The Natural Start Alliance in collaboration with the Children and Nature Network, offer valuable evidence and practice-based information to make the case for affirming the voices, experiences and cultural ways of knowing of our youngest participants in nature-based education in this webinar. Recording available.
The Natural Start Alliance teamed up with the Evanston Public Library to shine a spotlight on the Blueberry Awards, a new literary award that honors books about nature. Panelists examined what makes a children’s book about nature stand out, how books written for young children are exploring nature connection, sustainability, and environmental stewardship, and why that matters, especially now. View the webinar recording for a look at the best children’s literature about nature, as designated by a committee of librarians and environmentalists. You’ll walk away with new ideas about the power of story and a list of books to add to your classroom library!
The Natural Start Alliance collaborates with state and regional groups around the country to advocate for and promote outdoor learning as a high-quality approach to early childhood education. These groups work from the very local to the regional level to support and provide training to educators all along the outdoor learning spectrum, from those just stepping outdoors with their students for the first time to those operating nature-based preschools. This forum features the Minnesota Early Childhood Outdoors (MnECO), sharing their success in partnering with the Minnesota Department of Education to develop outdoor learning resources for all early childhood educators.
The right gear is essential for outdoor learning, but many families and schools view gear as a barrier. We’ve asked four leaders from four different programs to share how they acquire and manage gear in ways that are equitable and accessible.
It’s that time of year again: time to treat your family and friends (and yourself!) to a special gift! And what makes a better gift than a good book? The second annual Holiday Book Fair, featured resource books from Dr. Carla Gull and Peter Dargatz and children’s book recommendations from speech-language pathologist and self-proclaimed book lover, Ranita Anderson.
Natural Start invited Sarah Heller, co-founder and former director of Fiddleheads Forest School, to share the process she developed at Fiddleheads to enroll families with equity in mind. Sarah has spent the last two years learning about enrollment practices and asking questions with the goal of learning how to build more equitable systems and reduce barriers to accessing nature-based education.
How do we develop programs that are welcoming and inclusive to all members of our communities? What does it mean to be culturally relevant? This forum will explore how parents and educators in one community approach these questions. We heard stories from a public school educator, a parent, and a nature-based preschool founder in Minneapolis, MN, as they shared their different paths to nature and what culturally relevant teaching means to them.
For years, Professor Julie Ernst at the University of Minnesota Duluth has been exploring how nature preschools affect children's curiosity, creativity, executive function skills, and more. In this forum, Julie shares her research and tools she has developed that help make the case for nature-based education.
Willamette Partnership’s Oregon Health & Outdoors Initiative partnered with outdoor early childhood experts across the country to develop the "Outdoor Preschool Policy Action Framework." The framework helps advocates — from parents, teachers, and administrators to elected officials — find a pathway to make outdoor preschool available to all. There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to this work, so this resource identifies many potential options you can use to start moving your state along the pathway to make outdoor preschools available to everyone!
This Natural Start forum explores reflective practice and how it can help educators work through difficult and emotional professional challenges and the stress of teaching.
Nature-based education prioritizes emergent, child-directed learning that’s individualized for each child, but we don’t often follow the same principles when it comes to our own professional learning. In this UnPD forum, we’ll give one another permission to design and facilitate (un)professional development for ourselves that authentically meets our individual and collective needs, rather than subscribing to the traditional school model (hence “unPD”).
In July 2020, the Inside-Outside advisory group collaborated to write a position statement on outdoor learning. This position statement quickly gained the attention of tens of thousands of people interested in how schools can transition learning outdoors as a way to safely reopen in the fall. During NatStart's Nature-Based Early Learning Virtual Conference, Inside-Outside organized a panel of experts—including outdoor educators, administrators, and a pediatrician—to further discuss the benefits and opportunities of outdoor learning during this uncertain time.
