Nature Experience and Purposeful Activities

       It is very evident that social experience and nature experience are blended so constantly and naturally in everyday life, that they cannot be arbitrarily separated. The need for a clear-cut presentation and the limitations of the printed page have made a division necessary; again there arises the question of the shifting of emphasis rather than an elimination of relevant topics. One does not and cannot exclude the other. Both emphasize largely the same principles and provide for the building up of the physical and mental health of the children.
       The mere getting acquainted with nature is one of the most vital impulses of the active child; the identification, enumeration, observation, appreciation of all phenomena that come within his reach. Especially is he concerned in every living thing, largely because of the elements of motion and change contained in it; hence animals and plants engross his attention, how they live and move and react. Inorganic nature is part of this moving, changing life, a sort of background for it; besides it has its own fascination, so it should not be neglected.
       The seasonal choice of topics for young children is the most natural, because of its direct appeal; the everyday occurrences in nature are of value for the same reason and should constitute the bulk of the material. Should an unusual event occur, a circus come to town, a rare specimen be brought in, it should, of course, be exploited to its full extent. However, to hunt for the exceptional and startling is neither necessary nor desirable, and largely defeats the aim of the work.
       Nature experience for little children must be first hand. Stuffed specimens and pictures are good in their place for identification, for illustration of story and geography material, but they can never hope to fulfill the function of nature study. They are dead; nature is alive. This brings us to the method of approach and to the method of dealing with nature experience.
       Children are constantly asking for the why? what? how? what for? when? where? of things. This should be the clue as to material handled, the data emphasized the functional side of life being the significant one, the structure being subordinate and touched upon only in so far as it helps to understand and illuminate expressions of nature activity. How a bird lives; what he eats; how he gets his food; where he finds it; where he has his home; how he makes it; how he looks after his babies, etc.; these are the problems to follow up. To illustrate: The number, size, position of teeth are immaterial so far as the child is concerned; the significant factor being the food of the squirrel for which it needs more resistant teeth than we have. By approaching nature from the side of her expression of herself, the children gradually come to know that the creatures all about them have problems similar to their own, that they are all in various ways dependent, that there are causes which produce the effects they observe, and that respect for all creation is one of the lessons necessary to learn. Also they gradually learn to think of themselves as only one in a vast universe of wonderful living and changing identities; this should be one of the elements developed by nature study and geography, leading on to the understanding which makes the whole world kin. The ethical and appreciative values of nature experience can hardly Toe overestimated; the economic value is of importance, though to a greater degree a little later, when the children are more mature and the love, sympathy, and appreciation necessary for the best attitude have begun to take root. The scientific value at this time lies largely in the habits of work and attitudes of mind established in nature experience as well as in other lines of work. The social value is emphasized in excursions, gardening, utilization for social purposes of the fruits of the work, and in other similar ways involving normal relations among children, and team-work.
       Pollination of pussy willows, fertilization by bees for older children, the life history of the chick, the egg as the treasure house of many animals, the tiny kittens, the care of animals for their offspring, the function and distribution of the seed in plants, all of these data form a valuable and indispensable background to the outlook upon life. Add to these, good habits of cleanliness of mind and body formed in little children, and the much-discussed problem of adolescence ought to be simplified. The child by means of his nature experience follows interests which are vital to him at the time, and at the same time lays the foundation for something which leads him on to a life project.
       It is most important that facts told by the teacher should come under the possible observation of the child. Care should be taken : 

1. To keep him in an open-minded, 'suspended judgment' attitude; to avoid forcing him into making generalizations for which he has not sufficient data, thus keeping his interest alive, as well as working for truthfulness and accuracy of attitude and statement. 
2. To avoid injudicious, indiscriminate telling by the teacher of facts, which take the zest from further original investigation. Wise and skillful is the teacher who can tell just enough and at the proper time to whet the appetite and stimulate to further research. The problem of the teacher consists in encouraging towards nature an open-minded much-varied, sympathetic appreciation and attitude, a habit of mind in dealing with phenomena by means of specific details under observation. To the little child the personal element is very close, permeating all his relations with his environment.

       The amount of material covered, the time devoted to it, the sequence followed, the adaptations made will depend in each case upon local conditions, individual preference, experiences and maturity of the children, administrative difficulties and so on. At best a scheme of work such as is given here can only indicate the point of approach, the attitude toward the problem and suggestions and data towards its solution. The individual teacher must assimilate and recreate according to the peculiar needs of her situation, otherwise the best plan becomes stereo-typed and artificial. In the higher grades, beginning with the third and fourth, more mature problems and greater detail may be worked out and the economic side of nature experience can be stressed to a greater extent.

       It is in the hope that these suggestions may prove helpful in themselves and lay the basis for future agricultural and geographic, social, and historic studies that this plan has been written. The general scheme has been to indicate the scope of the subject, to present in detail certain portions of it, and to point out the connections which exist between nature experience and other phases of experience in the child's life. These points of contact should be the starting point of any study or investigation made. In this way it will present itself to the child's mind as a problem to be solved and related to other problems. It is hoped by these means to avoid the ordinary fallacy of the primary program which consists in separating into 'compartments' the naturally unified life of the child.

       The divisions into animal life, plant life, weather and so on are necessarily arbitrary and overlap frequently. All that has been said about play, children's projects and problems, expression through oral language and the use of literature in connection with social experience bears equally upon the field of nature experience.

Escape, Explore, Experience!

Suggestive Studies/Outlines: 

• Birds: Habitats, Care Of, Pets
• Animal Life
• Seasons: Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall
• Plant Life
• Gardening
• Weather As It Affects Our Life