How to Bring Nature into Schools
Over the last few decades, researchers have amassed a body of quantitative evidence supporting the claim that connection to nature provides profound and long-lasting benefits for children. Where in the past we mainly relied on anecdotal evidence from outdoor educators who insisted that nature improves children’s quality of learning and life, there’s now a wealth of scientific research documenting its wide-ranging positive effects. These include boosts to emotional, physical and cognitive development in both children and adolescents, as well as enhanced critical thinking skills and improved cooperative play.
Integrating nature into the school setting has direct, wide-ranging and undeniable impacts on academic achievement and healthy development. In fact, one 2019 review of existing research set out to answer the question: “Do nature experiences promote learning and child development?” The results: Children in these studies showed improved perseverance, problem solving, critical thinking, leadership, teamwork, and resilience.
How does nature achieve all of this? According to the researchers, it provides a more relaxed, quieter, and safer learning environment, as well as a warmer, more cooperative context for learning.
That same review also found multiple studies suggesting that nature-based learning boosts interest among less engaged students and reduces disruptive episodes and dropouts among “at risk” students—helping them succeed in ways not available to them in the traditional classroom setting. One of those studies even demonstrates that nature-based learning can sometimes fill race- and income-related gaps.
Moreover, nature has been proven to support mental health across all age groups, and especially for children.
Nature-based school environments have been shown to support children with learning differences. One recent American study indicates that time spent in natural surroundings can increase the ability to focus for children with ADHD. According to the study’s lead researcher, simply being in nature helps the human system replenish itself when it suffers from attention fatigue, which occurs when neurotransmitters in the brain’s prefrontal cortex are depleted. This depletion happens more readily in those with ADHD.
All this inevitably leads to the question: If facilitating nature connection in schools improves learning, why isn’t it more mainstream? Why isn’t it already a core part of the curricula for all students, or at very least a readily available intervention for students needing support?
Unfortunately, changing a centuries-old system isn’t easy. It demands time, resources (read: money) and commitment from a variety of stakeholders.
But we don’t need to sit idly waiting for the system to change. There are plenty of steps educators, administrators, and parents can take short of wholesale restructuring of education. Consider these:
Find ways to integrate biophilic design
Biophilic design incorporates natural elements into built environments to create healthier, more productive spaces for people. And it can apply to learning environments, with well-documented positive impacts on students and teachers. For example, one experiment found that the test scores of students in biophilic learning environments were three times higher than those in traditional classrooms.
In an ideal world, biophilia would be integrated into the school’s initial architecture. Nevertheless, biophilic improvements to learning spaces are possible without new construction or a total remodel. For example, schools can:
Bring nature indoors: Maximize natural light and ventilation, and incorporate natural elements such as potted plants, aquariums, water fountains and green walls. Windows should open and offer views of the sky and outdoor landscapes.
Simulate natural spaces: Create cozy nooks, open expansive areas indoors, and shape pathways and corridors where students can meander.
Use natural materials: Nurture a connection to nature by using timber, wood, stone, or other natural materials for furniture, decor, and flooring. Examples include benches made of raw bark and walls with natural prints and patterns.
Leverage natural analogues: Our visual systems process natural imagery more efficiently, which promotes focus, so incorporate shapes and patterns that mimic elements in nature. For instance, fractal symmetry, a form that repeats over and over, can relax the mind in preparation for learning—snowflakes, pineapples, and ferns are all examples of fractals found in nature.
Choose calming, Earth-inspired colors: Earth tones and green hues promote calm feelings and reduce stress. Use them on classroom walls, flooring, bulletin boards, display frames and chairs.
For inspiration, Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Architecture created this helpful toolkit for existing schools to incorporate biophilic interventions.
Incorporate nature into the day-to-day
Educators can give nature a more prominent role in daily student life:
Provide more opportunities for outdoor time: Give children more time during the day for outdoor recreation, learning, and unstructured play. This can be done by extending time during class transitions, recess, physical education, group projects, or individual learning.
Encourage nature interaction: Open access to natural areas for play, nature journaling, and gardening. Install a “nature corner” with logs for sitting and other features such as plants or insect hotels. Build a small pond for wildlife or a sensory garden. The point is to create spaces for interaction with natural materials and elements. Educators can improve the quality of these interactions by asking students to observe sights and smells.
Inaugurate a nature library: Whether indoors or outside, fill it with books about nature and wildlife. Make sure to include a section about the local nature around the school.
Build a nature trail: Work with the student body to design and build a nature trail around the school. Include in the activities the design and implementation of signposts guiding the way, as well as interactive panels about wildlife, flora, and fauna. Let kids' imaginations run wild, and their motor and art skills be free.
Involve all five senses in the natural environment: Nature connection can and should involve sight, sound, smell, touch and taste. Play nature soundtracks during study or play time, make handmade classroom decorations out of flowers, herbs and citrus peels. Host fruit and veggie tastings, or even better, grow your own vegetables in the classroom.
Nature journaling: Students can keep nature journals to promote observation, writing, and reflection skills. Use them as a technical tool to study the natural world, or a means to express feelings through writing and/or drawing. Ask students to describe their natural surroundings, analyze tree shapes or cloud shapes—the possibilities are endless!
Bring nature-based learning into the curriculum
In addition to incorporating nature into the built environment, and bringing indoor and outdoor nature into the students’ experience, teachers can integrate nature-based learning into their lesson plans. Here are some nature-based curriculum ideas for a wide range of grades:
Gardening projects: Establish a classroom-wide or school-wide garden where students can learn how to care for and grow plants. This is a hands-on way to learn some of the key curriculum nodes for biology and botany, e.g. the life cycle, the water cycle, weather, botany, etc… It is also a way for students to learn responsibility, diligence, and cause and effect.
Create ecosystems in the classroom: Set up terrariums and aquariums to observe organism interaction and ecosystems, and to learn about food chains, habitats and biodiversity. You can make this especially interesting to students by picking a plant or animal native to your area, encouraging them to learn everything they can about it. Then, plan a fun field trip into that organism’s natural environment.
Use nature for art: Integrate natural materials (leaves, twigs, rocks, flowers) in art projects to explore textures, patterns and symmetry found in nature.
These are a few ways to introduce nature-based learning into the daily experiences of children and adolescents. For more information on the positive effects of nature on children (and indeed all of us), check out related insights in our blog.
Sources
Determan, J., et al. (2018). The Impact of Biophilic Learning on Student Success. https://www.brikbase.org/sites/default/files/The%20Impact%20of%20Biophilic%20Learning%20Spaces%20on%20Student%20Success.pdf
How to Design a Sensory Garden and Trail. https://www.childhoodbynature.com/how-to-design-a-sensory-garden
Kuo, M., et al. (2019). Do Experiences With Nature Promote Learning? Converging Evidence of a Cause-and-Effect Relationship. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00305/full.
Leif, K. and Loftness, V. (2024). A Toolkit of Biophilic Interventions for Existing Schools to Enhance Student and Faculty Health and Performance. https://www.mdpi.com/2673-8945/4/2/24
Mann, J., et al. (2022). Getting Out of the Classroom and Into Nature: A Systematic Review of Nature-Specific Outdoor Learning on School Children's Learning and Development. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/public-health/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2022.877058/full.
Sherman, S. (2024). Green Time: A Natural Remedy for ADHD Symptoms. https://www.additudemag.com/green-time-natural-adhd-remedy/.