Teach Wonder
Teach Wonder
Everything but the Book Study: Looking at how schools in Finland brought forest ecology into the classroom
Welcome to our new series in Teach Wonder, Everything but the Book Study, where one of us has read the article we are about to discuss, and one of us hasn't. In this episode, Julie brings an article from The Guardian about a Finnish preschool experiment where natural forest elements were imported into schoolyards, enhancing children's health.
Article Link: How a radical experiment to bring a forest into a preschool transformed children’s health
Intro Music: David Biedenbender
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This brought it to that like not just replicated, but they imagining that the spaces they chose were purposeful, right? So this example is where it says they have dug up and imported a giant live carpet of forest floor.
Introduction:Okay, nowWe're recording, so welcome to teach wonder. Yes.Welcome to teach wonder, a podcast hosted by Ashley O'Neil and Julie Cunningham.
Ashley O'Neil:If you've been around here for a while, you know that our podcast, teach wonder has been in production for a few years. We started with the idea that to connect with educators in a way that wasn't constrained by schedules, either ours or theirs, was really important. So we've shared interviews with classroom teachers and educators from around the world, and we've done deep dives into topics that we think are relevant to the classroom. Lately, we've been discussing how overwhelming it can be to be inundated with information. 24/7, I have so many sub stacks, podcast recommendations, articles, bookmark to read books on my TBR, and I wanted a place to digest and discuss pieces that come from this endless stream and a little bit of accountability to read things in a timely manner. So this semester, we're doing what I'm calling an everything but the book study, where we bring something related to education, teaching, learning that's caught our attention, and we talk about it and learn about it in real time. Each episode, one of us will bring a content piece of our choice, an article, a podcast episode, a book chapter, etc, something we've consumed and the other person will never have seen it. Our hope is that this dynamic will create a rich and interesting discussion that you can feel a part of. Quick disclaimer, it probably goes without saying, but our discussions are in no way an official endorsement or recommendation for anything. We're here to share ideas and findings, to ask questions to speak with Nuance. If you're looking for some sort of wholesale thumbs up on a product or a pitch, you probably won't find it here. If, however, you're interested in hearing about our informal discussions on topics such as nature and education practices to address differentiation stem and PBL, we hope you'll enjoy learning along with us. So without further ado, here's the first episode of our series, everything but the book study. Okay, so we are trying a new format today, and thank you for coming along with us as we reflected a lot on the things that we've been finding most useful and gravitating toward in our own professional work, where we're learning from things what we're thinking about when it comes to education. So for the next few episodes, we are going to try teaching each other a little bit and bringing you along on the ride. So the format will look like this. One of us will bring either a podcast episode, a journal article, a chapter of a book, a something to the group. The other person has never engaged with it before, has not really read it, maybe vaguely knows what the topic is about. And then we're just going to talk about it. We're going to respond to it in real time. The person who's brought that segment to the table might bring up some quotes or pull up some information, and we'll talk back and forth, and you get to learn right alongside us. So without further ado, today, our first article comes from Julie. Julie, do you want to tell us just a little bit about how you found this? What it is? Here we go,
Julie Cunningham:yes, and I'm feeling a little bit of pressure since I'm the first article, so we'll see how this all goes. So I think what drew me to this article was I find articles or stories or data books interesting about how my removing nature from children's children's environment, or, you know, not when kids don't get enough time in nature, how that affects them, what those outcomes are. And so this extinction of experience is what it's been called, sometimes kids not getting time out in nature. So this is, this comes from, like the subject line in this article said, The Age of Extinction. So that caught my attention. I think because of this, my interest in this extinction of experience. I don't know if we need to say, but the article is from the Atlantic. I think we probably can link to it in our show notes. The title is, how a radical experiment to bring a forest into a preschool transform children's health. And so that's both to me on multiple levels, although I've not been to Finland, our trip to Iceland to look at how getting kids in nature in schools affected children's learning. And so us learning from that experience has stuck with me, right? That was a little over a year ago, and we still find a lot of value in our experiences there and then additionally, new listeners won't know this about me, but longtime listeners will know them. I volunteer with a group called adventure team, 906 adventure team, and we have a team in Midland, Michigan, where we use bikes as a tool to get kids out on the trails and to adventure. So that is something that I hold near and dear. So those things compelled me to look further into this article. It's not a very long article, and it was very readable, perfect.
