Young children learning for the environment: researching a forest adventure.

Gambino, Agatha ; Davis, Julie ; Rowntree, Noeleen 等

Introduction

Education plays a key role in enabling individuals and social groups to act more sustainably (UNESCO, 1977), and to adopt new cultural beliefs which drive those actions for sustainability (UNESCO, 2004; UNEP, 2007). Such education needs to develop multiple factors in combination (Hungerford & Volk, 1990) including: positive attitudes towards the environment, knowledge of ecology and environmental issues, and knowledge of and skills in using action strategies. Additionally, external aspects such as cultural, social or economic pressures may encourage or inhibit an individual's action for sustainability (Hines, Hungerford, & Tomera, 1986/7).

The effect of external factors can be paralleled to the limitations experienced by educational movements for sustainability as proposed in Sterling's (2001) nested systems model. Individuals and groups, including education for sustainability movements, are encompassed within larger education, social, economic and cultural systems. The norms, expectations, values and beliefs of these systems have a greater influence on individuals and groups than vice versa (Sterling, 2001). Sterling's emphasis, though, is that the smaller, internalised systems do have some influence on the larger systems and this influence can be progressively increased through a positive feedback loop relationship where "change for sustainability in wider society supports sustainable education which in turn supports change in wider society" (Sterling, 2001, p. 32). Cultural change for sustainability is, therefore, more likely to occur when education programs involve the wider community--and across generations--as well as developing individual's capacities to act more sustainably.

Field experiences for young children are ideal vehicles for implementing aspects of education critical to the development of active citizenship and cultural change towards sustainability. Although there is little research documenting the efficacy and influence of field experience in early childhood education for sustainability, research in related areas suggests such a context is both appropriate and needed. First, there is evidence, for example, that direct interactions with nature during childhood of both environmental activist and non-activist adults has a significant influence on the development of positive attitudes towards the environment (Chawla, 1999; Wells & Lekies, 2006). Yet, children's direct nature experiences are diminishing (Louv 2005; Malone, 2007). Second, despite some people's negative beliefs about young children's capabilities, children are interested in and able to understand quite complex environmental concepts. For example, Palmer (1999) reported accurate understanding by four- and six-year-olds of the global impacts of changing polar environments caused by increased air temperatures. Furthermore, such concepts are more likely to be learnt and retained when embedded within active learning experiences (Knapp & Poff, 2001) including in engaged discussions with adults (Ballantyne, Fien, & Packer, 2001; Seifert, 1993). Field experiences commonly engage children in such learning. Third, young children are capable of taking environmental action and can influence the wider community to act more sustainably. Davis, Gibson, Rowntree, Pratt, and Eglington (2005), for example, documented the actions of four-year-olds who responded to the dumping of a supermarket trolley in their playground. They had a letter published in the local community newspaper, and placed signs in the supermarket to dissuade shoppers from taking trolleys beyond the shop boundaries. Additionally, they modelled water-saving practices to their parents, encouraging home-based water conservation.

The Early Childhood Field Experience Program

Responding to Rickinson's (2001) call for research into learners' experiences of learning, a study was undertaken investigating an early childhood program developed by the Bunyaville Environmental Education Centre (BEEC) in Brisbane, Australia, focused on the endangered marsupial, the Greater Bilby. The Bunyaville Easter Bilby Adventure, designed for four- and five-year-olds in the preparatory (Prep) year of school, comes in three parts: pre-visit orientation activities undertaken at school; a structured, half-day field experience; and follow-up learning activities. Initiated by teachers and sometimes by parents, these latter tasks include discussions, writing tasks, home and class projects, and the use of a wide range of resources including video, websites, and reference and story books. They might continue for days or weeks.

The field experience engages children in learning through play, drama, story-telling and problem-solving. As Payne (2006) emphasises, "a strong presence of the acting, sensing, perceiving and 'doing' body" (para 8) should be in experiential learning. Children are immersed in a narrative journey that takes them into the forest where they are involved in hands-on, sensory activities such as exploring the forest's microstructure using magnifying devices, and constructing with natural materials. They assist the story characters in environmental problem-solving. During the visit, children are also encouraged to be discussion leaders with parents and teachers as co-participants.

