Project Progress: Parent/ Grand Parent involvment

Since last few months children and me have been working on our project of exploring nature and being outdoors. All the children have been enjoying the nature walks and have been interested in finding deer tracks and deer poop, chasing squirrels, watching birds and how birds are building nests, new blossoms, and leaves. The children have been interested in plants, going into a creek behind our house and enjoyed being outdoors in nature.
I thought of a project to make children aware of nature and appreciate preserving the environment for our own survival. Additionally, to give children the opportunity to make their own garden and physically get involved gardening. We planted a vegetable garden. Along with my guidance and help the children planned out the kind of plants they wanted to plant. They all agreed on planting peas, cucumber, tomatoes, bell peppers and I suggested zuccini, cilantro, mint and chillies. Children prepared the vegetable garden with me, planted vegetable plants. We discussed how to protect plants from deers and rabbits, and agreed to put fence around the vegetable garden. This was one of my student ,Ethan’s suggestion who is 3 ½ yrs old and his father plants vegetable garden and has put fence around his garden to protect from deer. Ethan’s prior experience and recommendations showed keen observation of his surroundings.The children have made a regular schedule of going to their garden and check on the plants.

I was excited to read Elizabeth Goodenough’s book, “A place for Play”, There is a sectionon pg.182, about the Edible Schoolyard project in Berkley, California. It also coincides with ouridea of vegetable garden project The Edible Schoolyard was the idea of Alice Waters of Chez Panisse. Alice water’s edible shoolyard was motivated by the need to improve children’s nutrition . Additionally, she helps children understand ecology by creating a garden and a teaching kitchen. She also to develops a healthy school lunch program of fresh servings from locally grown produce.
Similarly, I also recommend healthy eating in children from infancyVegetable gardens help children can learn about mother- nature and feel sense of accomplishment when they pick the vegetables from their garden. Secondly, gardening gives often sedentary children the opportunity to enjoy being in dirt, water and digging and taking out weeds and caring for their plants. During this learning process children recognize the elements we depend on for life; dirt, rocks, water, and plants. Similarly they incorporate science in their learning when; they need to identify which plants need support, which ones are wines, different leaf structures, and while differenciating between root plants and above-ground plants . They apply mathematics when they calculate distance among plants in rows, which fruits/vegetables grow in bunches, how tall are the plants etc. Planting gardens is a collective activity. As it is mentioned in “ A Place for Play”, “ It is rare in our culture for young people to be given the chance to create something tangible , to care for Earth, to choose the task they would like to do, and to learn to work together in a team.” Children in my group were deeply involved in this project and were excited to share their experiences with their parents. To get parents involved I invited them to
join us in our vegetable garden project and join the children in their outdoor play activity. Parents loved the idea and excitedly joined our play day. Children showed them their vegetable garden and what they have planted. Parents and children played outdoors together and enjoyed the lunch outdoors We did includ fresh vegetable salads in our lunch and fresh fruits ,along with vegetable pasta and dessert. This was the second part of the project and I wanted parents to enjoy what their children were learning from nature. Some of the parents brought floral and vegetable plants for children to plant in the vegetable garden. They brought marigolds to be planted around the vegetable garden and told children how marigolds keep the pesky deer away.
We are lucky to have very supportive parents who agreed with our project and are interested in joining us. In “Last Child in the Woods” by Richard Louv, there is a report by The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) that, “ the number of overweight children between ages two and five increased by almost 36% from 1989 to 1999 and a 60% increase in overweight adult Americans since 1991 to 2000. The “World Health Organization warns that the sedentary lifestyle is also a global public health problem, inactivity is seen as a major risk factor in non-communicable diseases, which cause 60% of global deaths and 47% of burden of disease”. Success in the second part of our project, which was getting parents involved into children’s experiencing nature and vegetable garden project encouraged me to proceed further, and the children and I planned to invite parents/Grandparents for a nature walk to the park. We organized a potluck picnic in the Rochester park to enjoy nature and to go for a walk on the paint creek trail. It was a great experience for children as well as for adults. Interacting with children and nature and we asked all the adults to tell us a story of their childhood times when they used to play outdoors. The parents thought back into their childhood and realized how much fun it is to being outdoors. The Fathers helped children feed the ducks, while the mothers took care of babies. and taking them for walk in strollers every one enjoyed being outdoors in wooded area and interact with nature as well as with their children. It was interesting to watch Grand parentsenjoying nature with their grand children.The children and I played a tree corner game.I use to play this game with my brothers in my young days in woods, everyone picks a tree close enough and one person is in the middle who is to catch others while they switch the tree posts. If he gets the tree, then the person who lost his post comes in the middle.It is a fun and full of movement and excitement game.
Children were amazed by the tall trees.They loved hugging them and tried to climb up on tall trunks. The chilren explored the inside of the hollow trunks of trees. They loved going on walks and being in water stream. They did float their slippers in the water and catching them.
As I was observing children experiencing nature, learning and feeling relaxed and joyous being outdoors; it reminded me of the growing concept of Forest schools in England and Scotland. In an observational research project the “ Learning outdoors: the forest School approach” by Liz O’Brien, the Forest Schools provide regular contact with the woodlands for extended periods of time. This allows the children to become familiar with the natural environment. A report for the National Foundation for Educational Research (Dillon et al. 2005) suggests that learning outdoors can impact the child cognitively, affective??, interpersonal/social communication and physically and behaviorally. As it is mentioned in this study, “Learning outdoors in nature is very different experience from being indoors in a classroom environment I observed while our project, experiencing nature and outdoor play, was progressing.[what did you observe, that the classroom environment is different than outdoor? if so explain how you observed that]