Ashley O'Neil:Okay, so preschool does the entire article. I guess one of my questions is, we have listeners of all ages, and we talked our trip to Iceland was primarily with early childhood. Is this articles solely about a single preschool? Is it about like a cultural situation in Finland. How does that work?
Julie Cunningham:It is about it's not about a single preschool, and at the end of the article says that there's visitors from Norway, Iceland and Denmark who are considering this model as well. So that it feels like it's not just Finland who is considering this, but perhaps Finland, who put a large amount of money and knew it to begin with. So there was grants awarded to these preschools in Finland, 43 they call them daycare centers, 43 schools to make these changes. And then scientists studied the changes. And so the the interesting thing to me is, although, like in Iceland, we saw preschools take kids out into nature, right by walking through communities or community spaces. And so they almost were situated in neighborhoods in which, yeah, there was a lot of green access this. I don't know if there wasn't green access or why the decision was to bring the green to the school, and so they, like, went out in the woods and took areas, natural areas, and developed those at the school. So okay,
Ashley O'Neil:I'm just going to use an example from here, and you can tell me if this is what you mean. So like, for example, let's say there is a local there's a Woods that's like, two miles from our house. It would be like us taking the same ecosystem there, the same types of trees, the same types of moss, the same types of undergrowth, all of those things, and then trying to replicate that, and growing those kind of four spaces in, like the schoolyard,
Julie Cunningham:yes, except they actually went and dug up that space, oh, brought it to that like, not just replicated, but they, I'm imagining that the spaces they chose were purposeful, right? So this example is where it says they have dug up and imported a giant live carpet of forest floor 20 to 40 centimeters deep and 10 meters square. And then it lists like things that were in that space that they wanted back at the school, yeah, like
Ashley O'Neil:the rotting wood, yeah, all of this stuff, the soil they like, picked it up
Julie Cunningham:right in that particular instance, there is another instance where they had gardens, and so the children grew things in the garden, and then they composted, and the children played in the garden, played in the compost. So it wasn't always that they dug up a part of the forest, but it always was the natural space, the kids playing in the soil, in the mud, in the and like nobody's saying, Don't put your hands in your mouth. Don't get your face
Ashley O'Neil:dirty, don't they were just like, free playing, right?
Julie Cunningham:And so one of my favorite parts is, or one of my favorite headings of a part of the article, is putting the children in charge. So just like, making this space and then letting the kids do with it what they will instead of and we talk a lot about that from our time in Iceland too, right, this adult stepping back and not interrupting the children's play. And so as much of the article had to do about that, I feel like,
Ashley O'Neil:as it did about everything, about the natural space, that is interesting, because I feel like so often. I mean, even just this past week, I was having a meeting with a teacher, and we were planning an event, and it was like an activity that we were going to go do in their nature space. And this is much more saying, here's the space, and that's the work, and then the teachers are, like, mindfully observing them, I would imagine
Julie Cunningham:the teachers. And I think, yeah, that's the sense I get. It was less, honestly, it was less about any educational activity. Article itself, and I'm sure I could do more research, but the article itself was more about the health benefits. And so it said, Yes. Health benefits, like mental health and less anxiety, all those things that I think we've mostly accepted have come out of research with natural spaces. But this was even more about like gut health and getting sick less often and having good microbes and having fewer allergies. It was more about, like, days and time when you know that, where you used to, I was trying to find the spot where it said, like, sick within the first,
Ashley O'Neil:okay, well, you look for that. I'm going to read this quote because I think this one's really interesting. So they rewilded These daycare centers, brought in these things, and it says a year later, children playing in the green kindergartens had less disease causing bacteria such such as streptococcus on their skin and stronger immune defenses their gut. Microbio showed reduced levels of a certain bacteria associated with inflammatory bowel disease, colitis and infections such as sepsis and botulism. Within 28 days, it found an increase in cells in the blood called T regulatory cells that protected the body from autoimmune diseases. Other research showed that in just two weeks, the children's immune system is regulated and could be improved by playing in sand pits enriched with garden soil. That is so interesting, that is so interesting. So basically, the research goes on to talk about how there's this micro diversity in the bacteria and fungi in these places. So when you have asphalt or when you have just grass, you have a simpler, more homogenous ecosystem, right? And so these the dirt and the gardens have a much more diverse ecosystem, which means there's a lot more bacteria, a lot of different strains of things, and that diversity is helpful.
