Impact of engaging in outdoor science learning on mood and well-being
Increasingly indoor lifestyles mean that children are spending less and less time engaging with nature. This may be due in part to parents’ concerns about safety and the increasing prominence of electronic devices in children’s free time. One widely publicised concern arising from this pattern of behaviour is inactivity and childhood obesity, but there may also be less obvious consequences for mental health and well-being.
Research has suggested that humans have an innate affinity for nature, and that not engaging with it can lead to a ‘nature deficit disorder’, including trouble concentrating and low mood.
Dr Deborah Harvey has developed a school-based intervention programme that engages children in outdoor activities to boost engagement with nature. Whilst her original goal in designing these activities was to boost children’s connectivity to nature and to create new habitats thereby enhancing the biodiversity she recognised that being in nature had other benefits and teamed up with the Prof Dawn Watling to begin a programme of work focusing on how engagement with nature may impact children’s sense of well-being and enhance their mood.
We recently ran one of our first projects in this area investigating the links between these two activities through funding awarded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) Valuing Nature Placement scheme. Preliminary findings demonstrated that children’s mood was enhanced after completing the outdoor activities.
We are currently working together to develop new projects in the area and are interested in extending this work to assess how different levels of engagement outdoors may impact subjective well-being and science attainment.
Get in touch if you are interested in hearing more or would like to be involved in future work.
Researchers: Dr Deborah Harvey and Prof Dawn Watling
For information on other projects our lab is working on linked to nature connectedness, mental health, and wellbeing, click here.