Towards the narrative's end, the children encounter an Easter Bilby character who explains, through mime, how the species has become endangered and what can be done to help. Easter Bilby then provides each child with a story book of the forest experience, information sheets about bilbies and ways to support Save the Bilby Fund. The narrative concludes with each child receiving a hug from the Easter Bilby. This is photographed, a powerful reminder of the forest experience. These artefacts help facilitate intergenerational learning beyond the forest adventure, and into classrooms and homes when children share their experiences with others.

Researching the Easter Bilby Program

This interpretive case study--seen primarily through the views of children "albeit selectively and with interpretation" (Hill, 2006, p. 74) provides evidence of the achievement of the program's goal of fostering environmental learning and active citizenship. Study contributors were twenty-one children, fifteen parents and four Prep teachers from three schools. The children were recruited in consultation with teachers who used prior knowledge of and relationships with children to aid selections (Powell & Smith, 2009), an important prerequisite for ethical research practice with young children. All children consented to participate voluntarily, with parental consent also obtained. As Powell & Smith (2009) comment, there is evidence that preschool children are able to give informed consent if approached ethically. This acknowledges them as "permission granters" (p. 135) and is indicative that deception or coercion has not been involved in the transaction (p. 125).

To investigate the program's impact on children's knowledge about, attitudes towards, and actions/advocacy for bilby conservation, each child participated in two group discussions/focus groups (three to five children/group), each lasting approximately thirty minutes. The first focus groups occurred two weeks before the field visit and prior to commencement of initial classroom learning experiences. Conversations focused on elucidating children's general understandings of forests, animals (domestic, common and endangered), as well as actions that might support endangered species. The second conversations occurred about three weeks after the field visit and enabled changes to knowledge, attitudes and advocacy to be understood. Group discussions are an economical way of tapping the views of a sizable number of children while benefiting from mutual commentary and flow of ideas, while still obtaining individual standpoints (Hill, 2006). While it could be argued that a group environment risks conformity of views, the children whose data are included in this study were observed to lead conversation, relate different experiences/opinions from others, and express disagreement. Group discussions are also reported by children to be fun especially when accompanied by activities and exercises (Punch, 2002), such as drawing or looking at photographs. Visual methods do not confine the child to communicate verbally (Young & Barrett, 2001) and are more readily understood by young children whose verbal language is developing (Harper, 2002) as they allowed for prompts to be minimally leading, for example, "Tell me about this animal". During the group conversations, photographs and drawings were used as stimuli and children were given paper and pens to make drawings.

Parents participated in focus groups of approximately thirty minutes held around three weeks after the field visit. The foci of these conversations were the extent to which their knowledge, attitudes, or actions/advocacy regarding endangered animals and environmental issues were changed by the program. Half-hour, semi-structured, post-program individual interviews were conducted with the four teachers after completion of classroom activities, up to four months after the field visit. Topics included teacher perspectives on the children's learning and how they integrated the Bunyaville Easter Bilby Adventure into classroom curricula. Children's drawings and stories were collected and analysed as evidence of learning. They were also foci for eliciting oral descriptions and detailed information that the researcher, as an outsider, would have otherwise been unable to access (Young & Barrett, 2001).

The researcher was a participant observer of the field experience mingling informally with children, parents and teachers to create a relaxed and non-threatening social "micro-environment" (Hill, 2006, p. 82) for the conduct of the research. Field notes of important events, interactions and conversations were made. Research data were coded according to children's (and parents') knowledge of, and attitudes and future intentions towards the endangered bilby. How these changed as a result of the field experience and its suite of learning experiences at school and home is the focus of following discussion.

The Impact of Participation in the Bunyaville Easter Bilby Adventure

Initial Understandings

Prior to program participation, the majority of children had no knowledge of the bilby. When shown a bilby image, some identified it as--or spoke of its resemblance to--a mouse, rat, rabbit or ant-eater. Megan's and Kayla's reasoning for the bilby's resemblance to a rabbit is reported here.

