B is for bug when preschoolers make nature their classroom

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HARI SREENIVASAN: But first: A movement to get
kids out of classrooms with walls and into the great outdoors is
picking up steam. Across the U.S., nature preschools are seeing a
surge.


Jeffrey Brown traveled to Midland, Michigan, to find out why for
our weekly education segment, Making the Grade.


STUDENT: There’s a spider in my net.


JEFFREY BROWN: Hunting for bugs, jumping off
logs, dipping for frogs, it’s what kids do, right? In fact, no,
many don’t, certainly not as part of their education.


But in the age of testing, screens, and, some would say,
excessively coddled children, a new movement of nature preschools
is growing and pushing kids outdoors.


Jenn Kirts, a biologist by training, oversees educational
programs at the nonprofit Chippewa Nature Center in Midland,
Michigan, 1,200 acres of woodlands, wetlands, ponds and meadows.


JENN KIRTS, Director of Programs, Chippewa
Nature Center: In a classroom, a lot of the things that you have
are static and were designed to be played with in one particular
way. The natural environment changes every single day. The
weather changes, the humidity. There’s scat left behind. There’s
new footprints. There’s leaves that are chewed today that weren’t
chewed yesterday.


And so there’s just a natural curiosity that happens there. And
it’s something that people have spent time in for generations and
generations. All of our existence, kids have grown up outdoors.
That has changed in these current generations.


JEFFREY BROWN: Students here spend most of the
day outdoors. Some nature preschools don’t even have indoor
classrooms. The alphabet and language skills are emphasized,
while the lab for other skills is all around.


JENN KIRTS: When we’re dipping at a pond and
we’re discovering what’s there, that’s life science right there.
And when we’re measuring trees, and kids are then going around
and designing things to do those measurements and to figure that
out, that is engineering and problem-solving and math.


JEFFREY BROWN: And the idea is catching on.
Nature preschools are seeing a surge in the U.S. — 10 years ago,
there were barely 20. Today, by one count, the number has grown
to nearly 250.


STUDENT: A tadpole is swimming away.


JEFFREY BROWN: These 3- and 4-year-olds learned
about the life cycle of a frog, and then went to the pond to
catch some.


JESSICA DANKERT, Chippewa Nature Center: To see
a child touch a frog that looks slimy and ewy and icky for them,
and they’re OK and their hands and shaking, and we gently put
them in there for them, and their face just glows.


WOMAN: What do we not want to touch?


STUDENTS: Poison ivy.


WOMAN: Poison ivy.


JEFFREY BROWN: During a weeklong summer camp,
which closely mirrors the preschool program, teacher Kendall
Cunningham led her charges to a meadow to catch insects and learn
about the habitat.


KENDALL CUNNINGHAM, Teacher, Chippewa Nature
Center: A lot of the times, they say they don’t like the insects,
they don’t want to touch them, but they want to watch. Watching
it different than handling it.


JEFFREY BROWN: Madison Powell is the director of
the Chippewa Nature Preschool, with 140 students during the
school year and a growing wait list.


MADISON POWELL, Nature Preschool Director,
Chippewa Nature Center: Children are so very scheduled, they’re
not allowed to be bored anymore, they’re not allowed to play with
things that are dangerous or that are messy. We want them to have
those opportunities.


We ask parents to look back at their childhood. What are some of
the things you remember? Was it climbing a tree? Was it being
covered in mud, stomping in puddles? And a lot of times, it is.
And if it’s not their parents, it’s their grandparents, or some
sort of relative who said, I grew up that way. I came home and
the streetlights came on, that sort of thing.


JEFFREY BROWN: Right.


MADISON POWELL: And we’re living in a society
that just doesn’t allow children to make many decisions for
themselves.


JEFFREY BROWN: Here, they’re willing to push
boundaries. We watched as one boy tried to tear down what he
thought was a dead tree. First, he shook it, to no avail, then
tied a rope around the sapling’s trunk to bring it down. Finally,
he and a classmate managed to snap the tree, and now it really
was a dead tree.


KENDALL CUNNINGHAM: They’re going to learn
something from the whole experience. We can sacrifice a tree.


JEFFREY BROWN: Teacher Kendall Cunningham
explained:


KENDALL CUNNINGHAM: If it would have gotten to a
point that it didn’t look like it was going to be a safe activity
anymore, then I probably would have intervened and said, OK, now
it’s time to stop. We can’t do this anymore.


JEFFREY BROWN: And the lesson wasn’t over.
Cunningham gave the boys some tools for learning, small saws, in
fact, used under her watchful eyes.


Preschool director Madison Powell:


MADISON POWELL: We just make sure that we’re
going with the comfort level of the teachers and the kids. Our
teachers have maybe a higher tolerance for that, because we do
see such value in risky play and what that does for their
decision-making.


We make sure that they’re within reach. They’re not going to fall
from great heights, according to us. Great heights for them might
be the top of this bench.


JEFFREY BROWN: A certain level of risk is
allowed.


MADISON POWELL: It sure is, and it’s healthy.


JEFFREY BROWN: Also considered healthy, going
outside in most types of weather. We visited on a very hot day,
but even on cold winter days in Michigan the kids bundle up and
head out. Parents we talked with hear no complaints.


BECKY BENSALL, Parent: They would love to be
outside all the time. Just maybe the snow suits that they wear
are phenomenal. It keeps them so warm that they don’t even know
it’s cold. Doesn’t even bother them. They love it.


WOMAN: They would live outside if I let them
live outside. And they’re extremely curious. They’re always
asking me questions, whether we’re playing in the backyard, we’re
out here for hikes, or anywhere outside.


JEFFREY BROWN: But will these nature kids be
academically prepared for kindergarten? That’s the subject of
study right now by a Michigan State University research team,
which followed the children around last year, rain or shine,
gathering data with GoPro cameras and conducting interviews to
test their skills.


Lori Skibbe, one of the lead investigators, told us the early
results.


LORI SKIBBE, Michigan State University: What we
found is that children at the, here at the nature-based center
did just as well on our literacy measures, our language measures,
our science measures and some of our executive function measures
as children in the more traditional setting. So, they learned
just as much.


JEFFREY BROWN: Does that surprise you so far?


LORI SKIBBE: At how similar they are, yes, that
surprised me. The rates of learning were fairly equivalent across
all of our schools, were pretty much the same.


JEFFREY BROWN: And can you draw any preliminary
conclusions from that?


LORI SKIBBE: I think you can say that a
nature-based setting can prepare you for kindergarten, as well as
a traditional setting, if it’s done well.


JEFFREY BROWN: That study continues, for now,
along with the hunt for the next insect.


For the PBS NewsHour, I’m Jeffrey Brown at the Chippewa Nature
Center in Midland, Michigan.


The post B is for bug when preschoolers make nature their
classroom appeared first on PBS NewsHour.