Boys and Girls reflections of a 6 week Forest School programme. Stuart Danger Garbutt, University of Chichester, UK

Introduction During my placement year I worked as a teaching assistant at a local primary school, during that year I undertook my Forest Schools (L3) training. I lead the entire of Year 4 (12 children at a time) for 6 weeks. Once a week the children would visit local woodland for a whole morning. “Forest School is an inspirational process that offers children, young people and adults, regular opportunities to achieve and develop confidence and self-esteem through hands on learning experiences in a local woodland environment ” - Forest Education Initiative (2010) During Forest Schools children are encouraged to follow their own interests and explore their natural surroundings. At the beginning of each session, a taught skill is introduced to the group. Skills such as whittling, fire building, shelter building and coppicing were introduced and then children were free to take part or pursue their own interests. Literature Review Research around gender and forest schools is relatively new; therefore it is necessary to draw upon research for similar domains. Literature around male and female’s opinions and perceptions of nature, environmental education and biophilia, which I see as some of the important elements of Forest Schools, will be used in the literature review. There is a great deal of opinion on the impact gender has on outdoor education programs, some opinions are generalized and some not backed by academic research. During the reviews of the Forest Schools sessions I lead, boys and girls both give very different definitions of what Forest Schools is and why children should take part in one. Therefore, I found it necessary to look into research regarding differences on gender differences in environmentalism, gender differences in outdoor education and the difference in children’s narratives. In a study that looked at gender differences in environmentalism, Zelezny, Chua and Aldrich (2000) found that women report stronger attitudes and behaviors towards the environment compared to men, this was found to be the case across age and race. It was found that females across the cultures are shaped by socialization to have a stronger ethic of care, social responsibility and to be more compassionate and nurturing. Hyun’s (2000) study points out that young children’s relationship and interaction with nature seem to be shaped by adults’ gender-stereotypical influence, a further study conducted by Hyun (2005), investigated the difference between children’s and adults intellectual perceptions of nature and suggested that educators need to be more aware of adults gender stereotyping and the effect it can have on how children perceive nature. Research into biophillia or ecocentirism, show that women are ‘evolutionary programmed’ to respond more positively to therapeutic interactions with natural settings (Kellert and Wilson 1995; Nurse, Benfield, Bell 2010), males however have been found to get more from being outside, as the environment allows them to take part in more physical activities that they would be disciplined for indoors. The research presented draws a myriad of similarities in their findings, yet there are some flaws in methodology, Hyun’s (2005) research only took snap shots of children’s experiences in the outdoors. The research also fails to investigate the role of the teacher/ facilitator/ outdoor leader in children’s perceptions of nature and outdoor education. The piece of research will help to elaborate on children’s views of outdoor education programs such as Forest Schools. Data Collection At the end of the 6-week programme children were interviewed using a structured interview style. Children were given six questions to answer, but were encouraged to talk as much as they liked. Discussion The data collected from the children at the end of the 6-week programme clearly shows that there was a difference between boys and girls in some of their answers. I will investigate the most contrasting answers given by the children. Boys mentioned ‘survival skills’ as a facet of forest schools, which is an interesting point. During my Forest Schools sessions I never once told the children that Forest Schools was about learning survival skills. An explanation for this response could come from influences of TV personalities such as Bear Grylls. This can be corroborated by Hyun’s (2005) study that mentions the importance of gender doing (i.e. boys and Dads taking part in physical activities in nature such as gardening). Due to the little female significant survival experts on TV there is no surprise girls mentioned it less. Boys again, mentioned using tools and building fires almost twice as much as the females did. This is surprising as the use of tools and such is a complete novelty to most children, but it was the boys who it resonated with most. The type of answers given by the boys is further substantiated by Hyun (2000) who found that boys tended to show more ‘physically oriented’ expression in understanding of nature. The next contrasting answer was ‘learning about nature’, it was mentioned less than 5 times by boys and nearly 20 times by the girls. Even though the children were doing exactly the same activities during Forest Schools, it was the girls who made a bigger connection with nature. A phrase that was also used by the girls only was ‘learning with nature’; I chose to link this theme in with ‘learning about nature’. The choice of language is very curious as it may indicate that girls see the natural environment as more than an outdoor classroom but also as a teacher. Stern, Dietz and Kalof (1993), suggest that females are socialized to have stronger environmental values; this could go some way to suggest girls mentioning ‘nature’ more. The last contrasting answer was ‘feeling free’; this answer is the most interesting. Being able to help children feel ‘free’ in their learning is a fantastic thing to be part of. Possible explanations for this answer may be explained by females ‘evolutionary programming (Kellert and Vilson, 1993) and being able to feel security in heavily vegetated habitats that look as thought they could yield fruits and leafy greens.

Introduction During my placement year I worked as a teaching assistant at a local primary school. In that year I undertook my Forest Schools Level 3 training. I lead the entire of Year 4 (12 children at a time) for 6 weeks. Once a week the children would visit local woodland for a whole morning.