Researcher: What tells you that it looks like a rabbit?

Kayla: Well, it has a tail.

Megan: And because it has big ears.

Megan: But it's not a rabbit because it has a long nose.

Children's knowledge of native animals was more developed in relation to culturallysignificant animals like kangaroos. They were also more knowledgeable about animals such as cats, with cats and rabbits perceived only as domestic animals. Only three children had any knowledge of the bilby and just one child understood the term "endangered", relating that there were "only two hundred bilbies left". No children were aware of bilby conservation strategies. No children reported taking part in actions to help care for endangered animals although a few reported caring for domestic animals.

Lack of action-taking in support of animal conservation is consistent with children having little or no knowledge of bilbies or of endangered species. According to Hines et al. (1986/87) and Hungerford and Volk (1990), knowledge about the issue of species endangerment would be a prerequisite for action-taking in support of animal conservation. The one child who did understand that bilbies were endangered did not comment on the need to protect them. As Jensen (2002) states, "action competence" requires knowledge of action strategies and skills in using these strategies, and is critical to implementing environmental actions.

As with their "bilby" knowledge, children's attitudes towards the bilby were mixed. Most had not formed an opinion about the bilby though several referred to its image affectionately as "cute". One child's opinion oscillated between "lovable" and "causing harm", stating that bilbies "[eat] plants and they don't hurt people ... but they have sharp teeth ... and can hurt very much".

On the topic of forests, as a group, these Prep children showed an indifferent attitude and were not very eager to discuss this topic. Two exceptions included a child who described a past forest holiday experience, and Kayla who conveyed anxiety about being in the forest. Similar anthropocentric attitudes of pleasure, anxiety and indifference toward forests were noted in Year 5 and 6 British children (Bonnett & Williams, 1998). Kayla's anxiety was evident in both her initial group conversation and in her behaviour during the field experience [recorded in field notes]. When asked to identify what she would tell other people about forests, Kayla reported to her mother, "sometimes baby [pandas] are scared when they get lost. Sometimes they go, um, in the bushes, and they can't find their Mum". At the suggestion of commencing the forest walk on the day of the field experience, Kayla ran, then clung, to her mother.

Kayla also displayed a dislike of ants, repeatedly stamping on an ant on arrival at BEEC. Kayla's mother, in her focus group, confirmed Kayla's dislike of insects and spiders, commenting that Kayla thought her "a strange mother 'cause I didn't kill spiders" but "caught them and put them outside". According to Kellert (1996), such anxiety is common amongst three- to six-year-olds in unfamiliar environments and can be accounted for by a possible biological need for safety and security. It is also postulated that cultural values assigned to plants and animals have a role in shaping children's attitudes (Wandersee & Schussler, 2001) as illustrated by the following comments regarding stingrays (the death of Steve Irwin, famous for his "dangerous animal" encounters, from a stingray barb to the heart, had occurred not long before these focus groups were conducted).

Kayla: Well, sometimes you gotta be careful at the beach because sometimes stingrays might be under the sand. ... So you make sure that if you dig a hole and you see a stingray, go away from it as quick as you can.

Ryan: ... the stingrays killed Steve Irwin.

These comments, mirroring anthropocentric sentiments that dominated the media at the time of Irwin's death, convey a fearful attitude towards this wild animal, perhaps helping to shape children's attitudes of Nature as wild and dangerous.

Changes in Knowledge, Attitudes and Advocacy/Actions After the Field Program

Changes to knowledge

Following participation in the Easter Bilby program, all children were aware of bilbies and the threats to them. The most frequent comments concerned their nocturnal nature, digging of burrows, and their predation by foxes, dingos and "wild" cats. For example, Jacquie, who had identified the bilby as a rat before the excursion, gave the following description, "in the morning they go to sleep and at the night time they come out and get food, but the foxes come out and eat them".

