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Abstract
This paper examines young children’s concepts of nature, paying attention to the role played by types of daily experiences with nature on 832 children’s constructions of the natural world. We observed the roles of three types of experiences, as determined by the children’s place of residence (urban, rural mountain range, and rural agricultural) in Spain. Participants wrote what they thought about when hearing the word ‘nature’. Content analysis revealed a conceptual structure formed with four underlying and interconnected themes: (1) natural and non-natural elements, (2) the human–nature relationship, (3) emotional experience of nature, and (4) actions in natural settings. The type of daily experiences with nature (i.e. urban, rural mountain range, and rural agricultural) accounted for variability in children’s concept of nature. These results reinforce the importance of considering the role played by personal and situational characteristics in shaping children’s constructions of the natural world.
Acknowledgements
The authors thank Juan Muñoz for his support on the first steps of the data analysis and the two anonymous reviewers for their critical yet constructive feedbacks during the review process.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Funding information
This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness [grant number PSI-2013-44939].
Notes
1 Note that the term, ‘wild’, used here refers to nature that has little human intervention compared to E1 and E3 and does not to refer to mainly pristine, natural areas.
2 The authors acknowledge that Atlas.ti was designed to analyze data from a grounded theory approach. Nevertheless, it is a reliable tool for sorting out information and was used to help us organize the information obtained.