Abstract:

Society is profoundly transformed in its routines and its values: children no longer play in the street, confining themselves to handling digital keyboards. Furthermore, at school, they live “walled in” and deprived of contact with the outside, neglecting the range of potentialities and advantages offered by the natural world. Thus, the present study has as main objective to understand how nature enhances the development of the child as a whole and is guided by the following research question: How does nature enhance the holistic development of the child?

The study embarked on a qualitative methodological paradigm and the instrument for data collection was taken during the children's play and activities in nature. The sample consisted of 57 photographs taken of the children of a class of 24 children from the 1st childhood, from an institution in the north of mainland Portugal. Before the photographs were taken, the parents or guardians were assured of their consent. Data protection, anonymity and privacy of research participants were also protected. Triangulation of results was performed between photographs and document analysis.

The analysis of the images was carried out with the help of the webQDA® software, based on four a priori categories:
i) well-being;
ii) general disposition;
iii) involvement; and
iv) motor development, with a higher frequency of well-being, involvement, and motor development, thus proving the importance of nature in the holistic development of children.

The categorization was validated using the Delphi method. In short, it is important to highlight the need for inclusion at school, leaving the corset of competences and the focus on learning for potentiating practices that harmoniously combine the child in contact with the natural world, thus being able to enjoy all the offers that it makes available, with well-being and happiness being fundamental factors. The teacher assumes an essential role in this whole process, as it has the function of promoting this proximity between the school and the natural world, allowing the child to be, naturally, a potentiator of their learning. Nature contains physical and aesthetic challenges that mobilize children for adventure through mud, sand, stones, their shapes and colors, weights, temperatures, plants, their leaves, seeds, trunks and stems, roots with different textures, smells, colors, and sizes; and the animals that inhabit these places, the insects with their peculiar noises, their colors, and shapes; the different reliefs, the topographies; rivers, mountains, ravines and plains. For these reasons, nature as spaces for the empowerment of children that must be thought of by education professionals as a constant that leads us to the feeling of empowerment in early childhood.

Keywords:

Early childhood, Nature, Child empowerment.