Inclusive in what counts as nature
This post originally appeared in Dr. Rachel A. Larimore’s weekly Samara newsletter on August 23, 2022. If you’re interested in receiving these emails, scroll to the bottom of this page to subscribe.
I didn’t email last week because I was immersed in the county fair—one of my favorite weeks of the year! Seeing the children feeding, grooming, and showing their animals warms my heart. Of course, it also breaks my heart to see the tears when they have to say goodbye to their animals.
As I was thinking about the many lessons that can be learned on a farm, I was thinking about farm-based early childhood programs. While there are groups dedicated specifically to farm-based education, it’s also important to remember farm-based programs are a unique model within the broader umbrella of nature-based early childhood education.
Nature-based early childhood education is an educational approach where experiences learning WITH nature are core to the teaching and learning. “Nature” is generally anything that is not humans or human created. Yet a foundational principle of NbECE is to teach that humans and nature are interconnected. That is, we impact and are impacted by nature. This of course includes agriculture—both plants and animals.
So, for me, farm-based education is absolutely a form of nature-based education. I hope as a field we will take an inclusive attitude when it comes to different models of programs that share a common pedagogy—where the emphasis is on learning with nature.
This inclusive attitude is also why I emphasize the term “nature” when talking about models rather than forest, desert, or ocean schools. Similarly, nature is found everywhere—not just in pristine wilderness areas. For me, “nature” puts emphasis on the pedagogy rather than the ecosystem where a program happens to be located.
Hopefully we can be inclusive in our understanding of what “counts” as nature as we consider the many ways you are integrating nature-based pedagogy into your teaching.
Keep changing lives,
Rachel
Rachel A. Larimore, Ph.D., Chief Visionary of Samara Learning
About Rachel
Dr. Rachel A. Larimore is an educator, speaker, consultant, author, and former nature-based preschool director. As the founder and Chief Visionary of Samara Early Learning her work focuses on helping early childhood educators start nature-based schools or add nature-based approaches into their existing program. Learn more about Rachel here.
