Training developed by a team from the University of Quebec in Montreal offers preschool-primary and secondary school teachers educational tools that aim to reconnect their young people with nature in the context of climate change, while generating learning.
It is therefore clear that many young people are disconnected from nature and obsessed with their screens, and that several show symptoms of ecoanxiety which can have an impact on their educational success, said the project manager, the associate professor of the department. of didactics Virginie Boelen.
“It’s a pedagogy that goes against the grain of what we do, which is positive and constructive,” she declared during a long conversation with The Canadian Press on the sidelines of Earth Day, Monday.
“We have to stop typing [sur les jeunes] with climate change issues. We are in the process of knocking them out and destroying them. [Les problèmes] are there, we do not avoid them, but we will first work on something constructive and positive so that the young person nourishes something that is strong, so that he develops ecological solidarity. And at that point, faced with these issues, he will find the resources and he will be much more constructive. »
Ms. Boelen has so far accompanied around fifteen teachers from three primary schools in the Montreal region on outdoor activities.
The activities it offers can take place in a park, a forest, in the mountains, but also near schools, which requires less time and logistics.
“The outing that we do at a given moment is born from the previous outing and it will feed into the next outing,” explains Ms. Boelen in one of the videos produced for this project and available on the ecoleouverte.ca platform.
“This is how we create a certain continuity, a continuum between the releases and ultimately a certain coherence. This creates a bond between the child and the place, the young person begins to know the place and notices the slightest changes with the desire to take care of it. »
It is therefore not a question of moving the French and mathematics course outside, she clarified. The objective is rather to allow the young person to enter into a relationship with nature, and from what they have experienced with this nature, to generate learning linked to the school’s training program.
“We call it a form of eco-conformation, of letting nature be this learning partner that will teach us things,” said Ms. Boelen. So to work on this receptivity in relation to this nature, in which we maintain a relationship of reciprocity, as if we were speaking to a friend with whom we are going to play. »
“Being connected to nature” means enjoying spending time in nature, feeling good in nature, choosing to go outside and play rather than staying indoors, she explained. It is also the fact of loving to take care of this nature, of experiencing a feeling of unity and harmony with this nature, and of feeling that we are part of a whole.
“The primary educational intention is to reconnect the young person to the territory, with a view to countering the phenomenon of eco-anxiety,” said Ms. Boelen. Ecoanxiety is an emotion that has an impact on mental health, and reconnecting young people to the territory with this feeling of being part of the big family of life, that too is an emotion, it’s the feeling not to be alone. »
Research has also shown that direct contact with nature produces beneficial effects on the mental and physical health of young people, in addition to promoting learning.
“And research has shown that it generates a feeling of well-being, of being part of this “great body of life”, added Ms. Boelen, and also a much more constructive and positive attitude towards the future. , with regard to climate change issues. »
When we talk about the environment in schools, she noted, we too often talk about it as a “problem” or as something we must “manage.” The new pedagogy that it proposes aims rather to help young people realize that they are part of “living things”.
The program works not only with the cognitive, said Ms. Boelen, but also with the register of emotions that accompany “feeling alive.”
“And the idea is precisely to counter this phenomenon of eco-anxiety which for many has also been generated by education,” she said. There is this intention to develop a new skill which would be a green skill, an ability to enter into a relationship with this nature, this ability to develop one’s ecological identity. »
This identity will lead to the acquisition of what she calls eco-citizenship, the desire to take care of nature and to mobilize for it.
The actions that will be taken for nature, continues Ms. Boelen, will no longer be done out of fear, “because we tell ourselves that everything is going wrong and that we have to do something,” but out of love, because we is attached to nature.
“In this pedagogy, we teach the young person to relearn this nature who is his life partner, who is with him all the time, who accompanies him and who he has completely forgotten,” concluded Ms. Boelen.