in the United States from about 1890 educators saw the growing influence and the natural world
natural world were part of
to 1930, Nature Study proponents
emphasized outdoor experiences
and direct observations of plants,
animals and natural phenomena,
such as cloud forms and weather
patterns.
NATURE STUDY: WHY AND HOW
Nature Study was designed as one
way to reform elementary public
education in the US. Those reform
efforts advanced progressive ideas,
such as every child deserves an
education that includes fluency
with local natural history and
hands-on science.
Na t u re St u d y p ro p o n e n t s
believed in cutting out the middle-
man. They worked under the belief
that seeing, touching and hearing
the natural world forged lifelong
relationships between children
and the environment that no book,
no matter how evocative, could
ever match.
The local emphasis meant that
Nature Study, which was practiced
all over the country, made use of what
was at hand. Children in school along
the Atlantic coast might take field
trips to the ocean, while students
in the Midwest might visit lakes or
fields, and those on the West Coast
might observe desert or woodland
life. Urban schoolchildren might
go to parks or an arboretum. Many
programs didn’t involve extensive
field trips, but, in a bid for genuine
hyper-locality, encouraged children
to pay attention to a meadow or other
open space near their schools.
A sense of spiritual vitalization,
facilitated by authentic relation-
ship with the natural world, played
a big role in the movement. Many
of industrialization, with its uglifi-
cation of the environment and its
distancing of people from the natu-
ral settings in which their ancestors
had lived, as trends that needed to
be actively resisted. Nature Study
offered one way to do that.
THE ROLE OF GARDENS
In many Nature Study programs,
gardens played a central role. In addi-
tion to learning about and observing
plants, students met unique oppor-
tunities to study the birds, animals
and insects that invariably visit
garden spaces. Here are some of
the other advantages that various
Nature Study proponents identified
when promoting gardening:
Gardens are broadly accessible,
even to urban students. As long as
there is a sunny windowsill, one can
grow a garden.
A garden is dynamic, giving
chances to observe both seasonal
changes and the whole life cycle—
seed to flower to fruit to seed—of the
plants cultivated.
Gardening offers a practical,
results-oriented curriculum,
something parents, teachers and
school officials could all relate to
and understand.
Gardening made possible an
interactive, reciprocal relationship
between people and the natural
world that transcended mere obser-
vation. Children could observe a
garden plant’s growth or a seed’s
sprouting, yes, but they were also
direct participants in those pro-
cesses. Garden plants need watering
and benefit from weeding. Students
who tended gardens were more
likely to develop a sense that humans
the same shared, large, vital project.
Nature Study advocates believed
that gardening’s effects were even
more far-reaching. Many believed
that gardening helped youth to grow
into dependable and productive
citizens, and that the impetus for
those traits was love—of nature,
humanity and well-being—rather
than grim duty.
Alice Patterson, a teacher and
major player in the Nature Study
Movement, wrote this in a 1916 issue
of Nature Study Review, a bimonthly
publication:
“The very fact that a child finds
himself a producer, providing some-
thing of value for the family or the
community, (inspired in the child)
self-respect and a self-reliance that
is a great asset in the character of any
citizen of a democracy.”
A year earlier, in 1915, Henry,
a fifth grader at Chicago’s Francis
W. Parker School, wrote this in the
school yearbook:
“When you get to know the
plants, you feel as though you ought
to have a garden where you can take
care of real plants and study them.”
Amen, Henry. Amen.
FURTHER READING
To learn more about the
Nature Study Movement, look for
The Nature Study Movement:
The Forgotten Popularizer of
America’s Conservation Ethic
by Kevin C. Armitage
and Teaching Children Science:
Hands-On Nature Study in
North America, 1890–1930
by Sally Gregory Kohlstedt.
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