LAND-How do children experience nature? Meaning-making and socialization to outdoor life.

A questionnaire among 3160 parents showed that the use of nearby nature is not an integrated part of children?s everyday life, but something they occasionally do. As many as 53 % of the children rarely or never plays in the local woods during summer. The barriers for increased contact with nature is complex and context dependent, but a busy everyday life and car traffic appears important. The questionnaire confirmed our hypothesis that children?s experiences with nature often involves the parents, who feel responsible for facilitating and organising children?s activity in nature. The different qualitative studies performed (in a kindergarten, Children?s Tracking Association, school camps and in a local community) shed light on the meaning content of children?s experiences with nature in different settings. The studies show that self-initiated play has particular qualities for children; it creates engagement and creativity, and stimulates feelings of excitement, joy, freedom and mastering. Through spontaneous play, children achieve a closer, more sensuous and embodied contact with nature than during activities organised by adults. Through free play, children utilise the endless possibilities for play in nature, on their own terms and experiences, and engage in what we term ?nature meetings?. The Children?s Tracking Association study identified several factors that may stimulate to free play that should be relevant to other arenas as well: Sufficient time to get to know the surroundings and each other, not too many organised activities with adult instructions, limited group sizes and that adults can retreat from the playing kids. In the project publications, we raise the question to what extent the importance of free play get the attention it deserves in an otherwise performance and goal oriented society. The study also show how the local natural environments may be adapted to stimulate play and contact with nature. Children are stimulated by different features in nature than are adults, and variation and ?wild? elements are keywords. Varied vegetation provides shelters and stimulates adventures and play. To create or conserve attractive local ?playgrounds? in nature we need more knowledge on the children?s preferences. The kindergarten study showed a large potential for teachers to stimulate free outdoor play, through both active pedagogical measures but also simply by allowing time for free play. However, todays kindergartens have multiple functions. While kindergartens are an important arena for supporting free and self-governed play in nature, there are several practical and organisational barriers for such activities. Similarly, while the basic idea of the school camps are learning by experiencing and sensing nature, as a contrast to the classroom, the focus on educational targets reduces the spontaneous experiences with nature and school camps thus seldom represents a true alternative to classroom teaching. Despite the extent of contact with nature not being extensive among children, the present study shows that children in Norway are offered and experience nature in several settings. The modern, more structured, targeted and organised types of experiences with nature differ from the self-initiated and free play, but nevertheless have qualities valued by many, particularly the adults. Of particular importance is the increased safety through adult presence and the fact that activities contribute to learning and mastering. Cooperation with the Forestry Research/Forestry Commission in UK has shown that children?s nature experiences in Norway are not that different from those in England. Norway can learn from England, particularly concerning physical adaptation of local nature areas. Access to nature is very limited in England, and this has motivated a stronger focus on how landscapes can be adapted to facilitate children?s play. Overall, the study shows that everyday nature experiences holds important qualities, contrasting the institutional, organised and busy life of kids. It also emphasise that such nature experiences may become increasingly important in future, and we have focused on activities such as walking or biking to school or different activities. Everyday use of nature depends on both secure and attractive local environments and increased awareness among adults of the importance of spontaneous and self-governed play.

Children's outdoor life has the latest decades changed substantially in form and content, but is under-focused in research. The study will fill a need for broad and interdisciplinary knowledge concerning this topic, using different methods but jointed in an experience-based an open approach. The study will include a review over existing, but probably limited knowledge on the extent of children's experiences in nature today. To fill out the gap of knowledge and as background for further qualitative researc h, a national survey will be conducted mapping who, when, where and in what context children are in outdoor natural areas. The main focus in the study will be on meaning-making and socialization for outdoor activities, by focusing on how children experien ce nature in different settings along a gradient from more self-controlled and unorganized outdoor activities to adult-controlled and organized outdoor activities. This main part of the study will base on three in-dept qualitative case-studies and two mor e superficial examples which in total represent this gradient. The study will focus specifically on how meaning-making in children's experiences in nature can contribute in curriculum development in ECEC's, nature management and planning, and then be used to facilitate good opportunities for outdoor recreation activities and socialization to outdoor life.