KUNMING: It is widely known that children’s interest in nature is crucial for their mental health and biodiversity conservation efforts. But how to foster children’s interest in nature in the first place? The answer may lie in a garden.
Chinese researchers have recently revealed that a school garden with abundant natural components can be used to cultivate the interest of primary school children in nature while helping to alleviate their study-related stress.
In a study published in the journal People and Nature, a research team from Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden (XTBG) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences analyzed the impact of natural observation and inquiry-based learning activities in a school garden on the development of children’s interest in nature.
The researchers conducted a series of teaching interventions over a semester in a campus garden of a primary school in Xishuangbanna in southwest China’s Yunnan Province. The program involved 24 fourth-grade students taking part in weekly 40-minute activities, which were divided into three treatments: natural observation with assigned tasks, natural observation with open-ended tasks and inquiry-based activities.
Participants maintained individual portfolios consisting of questionnaires, nature journals, observation descriptions and interviews. Qualitative and quantitative data were analyzed to categorize children into three types: those with initiated interest, those with enhanced interest, and those with no significant change. –Agencies
