Core Connection

About 10 years ago, I was contracted by another organization to lead nature programs for parents with their toddlers and preschoolers. The activities were designed to offer free play and exploration outdoors for the young children, with the ultimate goal of teaching the parents how to create a space for unstructured outdoor learning experiences for their children. What astounded me was that I was getting paid to teach parents how to take their children outdoors for free play.

I am considered a “last child in the woods,” according to the book by Richard Louv by the same title. This book refers to the last generation to grow up with significant time spent playing outdoors. When I was a child, nearly every day, I played outside with the other neighborhood children. We developed our own activities and games, and the key was that these activities were unstructured and unsupervised. This allowed us to learn creativity, team building, and social skills: we had to figure out how to entertain ourselves and how to get along without adult intervention. This type of play happened whether we lived in a city, a suburb, or a rural area, and it was the same no matter what part of the country we were from.

A critical result of this free play was the development of a sense of place and a strong connection to the outdoor world.

A sense of place is not taught, but discovered through unstructured time in the outdoors.

By building unstructured outdoor play into children’s programs, we create space for a type of connection that many children may no longer be experiencing on their own.

For example, I worked at a day camp where every day we planned a couple of hours of unstructured outdoor playtime for the campers. We’d hike to a specific location at the nature park, give the campers boundaries for safety, and let them play. On the first day, many were hesitant, but soon began to create forts, tiny houses, games, nature crafts, and other activities. Some campers worked with others, some individually, and some campers rested and looked up at the sky. This free play was a time for them to choose an activity that they wanted to do. Not only did it give control of choice, but it gave them a moment to slow down and become aware of the natural world around them. It soon became the highlight of each day.

But there is something deeper about this simple act. We often hear about the biggest environmental challenges of our time: human-caused climate change and loss of biodiversity. Of course, these are urgent and complex issues. However, underneath that is another, less visible issue facing the environment today.

Disconnection.

Without a personal connection to nature, people can learn about, debate, and manage natural resources, but they may not see nature as something to care for. How can we make people care about climate change and biodiversity loss if they have no personal relationship with the natural world? Instead of relational, nature becomes the “other.”

Unstructured time outdoors may seem simple, but it is one of the primary ways that connection begins. People begin to see themselves as part of a place rather than separate from it.

As environmental educators and interpreters, this places a responsibility on our work. We are helping rebuild a relationship that, for many, is no longer being formed naturally. Exploring the wonders of nature in a classroom or in a nature park, creating greenspaces, especially in urban areas, to make nature accessible to as many people as possible, presenting nature programs to many different communities, and of course, building unstructured outdoor play into our programs, have become even more significant to develop a connection to each other and the natural world.

If connection is the beginning of caring, then creating space for that connection becomes foundational to our work.

Please feel free to share any thoughts in the comments.

Laura Beltran is an interpretive naturalist and environmental educator based in Greenville, SC and Poultney, VT. She offers guided nature walks, nature journaling workshops, and professional development workshops on creating ethical guidelines for AI use in environmental education and interpretation. Learn more at www.natureinvestigations.com.