The Impact Of Nature-based Learning On Elementary School Student's Science Learning

As the educational and recreational patterns of modern children become increasingly intelligent,children lack the opportunity to get in touch with nature,and urban children are almost completely cut off from nature,resulting in the widespread occurrence of "Nature-deficit Disorder" around the world.In this context,Nature-based Learning(NBL)has been proposed to provide a solution for children's Nature-deficit Disorder.Nature-based Learning is a practical process of acquiring knowledge,skills,values and attitudes through exposure to nature.Foreign studies have attempted to promote children's academic learning,personal development,and the acquisition of a sense of nature identity through NBL.Therefore,this study explores the impact of NBL on elementary school children's science learning in order to introduce a new model for innovative children's science learning and to find an effective way to improve children's engagement and learning outcome in science learning.In this study,students in two fourth grade classes of T Primary School in Pinghu,Zhejiang Province were selected as the subjects.A controlled experiment,classroom observation,questionnaires,and interviews were used to conduct a controlled experimental study of Nature-based Science Learning versus conventional Indoor Science Learning by selecting the curriculum topic of “Soil" as the content for 3-stage of 6-lesson class of instruction.The results showed that: firstly,nature-based learning helped to improve the students' engagement in science learning,with significant increases in the dimensions of emotional,cognitive,and social engagement,and relatively weak increases in the dimension of behavioral engagement;second,nature-based learning in science helped to improve students' learning effectiveness to certain extent,the study found that students in the experimental group were able to answer the same questions at a higher score compared to students in the control group,but did not constitute a statistically significant difference from the effectiveness of learning in the regular classroom;and third,Nature-based Learning can help improve students' sense of identity and belonging to nature,and is expected to become a new teaching model for front-line science teachers in the future.Based on the aforementioned findings,this study proposes the following recommendations: first,teachers should choose appropriate teaching content for bold experimentation;second,NBL should be effectively integrated with the indoor curriculum;and third,the focus should be on improving students' emotional,cognitive,and social engagement in NBL.