Julie Cunningham:So I found that stat I was looking for. It says, increasingly, scientists are learning that our health is intimately linked to our surroundings and to the ecological health of the world around us. So right, more diversity in the world around you, presumably, and from this forest soil that hasn't been completely developed into a lawn, right? So it's natural area. The first 1000 days of human life when the brain and body are most rapidly developing are considered particularly crucial. So that is the reason they went, I think, to these preschools to have the kids.
Ashley O'Neil:Yeah, it's interesting. It also just makes me think too, like, how I feel, like, sometimes we can speak in such absolutes, right? And so this isn't saying, I mean, these children still had plastic sandwiches. They were still going inside for lunch. This is not these children are of the forest, and in the forest, 24 hours a day, they're still going home to, like, a diverse set of backgrounds and houses. And so instead of saying like, an only this or jump all the way into something to an extreme setting, it's saying playing outside in the dirt in this like contained area had benefits, right? And so it's less about like taking away all the things, but more about adding in something good, which I think is an interesting way to consider this in a setting like in our setting, where we can't take kids outside all day for school, and maybe that's not the point, but the point is getting them this diverse experience is helpful mentally, and sounds like, physically, yeah.
Julie Cunningham:And I think, like, you know, perhaps as we get further from just telling kids to go play outside for whatever reason, that we do that as a society, right? And I think maybe, and we've already established today that I'm old, but I'm older, right? So that there was a time in our, I think societally, there was a time in which, I mean, my mom would just, especially over summer or the weekends, would just expect us to be gone outside, playing all day, right? So maybe that isn't the same thing that we tell kids these days, or the same way that kids are raised these days. And, I mean, there's plenty of pictures of me camping as a kid with my family, in which I'm, like, literally as a toddler, eating dirt, right? And like, like, my mom just happened to be one of those parents who was like, whatever, my kids are always dirty because they've been out playing in the yard all day, right? So I just think, like, the further we get from that, maybe I'm not saying that, suggesting that everybody does that or doesn't do that, but Right?
Ashley O'Neil:But I think this is a making the point like, we can live in the 2026 in the time we're now. So maybe you're not comfortable just sending your kids out to the neighborhood to run all day, but by having, like a rewilded section of your own yard, right? The the ugly, dirty patch that you keep thinking that you should manicure, maybe leaving the unmanicured, and that becomes the mud kitchen in your backyard that's serving like a vital purpose. And you can say, right? Like I'm doing it for the health of my kid, like I'm not, I'm not mowing my lawn for this, right? And I think that's, that's. What's beneficial to me, because one of the things we talked about when we went to Iceland was you cannot pick up an entire community, an entire country, an entire cultural way of being, and easily transplant that back here to Michigan. So when we talked about like, the examples of like, what could we do from there to here? It felt a little like, well, we could try this. But that also is tied to, like their school system, and the this, and the way that this works, and the timing that the parents get out of work, all these things are interconnected, and this feels like something that anybody could do at their school or at home, right? Like, let's go to the unkempt area of the playground that's not the wood chips, not the asphalt, but like the undone spot, and that's where we have silent reading. And being out there in that time is great. And we can say that same thing with our backyard or our front yard. That's interesting.