Some children's recollections showed very detailed new knowledge. For instance, three children named bugs, grasshoppers, scorpions and onion bulbs as bilby food. A fourth child described the desert where bilbies live as being "way, way, away". Children from Banksia Bay School referred to the characteristic spiral shape and depth of bilby burrows, additional information gained through classroom learning. The endangered status of the bilby was also discussed by children from two schools after their visit as these comments show:

Ryan: We went in the bilby's burrow and the bilbies are in danger [bold illustrates child's emphasis].

Researcher: Can you tell me more about why they're in danger, Ryan?

Ryan: Because, um, they're danger cause I think there's only one bilby and one possum.

Researcher: There's only one bilby and one possum.

Ryan: 'Cos I think a cat and a fox has been eating the other bilbies and possum.

While children from the third school made no mention of how few bilbies remain, they were able to show understanding of predation by foxes, dingos and feral cats. One parent, remarking on their child's new understandings about bilbies' loss of habitat, commented "she says it's sad that they don't have their homes". A child from Banksia Bay School, who also had additional classroom learning about rabbits, was able to link habitat loss and predation, commenting that "the rabbits take over the bilbies' home ... that's why they [rabbits] work with them [foxes and cats]".

Four children also showed awareness of the endangered status of the Northern Hairy-Nosed Wombat, an animal mentioned during the forest experience and in takehome literature. Even after four months, children from Wollemi Valley School were able to transfer their knowledge of the bilbies' endangered status to other animals, as this teacher's comments illustrate:

   When we discussed the plight of the Giant Panda and its dependence
   on bamboo which has been destroyed, they immediately said, "That's
   just like the bilby. Were wild cats there, too?".. There have been
   many occasions when a voice from the group called out "That's like
   the bilby!" ... I believe that the powerful message from the
   excursion stays with the children giving them a basis on which to
   stack other information when it is presented to them.

Reinforcement of new knowledge allows it to be more readily transferred to a different situation (Basile, 2000). Following the field visit, both the Wollemi Valley and Banksia Bay children created their own playtime and classroom dramatisations of bilby adventures. The Banksia Bay teacher believed the forest adventure and the dramatic play it inspired, illustrated in Figure 1, was significant in reinforcing the children's understandings. After three months, the children were still raising the importance of building fences to protect bilbies.

Changes to attitudes

Attitudes of concern, care and affection towards bilbies were held by all children interviewed following participation in the program. The first recollection that most children related during the second group conversations was of "get[ting] to hug the bilby". The children also responded to the Easter Bilby's apparent child-like characteristics, as displayed through its miming. The children understood that the bilby was "so shy", "got a bit scared" and that it cried "just like them". To many children, too, the bilby had become somewhat of a "pop cultural icon" through its commercial appropriation as an "Australian" Easter symbol, to some extent replacing the Easter Rabbit (Wandersee & Schussler, 2001). It would seem that the "simulated" actions the children took to help the bilby character during the field experience, and their intentions to help [real] bilby conservation later, were motivated by the caring, anthropomorphised responses towards the bilby that were engendered by the field drama.

In some children, this more caring attitude extended to other animals. Matt's mother, for example, was observed by the researcher drawing Matt's attention to a spider after the "Professor" had asked the group to look for "little animals" during the forest walk. She later commented, "since Matt has been [to the forest], even if he finds a lizard, you know, he's really careful with ants and lizards ... protecting everything.... He was never really that interested in nature and that sort of thing before". Additionally, Kayla, who had originally shown dislike of insects and spiders and had attempted to kill an ant on arrival at the forest, was later reported by her mother as follows:

   now she sees them much more from the perspective of the "little
   animals"--that's what the Professor called all the little bugs and
   things--little animals we need to look after. She's much more
   interested now in collecting bugs and being tactile with small
   animals, whereas in the past, she just didn't like them. ... Now
   she's like "Oh, you know, Mum, we caught a spider and I put it
   outside at Nanna's house".

