Potentialities of nature education in early childhood settings: a systematic literature review

Abstract

This systematic literature review was based on the research question: “What are the potentials and limitations of nature education in early childhood settings?”, with the purpose of analyzing and systematizing, on the one hand, the benefits of these educational experiences, in terms of health, development and environmental awareness of children, and, on the other hand, the obstacles and challenges to practices, in order to create opportunities for action and learning in nature environment.
Five search terms were established, in three languages, which, through the use of Boolean operators, allowed for the “mapping” of relevant and current studies. In order to delimit the field of advanced research, inclusion and exclusion criteria were determined and the data corpus was constituted, consisting of 21 articles of recent studies, developed in different contexts, which were analyzed by the content analysis technique, using the WebQDA software.
The results, which emerged from the analysis of this review, reveal the positive impact that the experiences provided to children in nature have on their health, socioemotional, cognitive, motor development, and environmental awareness. In addition, some obstacles and challenges to educational practices in outdoor spaces and nature were found, especially in the Portuguese context.
This article, which identifies a gap in the literature regarding the articulation of educational practices in outdoor and indoor spaces, may contribute to the discussion and reflection on the role played by the child and the adult in both contexts, as well as on the educational intentionality and pedagogical potential attributed to them.