Conferring Institution, Date

Flinders University, December 2015

Thesis available online at

http://flex.flinders.edu.au/file/4300114a-b82f-4fdc-8d1a-dd9b315dd361/1/ThesisJohnson%202015.pdf

Thesis Synopsis

Compelling evidence links childhood experiences in quasi-natural settings with learning and wellbeing, but, as cities grow, children's activities have been increasingly restricted to de-natured spaces that are designed or controlled by adults. In recent years, academics and education practitioners have campaigned to reverse this trend, and one result is that Australian early childhood centres and schools increasingly provide environments that enhance opportunities for children to engage with nature. These moves are also underpinned by higher-level policy initiatives. For example, the National Quality Standard, Element 3.2.1, requires that early childhood outdoor spaces are designed so that children experience natural environments (ACECQA, 2013). Similarly, the South Australian Department for Education and Child Development (2016, p. 5) Outdoor Learning Environments Standard mandates ‘balanced environments which instil a sense of wonder, generate curiosity and spark the imagination of children and young people’. However, despite recent interest and policy initiatives, the processes by which environments influence learning remain ‘under-researched’ (Engelen et al., Reference Engelen, Bundy, Naughton, Simpson, Bauman, Ragen and Van der Ploeg2013, p. 324) and constitute a ‘significant blind spot’ (Rickinson et al., Reference Rickinson, Dillon, Teamey, Morris, Choi, Saunders and Benefield2004, p. 8) in the literature.

This doctoral thesis is a response to evidence that childhood experiences of nature influence learning and wellbeing. It reports on primary school children's self-chosen recess and lunchtime activities in a naturalised outer-suburban school that was conceived, developed, and maintained as an educational resource. With a synthesis of Gibsonian (Reference Gibson1979, Reference Gibson, Pick, Van den Broek and Knill1992) and neo-Vygotskian (Reference Vygotsky, Cole, John-Steiner, Scribner and Souberman1934/Reference Vygotsky, Cole, John-Steiner, Scribner and Souberman1978, Reference Vygotsky2004) psychology as its theoretical framework, the research uses process tracing methodology (George & Bennett, Reference George2005) to identify that environments influence learning at three levels. First, materiality influences what learners perceive and assimilate. For example, when playing with sticks, children may notice the basic operation of levers. Second, perceiving the meanings of environmental artefacts and places mediates (Miller, Reference Miller2011) higher order learning. For example, when children discover four sticks arranged as a rectangle, perceiving the rectangle potentially mediates the concept of enclosure as understood by the person who created the rectangle. Third, by participating in activities that add layers of meaning to natural and non-prescriptive materials, children may attend to the meanings imbued in places, artefacts, and actions, thereby expanding their understandings of and capacity to influence those elements.

Grounds for Learning sheds light on how naturalised environments influence the processes of children's learning. In so doing, the thesis challenges researchers, educators and designers to reconceptualise outdoor environments as places where:

1. (a) learners socially exchange, perceive, experiment with and adapt information;

2. (b) activities and perceptions mediate higher-level learning;

3. (c) participation in world-making activities scaffolds individual and collective transformations of established norms and practices.