Sensory-ethnographic observations at three nature kindergartens

Abstract

ABSTRACTOutdoor, and in particular, nature-based pedagogies are distinctive in that the environments where practice is situated, afford opportunities for pedagogues to encourage children to foreground meaning making through engagement with nature’s sensory and kinesthetic cues. Observational methods, however, have rarely used approaches sympathetic to the dynamism of these pedagogical environments. Limitations in efficacy and practicality of existing methods highlight the potential for an alternative approach responsive to the demands of complex settings, including the under-researched field of nature kindergartens. This paper reports the development of a sensory-ethnographic observation protocol used to document three case studies of nature kindergartens in Denmark, Finland and Scotland during a 16-month, season-round data collection. A methodological innovation that explicitly accounts for habitual, non-verbal and situated dimensions serves as a useful means for a sole researcher to build a multi-layered description of the vitality, verve and flux in each case’s pedagogical relations with their nature environments.