The key to Kayla's change in attitude appears to have been the opportunity to better understand the animal's perspective. Her mother's modelling at home of not killing insects and spiders had not caused Kayla to relate positively to these animals. After the program in the forest, however, it seems that she was able to transfer her anthropomorphic feelings for the bilby to other "little animals" and, thus, seek to protect them too. Kayla's attitude towards the forest also changed. In her second group conversation, she no longer expressed anxiety about being lost in the forest or of being separated from her mother. It is likely that the insecurities and negative attitudes she had about being in an unfamiliar environment (Kellert, 1996) were abated by her later pleasant experiences in that environment.

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

Changes in actions/advocacy

Actions identified as supporting bilby conservation can be grouped into three main categories: knowledge-sharing (awareness-raising in others of the bilbies' plight); monetary support (donations or buying merchandise where part-profits assist conservation efforts); and physical interventions (building protective enclosures or controlling feral animals). Prior to their field visit, the children had no knowledge of such measures. However, children's post-program conversations demonstrated new awareness of these strategies:

Ryan: Make a fence around the bilby burrow to make him safe so the foxes won't jump over the fence and smash his head.

David: He [Easter Bilby] kicked them all outside and he needs the money so he can buy a fence.

Alex: Have to kill them [foxes] (followed by gun sound-effect).

Erin: There's not really much of bilby so we gotta keep it safe for them ... and we get some, um, Easter badges.

Alex: I just told him [my brother] all about (it). I said the bilbies are endangered and also the wombats are. Then he said, "We have lots of money." ... Then I said, "Good. Then we can send it to the wombat and then they can have more money so they come alive again."

Parents' also reported that the issue of bilby conservation and of endangered species, more generally, was shared amongst household members. For example:

Chris: I think a big change in our behaviour at home is the discussion, and not only about bilby, about a lot more other animals.

Sandra: We've taken it on to look after animals. We have conversations every couple of days about building fences around animals and taking care of animals.

Some children also demonstrated and shared their new knowledge through their play and story writing at home (Figure 2). Play props including a toy bilby were sent home for a night with each child by the Banksia Bay teacher.

Taking action to support bilby conservation is dependent not only on gaining knowledge about the bilby and of action-taking strategies. It also depends on having opportunities to implement actions, a capability thought of as beyond young children. Nevertheless, one Prep child proudly reported how she provided monetary support by purchasing a "Save the Bilby" badge during a Year 6 student's fundraising efforts at school. Although few four- and five-year-olds have the independence to make their own financial contributions, some children conveyed intentions to do so, while several were able to persuade their parents to purchase fund-raising confectionery.

[FIGURE 2 OMITTED]

Sally: In discussing what she would like for Easter, "I want a bilby".

Chris: Not eggs, not Easter Bunnies. Yeah, bilbies.

Because the bilbies' habitat is far removed from the children's homes, their actions of providing physical support were limited to "acting out" these strategies (see Figure 1), or of proclaiming their intentions to act when they were older. For example:

Alex: When I grow up, I go to help bilbies and they're going to be so happy.

Researcher: How are you going to help bilbies, Alex?

Alex: Well, ah, kill the foxes and the dingoes and the rabbits and the cats.

Some children also advocated for the bilby to become the preferred Easter symbol in their homes, as these parent comments illustrate:

Louise: If I mentioned the Easter Bunny, Byron would cut me off and say, "It's no good" and "He's stinky" and "It's [got to be] a bilby, mum."

Gemma: Last year we had Easter Rabbit paws throughout the house and when I mentioned the Easter Rabbit, it was like "Bilby!" I'll have to do bilby paws through the house!

Discussion

The Bunyaville Easter Bilby Adventure was developed in the hope that it would change young children's knowledge, attitudes and actions/advocacy towards the endangered bilby. Anecdotally, BEEC staff have known this to be so, but have not previously had supporting evidence. This study shows that participation in the field experience and the suite of additional learning activities provided by teachers and parents has resulted in such changes. Moreover, these have persisted over time with children's participation also influencing the knowledge, attitudes and actions of parents and other family members.

