Urban Children's Preferences for Nature

Lessons for Environmental Education

Abstract

A part of a child's environmental education experiences may well involve spending time in a natural environment. But too little is known about how children and urban children in particular perceive nature. Consequently, all too often these experiences have been designed on the basis of best guesses. This paper reports on interviews conducted with eight-nine year old children from the Chicago metropolitan area. The children rated a set of black and white photographs of nature scenes for preference. In addition, they were shown groupings of photographs and asked a series of questions about the photographic settings, including what they liked/ disliked about the setting and what they would do should they visit the setting. The research attempts to describe how urban children view natural settings, what seems to interest them most, how they differentiate environments, and what seems to worry them most about visiting nature.