“Forest School is an inspirational process that offers children, young people and adults, regular opportunities to achieve and develop confidence and self-esteem through hands on

learning experiences in a local woodland environment ” -  Forest Education Initiative (2010)

During Forest Schools children are encouraged to follow their own interests and explore their natural surroundings. At the beginning of each session, a taught skill is introduced to the group. Skills such as whittling, fire building, shelter building and coppicing were introduced and then children were free to take part or pursue their own interests. After the 6 weeks had finished, I interviewed all the children and asked them to reflect on their time in a Forest School, boys and girls both gave very different answers. The purpose of this poster is to explore those themes. Literature Review There is very little research into gender differences at Forest Schools; therefore I found it necessary to draw upon research in similar domains. This literature review will look at studies that investigated male and female’s perceptions of nature, connectedness to nature and bio-philia. I see these as some of the important elements of Forest Schools, and relevant to the themes mentioned in the children's reflections. There is a great deal of research on the impact outdoor education programmes can have on different genders (Neil, 1997 and Leupp, 2007). There is also a plethora of opinions and generalised thought on outdoor education and gender, some not backed by any academic research. When reflecting on the Forest Schools sessions, there was a differences in the answers given, hinting that it may have impacted differently on boys and girls. In studies that looked at gender differences in environmentalism, Zelezny, Chua and Aldrich (2000); Hoot and Friedman (2011); and Arnocky and Stroink (2010), all found that women report stronger attitudes and behaviors towards the environment compared to men, this was found to be the case across age and race. It was found that females across most cultures are shaped by socialisation to have a stronger ethic of care, social responsibility and to be more compassionate and nurturing (Denzin, 1977; Bem, 1981 and Gilligan, 1982), whereas males are generally brought up to be competitive and autonomous (Arnocky and Stroink, 2010). Hyun (2005) recommends that more attention must be paid to the way that adult’s perceptions and thoughts about nature can influence children’s. Research into bio-phillia or ecocentirism, shows that women are ‘evolutionary programmed’ to respond more positively to therapeutic interactions with natural settings (Kellert and Wilson 1993; Blatchford, Baines, & Pellegrini, 2003), males however, have been found to benefit more from being outside, as the environment allows them to take part in physical activities that they would be disciplined for indoors (Gill, 1997; Leupp, 2007; and Jacobsen, 2012). The research presented draws a myriad of similarities in their findings, yet there are some flaws in methodology, for instance Hyun’s (2005) research only took snap shots of children’s experiences in the outdoors. The research also fails to investigate the role of the teacher/ facilitator/ outdoor leader in children’s perceptions of nature. Instead it focused on bio-phobic parents perceptions of nature. All studies that looked at connectedness to nature used questionnaires and was either filled in online or indoors. The piece of research aims to elaborate on children’s views of outdoor education programs such as Forest Schools using qualitative methods of data collection.

Data Collection At the end of the 6-week programme children were interviewed using a semi-structured interview style. Children were interviewed outdoors in a wooded area in front of a video camera. They were given six questions to answer, but were also encouraged to talk as much as they liked. There was no interviewer present. 17 boys and 14 girls were interviewed. Discussion The data collected from the children at the end of the 6-week programme clearly shows that there was a difference between boys and girls in some of their answers. I will investigate the most contrasting answers given by the children. Boys mentioned ‘survival skills’ as an important facet of Forest Schools. During my Forest Schools sessions not once were the children told that Forest Schools was about learning survival skills. A justification for this response could come from influences of TV personalities such as Bear Grylls. This is corroborated by Hyun’s (2005) study that mentions the importance of gender doing (i.e. males taking part in outdoor physical activities such as camping, and hiking). Due to the few female survival experts on TV there is no surprise girls mentioned it less. A contrasting theme was ‘learning about nature’, it was mentioned less than 5 times by boys and nearly 20 times by the girls. Even though the children were doing exactly the same activities during Forest Schools, it was the girls who made a bigger connection with nature. A phrase that was also used by the girls only was ‘learning with nature’; I chose to link this theme in with ‘learning about nature’. The choice of language is very curious as it may indicate that girls see the natural environment as more than an outdoor classroom but also as something they share a connection with. This deduction is supported by studies that measured individual’s connectedness with nature, (Schultz, 2002; Mayer and Frantz, 2004; and Mayer and Frantz, 2009) where females scored significantly higher than males, which was also observed by Zelezny, Chua and Aldrich, (2000). There are many thoughts regarding females’ affinity to nature; some researches take an ecofeminist-evolutionary standpoint and believe that females’ potential to become a mother means they are more connected to nature (Merchant, 1980; Plumwood, 1993; and Deane-Drummond, 2004), which could explain the girl’s thoughts on nature.