“Man’s heart, away from nature, becomes hard;[the Lakota] knew that lack of respect for growing, living things soon led to lack of respect for humans too".

-Luther Standing Bear (c.1868-1939)

Children's experience with nature and outdoor play. Nature nurtures development.

Nature and children cannot be separated. Whenever we let a child play outside they love to jump in puddles, walk in rain, find bugs and snails as well as love to play in mud and on trees.As Dr.Tedd Mitchell say, "If you can't get to a pond or lake, then find a puddle".

Children are born with a connection and an innate attraction for nature. If an infant is fussy and we take him outside ,the child usually calms down, seeing leaves moving, observing nature.Nature has soothing effects on children and adults as well. As Richard Louv says," Kids who play in natural areas--- those with bushes and trees---have been shown to engage in more creative and cooperative play". If a child is provided ample and regular opportunities for unstructured play,specially outdoors then they are likely to have a greater chances of being more cooperative with others, as well as much happier,healthier and smarter kids.

Researchers at children's hospital of Philadelphia has reported this study. A survey of teen participants in wilderness program found that their interaction with nature enhanced their self esteem, confidence and intiative.Which shows that teens as well can benefit from nature. Parents usually think that if a child is in sports he is active and has enough play time,but when it comes to their mental and physical well being, children need something else. Nature! they need to interact with nature.children's medical and mental health experts affirms that deep forests or natural parklands can be the best playgrounds for children. 

As Richard Louv's wonderful book, "last Child in Woods: saving our children from Nature_Deficit Disorder". Through which he brings into attention how much our children are getting disconnected from nature. Although it is because of  many reasons we are disconnecting our children from nature  such as safety,security, time,lack of natural spaces, more traffic and many other. Researchers noted that from 1997-2003 there was a drop of 50% in kids who participated in outdoor activities such as hiking,walking,cycling,fishing according to a study performed by the University of Maryland.