The curriculum and pedagogical features that contributed to the program's success include:

* environmental concepts and issues are embedded in active, play-based learning;

* the field experience is embedded into classroom learning prior to and after the field program;

* learning about the environmental topic/s is made personally and culturally relevant to children;

* anthropomorphic elements are designed to "hook in" young learners; and

* ideas and opportunities to implement action/advocacy strategies are provided through play and/or real life.

Furthermore, bi-directional interactions between children and adults during the program are likely to contribute to learning about bilbies and bilby conservation. Bunyaville EEC staff encouraged children to input their own ideas in introductory discussions about the bilby, to "act out" the bilby's story in the forest, and to enlist adult helpers as they shared their discoveries in the forest. The resulting bi-directional exchanges are likely to have facilitated learning, especially recollection of bilby traits and ways to help the bilby. In contrast, incidents where conversation is dominated by the adult or which involve no dialogue are poorly recollected by 4-6 year old children (Seifert, 1993).

Attributing personal and cultural meaning to the bilby also contributes to learning. The bilby became not simply an endangered animal but "a friend in need", while a forest walk became a problem-solving adventure. The children developed personal connections with the bilby through their participation in helping the bilby, through receiving a "bilby hug", and through associating the bilby with Easter, an important celebration for many children. Meaning-making through drama and role play provides motivation for engagement, learning and taking action. These dispositions were further reinforced through play at school and home as the children recreated the bilby adventure and invented new ones--powerful forms of expression that young children can readily access when oral and written expression is still developing. Additional learning opportunities also helped to deepen the learning and provided opportunities for intergenerational learning.

Some environmental educators do not support the use of anthropomorphism in learning. This is understandable as anthropomorphism can allow children to associate attributes to elements which they do not have in reality (Gebhard, Nevers, & Billmann-Mahecha, 2003). However, concern with distorting knowledge as objective reality should not over-ride the contribution of anthropomorphism in developing morality and subsequent behaviours. Morals and behaviours are not objective and fixed; they are cultural constructions dependent on establishing a relationship and empathy with the other party (Gilligan & Wiggins, 1987). This research found that even in young children, concern for natural elements based on anthropomorphic representations can co-exist with and complement more objective scientific knowledge. Generally speaking, the children conveyed anthropomorphic perceptions of the bilby when recalling their adventure at Bunyaville while they related more scientific perceptions, when asked for information on bilbies or when shown photographs of real animals.

Conclusion

In a review of research concerning children's diminishing interactions with the natural environment, Malone (2007) expresses concern for the impact it has on children's capacity and competence for environmental stewardship and independently negotiating such environments. Malone recommends that schools counter the effects of this growing trend by undertaking more excursions and implementing more learning experiences outdoors. Evidence for the effectiveness of well-designed outdoor learning experiences for young children is provided by the transformations documented in the children who participated in The Bunyaville Bilby Adventure. Intergenerational environmental learning was also clearly evident. This study supports Ballantyne and Packer's (2009) findings that programs that effectively use "a fifth pedagogy" [experience-based learning] to engender deep learning offer rich early opportunities for building lifelong learning for sustainability. It also shows that research conducted sensitively with young children and that respects them as capable research participants, has the potential to open up new research avenues. This is good for the field of environmental education/ education for sustainability and good for young children.

Acknowledgements

This study was undertaken by Agatha Gambino as a component of the Bachelor of Education (Honours) degree at the Queensland University of Technology.

Keywords: Field education; active citizenship; knowledge; attitudes; early childhood; intergenerational learning.

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Agatha Gambino

Education Queensland

Julie Davis ([dagger])

Queensland University of Technology

Noeleen Rowntree

Bunyaville Environmental Education Centre

([dagger]) Address for correspondence: Dr Julie Davis, Senior Lecturer, School of Early Childhood Researcher, Centre for Learning Innovation, Queensland University of Technology, Victoria Park Road, Kelvin Grove, Queensland 4059, Australia. Email: j.davis@qut.edu.au