside for such outdoor events justifying the main disadvantages of the various research and sources.
As discussed above, there are several risks involved when children are taken out for events related to learning outside the classroom or any enclosed learning environment. There are; however, values involved making it worth for teachers and even parents to take their children outside for adventure and outdoor learning as highlighted below. Even though outside activities expose the children to risks like theft and kidnapping depending on the vast of the outdoor surrounding, children get the advantage of space which makes them explore the nature to its maximum including therapeutic and psychological benefits involved in the process. According to Gardner & Jones (2016), cognitive development depends on social learning and the environment with which the individuals are exposed to. In their research, they assert that children growth is fastened when they are involved in many physical activities that assist in cognitive development, health, and physical perspective. It is, therefore, worthy for children to be exposed to such risks since they can be controlled to allow the children to gain such values and benefits of health and mental growth. As explained, an outside exposure makes the brain expand even more in terms of cognitive development since the children gain an experience that while in a classroom, cannot be experienced of gained.
Waite, Bølling, & Bentsen (2016) in their study explain that there are much more benefits than risks involved when children in primary schools and pre-primary schools are taken outside and exposed to outdoor activities and learning. They further explain that most of the risks involved in outdoor learning can be easily controlled by ensuring safety purposes. The opposite of the situation is however not viable as when individuals are deprived from the benefits involved in outdoor exposure it is not easy to regain as compared to how easy it is to control the risks involved. They further explain that when children are exposed to any outdoor event, they tend to grow better and become lively as there is a connection between nature and livelihood of a child and other people of older ages as well. In their research, they found out that when children are limited to a class environment the whole day they tend to be gloomy and unhappy as compared to when they are taken outside to learn and interact socially with each other and with the nature.
Nicholson et al. (2016) in their research on how to understand children, they explain their findings concerning the concentration-time and the quality of learning of children. A clear explanation comes out from their study stating that children have a small range of concentration-time compared to adults whose concentration limit is three hours. A child, therefore, to understand better and grasp more in terms of what he or she is taught, the teachers should ensure concentration is improved, and their distraction is limited. Among some of the measures to ensure that children are well taught and that the quality of education is higher is exposing the children to nature and outdoor activities.
In reference to the above study, Gardner & Jones (2016) in their research, makes an observation of children concentration as reported below. In their study they, a case study realized that when in a classroom, when children are not taught anything interesting that will gasp their attention, they will lose their concentration after a span of ten minutes or lower. When taught interesting facts, however, they tend to have a higher concentration to a span of one hour then thereafter, their concentration limit goes down. They further observe that when children are taught outside or involved in an outdoor learning activity, their concentration is at its highest level and they are even happy and the quality of learning is even better. They clear their study by explaining that when children are being taught in an enclosed environment, their destruction is what is happening outside as they always tend to peep through the window. When outside, however, they have no destruction at all and thus explaining why and how an outdoor activity is way more beneficial as compared to the indoor learning activities. All this is in terms of the quality of learning, health, concentration, social interaction, and development of mind among the children.
Conclusion
It’s clear that Children should be given the freedom to interact in outdoor activities. This enables them to interact with their friends and develop their minds by doing experiments. Moreover, the exposure helps in physical development as the children get exposed to sunlight. The sunlight provides vitamin D, which helps in strengthening their bones hence being physically fit. Again, the parents should not be much scared of the risks and decide to keep their children indoors.
References
Gardner, A. F., & Jones, B. D. (2016). Examining the Reggio Emilia approach: Keys to understanding why it motivates students.
Sharma-Brymer, V., Brymer, E., Gray, T., & Davids, K. (2018). Affordances guiding Forest School practice: the application of the ecological dynamics approach. Journal of Outdoor and Environmental Education, 21(1), 103-115.
Nicholson, J., Kurnik, J., Jevgjovikj, M., & Ufoegbune, V. (2015). Deconstructing adults’ and children’s discourse on children’s play: listening to children’s voices to destabilise deficit narratives. Early Child Development and Care, 185(10), 1569-1586.
Waite, S., Bølling, M., & Bentsen, P. (2016). Comparing apples and pears?: a conceptual framework for understanding forms of outdoor learning through comparison of English Forest Schools and Danish udeskole. Environmental Education Research, 22(6), 868-892.