Government is also trying to support reseachers point of view by acknowledging their hard work to bring awareness among people about the importance of nature in the lives of children.In some states,including Connecticut,california,and Maine,have launched initiatives to get more young people outdoors.And on the Federal level, the pending No Child Left Inside Act seeks to provide funding for environmental education.Although some work is in progress towards saving the children from Nature Deficit disorder but still it needs lot to be done.
I was very keen to learn how  children and parents (participants of my project study) give views about outdoor play and how much is their involvement with their children in outdoor activity.I interviewed 15 parents 7 on internet and 8interviews were face to face.Also i did 7 individual interviews of children age between 3 to 11yrs old and 2 group interviews age 2 1/2 to 4 yrs old. I did use photoelicitation technique, and talked in very informal setting in my daycare where children are very comfrtable talking to me.All of the children were my current and previous students.It was an interesting experience.I got diverse views on outdoor play and children's experience with nature.I developed a questionnaire of 12following questions for parents.
1.What do you think by term play?
2. Why Play is important for children?
3.What kind of play you recommend for children?
4.What do you think of outdoor play vs. indoor play?
5.What children should play outside?and also what is best play for indoors in your opinion?
6.Do you mind if your child play in dirt and explore nature?
7. Do you think outdoor play enhances social and emotional development of children?
8.What kind of play do you play with your children?
9.What does your child play at home?what kind of toys, equipment he uses most and loves to play with.
10.What activities you do together as family?
11.What do you think how much average time chidrenshould spend in outdoor activiyg?
12 What do you think of safety and security issues that are hindering children's outdoor play Now a days?If you fear about it how does you overcome your fear? and let children enjoy outdoors.

I focused my interview question around my hypothesis,"Outdoor Play and Nature Enhances Social and Emotional Development".Keeping in mind my theory i developed following objective questions.

* In my study population how do parents and children define the term play?

*  What strategies are appealing to the children in regards to outdoor play and nature.

* What activities families prefer to do together as family, outdoors.

The responses i recieved from parents, that fall into the category of my first objective question were very similar. To majority of the parents term play was unstructured & enjoyable activity which is a source of fun to children.Play realeses energy in them and it promotes mental and physical growth in children as well as enhances social development.It also keeps children active and creative.

 Responses to my second objective were quite diverse.50% of the responses were about playing sports. Which keeps children healthy physically  and mentally. It should be organised sport.15% said  Our children enjoy video games and computer games and they are very smart because they play video games.And it stimulates their brain. 30% responses to my second objective was according to the researches done which shows the how important outdoor activity and nature's role is in the life of  children. 25% responses were about children's liking for total outdoor play and interaction with nature is the best strategy to be used in terms of children's growth and development. But 100% of parents responded similar, that children must get  dirty and explore nature and children love to be outdoors in woods/creeks.Exploring nature provides vast learning opportunities to children. i agree with that response and believe we must provide children opportunities to spend more time outside to explore the nature and have some unstructured and independent play time.

 Response to my third objective question again was diverse. Usually mothers do not play with children and Fathers are to some extent are invoved in physical play with children in  outdoors and indoor play.Majority of the parents take children for sports and play some kind of sport with children. While indoors they watch movies together or play some board game but mostly children play by themselves.But walking was common in every response,a small group does take children for camping and hiking and explore nature together with children. It was interesting to know how parents interpret play. Where as play in terms of researchers is an unorganised activity that promotes creativity and imagination and give a child independence and true joy of heart.Play also supports children's interaction with nature. 

If we recall our childhoods we will see ourselves playing outdoors most of the time and interacting with nature, climbing trees,finding frogs in ponds and swamps,looking for beehives and somtimes getting stung by the bees, climbing roofs, I remember whent in wind storm some baby birds die and fall off of the tree me and my brothers would bury them and make their graves and if some puppy or cat is weak and hungry we would take some milk from home and feed them and our mom use to laugh and sometimes get mad that we feed the kitties and puppies and later they do not leave our house. Our parents use to take us for hiking and morning walks every day. Every sunday was a picnic day. But do children have it all now a days.No! for that matter we have to bring awarness about the outdoor and nature's importance in our lives.

"There is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in."

                                                Graham Greene ,The power and The Glory (1940)