The last contrasting answer was ‘feeling free’; this answer is the most interesting. Possible explanations for this answer may be explained by females ‘evolutionary programming’ (Kellert and Wilson, 1993), and that people have a biologically based need to feel connected with the natural world (Wilson, 1984; and Kellert, 1997). Further research is needed to explore this theme more, using a mixture of questionnaires and structured interviews; one could delve further into this answer. It was interesting to note that males mentioned ‘feeling free’ far less. This could be due to the interview style; Hyun (2005) mentions that males tend to give shorter less descriptive answers that show more ‘physically orientated’ expression compared to girls answers that are more narrative and linguistically longer (Buckner and Fivush, 1998), which is supported in the data I collected. Boys chose to talk on average for 3:45minutes, whereas girls chose to talk for an average of 5:12 minutes. Therefore boys may have mentioned feeling free eventually but found it hard to communicate this. The interview style I chose could be seen as a positive and a negative, with no interviewer children may feel less intimidated. However, having no interviewer meant that some themes that should have been investigated further was not. Conclusion: Taking an evolutionary perspective maybe far fetched for an outdoor education programme, but perhaps the power that Forest Schools has to provoke answers such as these should be investigated further. There is already a plethora of research into male and females connectedness to nature and their inclination to be environmentally minded. There is certainly a difference in boy’s and girl’s answers and what they have found to be most important and what resonated with them. Forest Schools certainly has the scope to contain some spiritual and philosophical elements and this should be capitalised upon for a number of beneficial reasons. There are also implications for Forest School leaders who should possibly challenge boy’s perceptions of nature during Forest Schools programmes. References: Arnocky, S., and Stroink, M. (2010) Gender differences in environmentalism: The mediating role emotional empathy. Current research in social psychology. http://www.uiowa.edu/~grpproc/crisp/crisp.html [Accessed 23rd September 2012) Bem, S. L. (1981) Gender schema theory: A cognitive account of sex typing. Psychological Review. 88, 354–364 Blatchford, P., Baines, E., & Pellegrini, A. (2003) The social context of school playground games: Sex and ethnic differences, and changes over time after entry to junior school. British Journal of Developmental psychology. 21, 481-505. Buckner, J. and Fivush, R. (1998). Gender and self in children’s autobiographical narratives. Applied cognitive psychology. 12, 407-429. Deane-Drummond, C.E., (2004) The ethics of nature. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Denzin, N. (1977) Childhood socialization (San Francisco, CA, Jossey-Bass). Dietz, T., L. Kalof. and P. Stern., 2002. Gender, values, and environmentalism. Social Science Quarterly. 83(1), 353-364. Forest Education Initiative, 2010. Woodland Learning; Forest Schools. [Online] (Available at: http://www.foresteducation.org/woodland_learning/ [Accessed 21st September 2012]. Gilligan, C. (1982). In a different voice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Hoot, R.E., and Friedman, H. (2011) Connectedness and Environmental Behaviour: Sense of Interconnectedness and Pro-Environmental Behaviour. International journal of transpersonal studies. 30(1-2), 2011, pp. 89-100. Hyun, E. (2000) Ecological human brain and young children’s ‘naturalist intelligence’ from the perspective of developmentally and culturally appropriate practice (DCAP), paper presented at the 1999 American Educational Research Association Annual Conference. Hyun, E. (2005) How is young children’s intellectual culture of perceiving nature different from adults’? Environmental Education Research. Vol. 11, No. 2, April 2005, pp. 199-214. Jacobsen, K. (2012) Individual Differences and Possible Effects from Outdoor Education：Long Time and Short Time Benefits. World Journal of Education. 2(4). 2012 Kellert, R. R. (1997). Kinship to mastery: Biophilia in human evolution and development. Washington, DC: Island Press. Kellert, S. R, and Wilson, E. O. (Eds.) (1993) The biophilia hypothesis. Island Press. Leupp, A., (2007). Gendered Wilderness: The effect of outdoor education on girls’ and boys’ self-concept. Explorations: An undergraduate research journal. 2007. http://ue.ucdavis.edu/explorations/2007/Explorations_Volume10_AliciaLeupp.pdf [accessed online 23rd September 2012]. Mayer, F.S., and Frantz, C. M. (2009) Why is nature beneficial? The Role of connectedness to Nature. Environment and Behaviour. 41(5). 2009, 607-643. Mayer, F.S., and Frantz, C. McP., (2004) The connectedness to nature scale: A measure of individuals’ feeling in community with nature. Journal of Environmental Psychology. 24, 503-515. Merchant, C., (1980) The death of nature. London: Wildwood house. Neil, J.T., (1997) Gender: How does it effect the outdoor education experience? In Catalysts for Change: 10th National Outdoor Education Conference Proceedings Jan 20-24 (pp. 183-192). Collaroy Beach, Sydney, Australia: The Outdoor Professionals. Plumwood, V., (1993) Feminism and the Mastery of Nature. London: Routledge. Wilson, E. O. (1984). Biophilia: The human bond with other species. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Zelezny, L. C., Chua, P., and Aldrich, C. (2000). Elaborating on gender differences in environmentalism. Journal of social issues. 56, 443-457.

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Boys and Girls perceptions and opinions of Forest Schools.

Boys Girls