Why Nature is One of the Most Important Learning Environments for Children

When was the last time you watched a child discover something in nature?

Perhaps it was a ladybug on a leaf. A snail after a rain shower. Or the sunflower that grew a little bigger every day in summer.

For adults, such moments may seem insignificant. For children, they can be fascinating. Children today are growing up in a world where digital media shapes many areas of daily life. This makes moments where they can discover their environment with all their senses all the more valuable.

Current results from the representative miniKIM study show that almost every second child between two and five years old uses digital offerings daily. Furthermore, one in five children already has their own tablet, and about one in ten children has a smartphone.

Especially in their first years of life, children learn primarily through their own experiences. They observe, touch, smell, hear, and experiment. Nature offers a special space for these experiences.

A systematic review in the journal PLOS ONE suggests that nature experiences can support children's development in various ways. They are associated with positive effects on movement, concentration, social interaction, and overall well-being, among other things.

 

Nature as a Learning Space

For adults, a plant is often just a plant.

For a child, it can be a small miracle.

How does an entire plant fit into a tiny seed? And how does it know which way to grow?

Precisely these kinds of questions make nature a special learning space.

When children plant a seed, they don't just observe how a plant grows. They experience changes, ask questions, and try to understand connections.

The special thing about it: children don't learn because they are told to. They learn because they are curious.

Their own experiences help them understand new connections and link what they have learned with what they have experienced themselves.

 

What Children Learn While Planting, Almost Without Noticing

A plant is much more than just a plant.

It can playfully provide children with important experiences.

Patience

A seed doesn't sprout overnight.

Sometimes nothing seems to happen for days. Then, suddenly, a first green seedling appears.

Children experience that some things take time and that growth happens step by step.

Self-efficacy

When a small seed turns into a plant, children directly see that their own actions can make a difference. They have planted, watered, and cared for it, and can observe how something new emerges from it.

A systematic review of nature-based early childhood education concludes that such experiences can support social and emotional development and strengthen confidence in one's own abilities.

Curiosity

Why does the plant look different today than yesterday? When will the next leaf appear? And why does one plant grow faster than another?

Plants are constantly changing, providing children with continuous opportunities for new observations and questions.

A small seed can thus naturally become a small research project.

Discovering Together

Nature experiences often become shared experiences.

Whether with parents, siblings, friends, or in daycare: plants invite people to observe, learn, and celebrate small progress together.

This creates not only new plants, but often also conversations, memories, and shared rituals.

Nature Offers Space for Free Exploration

Unlike many predetermined activities, nature leaves open what children will discover next.

A beetle under a leaf, the first roots of a plant, or a seedling that wasn't there yesterday: children can decide for themselves what to focus their attention on and which questions they want to pursue.

It's not about reaching a specific result as quickly as possible. It's about curiosity, experimenting, and discovering the environment at one's own pace. Precisely these open experiential spaces make nature a special place for children's learning.

 

How Nature Experiences Can Become Part of Everyday Life

It doesn't always take a large garden or a trip to the forest to introduce children to nature.

Even a small pot, some soil, and a seed can create an opportunity to follow for days and weeks how something new emerges.

This idea inspired us at Nowa Bloom to playfully integrate nature experiences into everyday life.

It was precisely this thought that led to our children's calendar made of seed paper.

The calendar accompanies children through twelve months and introduces a new plant each month. After the respective month, the calendar page can be planted. With some water, light, and patience, new plants can grow from the enclosed seeds.

Children can plant, water, and track the development of their plant themselves. Together, they can observe when the first seedling appears, how the first leaves develop, and what a plant needs to grow.

Thus, a calendar becomes more than just a companion throughout the year. It creates twelve small opportunities to experience nature, take responsibility, practice patience, and remain curious together.

Because perhaps sometimes it doesn't take much to introduce children to nature.

 

🌱 Discover our plantable children's calendar 🌱

 

Sources

Medienpädagogischer Forschungsverbund Südwest. (2024). miniKIM-Studie 2023: Kleinkinder und Medien. Basisuntersuchung zum Medienumgang 2- bis 5-Jähriger in Deutschland. https://mpfs.de/studie/minikim-2023/

Dankiw, K. A., Tsiros, M. D., Baldock, K. L., & Kumar, S. (2020). The impacts of unstructured nature play on health in early childhood development: A systematic review. PLOS ONE, 15(2), e0229006. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0229006

Mann, J., Gray, T., Truong, S., Sahlberg, P., Bentsen, P., Passy, R., Ho, S., Ward, K., Cowper, R., Wells, V., & McCrorie, P. (2022). Nature-based early childhood education and children’s social, emotional and cognitive development: A mixed-methods systematic review. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19(10), 5967. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19105967