Julie Cunningham:Yeah, I just obviously, I know that listeners can't see these pictures, but if we the pictures that go along with the article are really kind of fabulous, like the front page. One is probably kids in some sort of a pollinator garden, right? With, like, old leaves on the ground and just hopping from a rock to a rock or whatever, like, very natural space. But then the other three, the next three pictures, are kind of a school yard that doesn't necessarily scream pollinator garden or anything else, right? But the kids are just sitting in the dirt, playing with the dirt. They have a, like you said, a plastic shovel and a plastic bucket. So it's not even like everything in the picture is all natural, just hauling wood, right? Just being out doors like nothing particularly special, other than they are, they appear to be driving what they want to do in the outdoors. And they appear to be allowed to be sort of dirty, messy in it. This looks like a picture of a compost, right, but it could just easily be a picture of a like the worms that we keep, and being able to allowed to handle the worms, and the worm dirt, right? And a mud kitchen. And I just think the other thing that resonated with me is how many of those types of projects that the teachers that you've worked with through, specifically, I think the Beaver Island professional development that we do have invested in a mud kitchen moving forward, or a stream survey, or, right, some way to get totally out in nature. And this is just saying, like, keep doing that. This is good for kids at many
Ashley O'Neil:levels, yes, and that perfect is not the enemy of good, right? It makes me these pictures make me think about, there's a preschool teacher that we are working with who has a very unglamorous outdoor area, right? Like, if you were to see it, it's kind of nestled between all these odd corners of their building, right? There's nothing pretty about it. There's nothing fancy. It is a mud kitchen. It is like a pea gravel spot. It is a little makeshift garden that she started. There is a fair bit that is just dirt that gets all muddy from like the rain run off from the roof because of how it's positioned, and it gets super muddy, and she just has kind of leaned out into that. So if you were a parent, kind of looking for some sort of elite, manicured, you know, perfect Instagram photo worthy space, this is probably not it. But when I was there, I could see all of this, like unconventional play, the stacking of these weird boards, the moving of rocks from one pile to the other, the like dust that they they were so dirty when they went inside. And, I mean, that is something for her to manage and figure out also. But these pictures remind me of that. And that was just that was like out of need, and it became something really interesting. And this is just that reminder that, like, it doesn't have to be this big, perfect place. You could start anywhere.
Julie Cunningham:I think two of the other points that the article makes more towards the end are, like, a yes, this is good for kids microbial health. But also then be like, if you don't, if kids don't learn to appreciate nature, like, where are we going to be moving forward, right? Like, to appreciate the outdoors, to appreciate being out in nature, maybe to advocate for green spaces. So there's that piece, and of course, the piece where that we know about kids playing outdoors, reducing anxiety and potentially depression, right? But then also, there was another example at the end of this article where they, instead of necessarily building a green space to play in, they built green barriers around school playgrounds to prevent air pollution from harming the children's health. So they demonstrated that by putting in the 70 meter long hedge right that wraps around the playground. The nitrogen dioxide concentrations in the playground were reduced by 13% just six months after planting. So, like, just the I know, right, just the like, multiple layers of how this.
Ashley O'Neil:This contributes to children's like health, both like internally and then to say, like in just six months, I'm sure, as the plants continue to grow, it says that the numbers would continue to improve. David Sobel, who someone will probably read this semester, I'm sure, talks often about how you have to teach children to fall in love with their world before they need to save it, right? And so that appreciation and just that joy that they get from being outside in whatever capacity is great. One other thing I think I want to just point out in these pictures is like some of these kids are actively participating in nature. They're rolling logs, they're lifting wood, they're playing in the mud, but some of them are just physically in that space. So even if that kid is swinging on a on a swing and playing on the playground equipment, that green hedge being there is benefiting that child, both in the breathing but also, just like being amongst that nature, natural space, that's awesome. Yeah, I
Julie Cunningham:think just one, maybe, maybe final point. And again, this is not very long article, is that, you know, this person from the Natural Resources Institute in Finland is saying that it's good for national health, right? Immune diseases are expensive, so even a small reduction in the amount of kids getting sick, or the amount of adults getting sick, that's less of a burden on our health care system. And I mean, I would say that family is important to all of us in today's world, right? Like the last times we have to go to the doctor, the last times we have to take antibiotics, the fewer times we or our families are home sick, would be something that we would all be interested in.
Ashley O'Neil:Yes, I'm that person who opens my windows when I hear that things are getting sick at school, because I feel like the sickness is coming upon us and just any way that we can contribute to keeping kids at school and out of illness. And then additionally, yeah, our the health of our community is really important. Thanks for sharing this article, and thanks listeners for coming along on our testing of our new format as we try to bring you things that are interesting, things that will kind of refresh in or enliven either your family time or your professional practice. That's really beneficial. If you have an article or something that you think that we should chat about on the podcast, or something that you've seen, we'd love to hear it. Hear it. So thank you for sharing. You.