Nature Play and the National Quality Framework

Natural environment

The natural environment is all around us, whether we live in a crowded city or a rural town with lots of fields and rivers. It refers to all living and nonliving things and excludes things that are artificial. In early childhood services, the natural environment can often be seen as the outdoor space and the community space services use for excursions.

Nature play

Nature play is a form of play that encourages children to connect to the natural environment and natural materials. This play occurs primarily outdoors in the natural elements but can include indoor play with the use of natural materials. Children are encouraged to explore and create play using what they can see, touch and smell. This usually includes resources such as sand, bark, grass, plants, leaves, logs, water and pinecones, just to name a few.

Benefits of nature play

Developing a connection to nature and spending time playing in it fosters wellbeing and development in children mentally, socially and physically. Nature play is an important sensory experience for young children and helps them learn to explore and care for the world. Therefore, it is important for children to be exposed to nature and have uninterrupted time in nature.

In the last three decades, the average time children spend outside has fallen dramatically. Education and childhood professionals have an important role to play in supporting and encouraging children to develop a positive connection with the natural environment.

Watch

Watch the following 2-minute YouTube video published by Raising Children Network to understand the benefits of nature play:

There is an abundance research that highlights the negative implications of non-exposure to nature. The lack of interaction between children and their environment results in negative health effects on young children such as:

• childhood obesity
• asthma
• attention deficit disorder/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)
• vitamin D deficiency
• lack of understanding of our food sources and food chains e.g. thinking that milk comes from the shops
• children lacking an understanding of the natural world may grow into adults with little awareness or care for the natural environment.

Unfortunately, the above listed negative implications due to non-exposure to nature have increased (…) over the past few decades.³

A report from the National Wildlife Federation, shows that playing outdoors:

• grows resilience, self-confidence, initiative, creativity and more
• it encourages the joy of movement
• it nurtures wild imaginations, experimentation, friendships, social connections and behaviour.

Nature play has demonstrated academic benefits:

• Improved classroom behaviour
• Increased student motivation and enthusiasm to learn
• Better performance in maths, science, reading and social studies
• Reduced Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD);
• Higher scores on standardised tests (including college entrance exams); and
• Helps under-resourced, low-income students to perform measurably better in school.⁴

It is also scientifically proven that the lack of nature play also has significant impact on academic performance from an early age.

Watch

Watch the following 3-minute YouTube video by the Audubon Naturalist Society to understand the learning opportunities better when connecting children with nature:

Early childhood services are required through the National Quality Standard (NQS) and legislation to have appropriate resources, outdoor spaces or access to outdoor spaces that allow children to explore and connect with natural spaces and nature play. It is also encouraged to use natural materials in play experiences within the service classrooms to provide a holistic approach to connecting to the environment.

Early childhood services are required to comply with the National Quality Framework and National Education and Care Services Regulations.

The National Quality Framework includes the National Quality Standards and this guides educators and services on how and what they need to implement to ensure that all children are provided with the opportunity to learn and connect with the natural environment.

The Education and Care Services Regulations instruct services on their design of the service which must include a natural space.

Under the National Law and Regulations, services are required to base their educational program on an approved learning framework. There are two nationally approved learning frameworks that outline practices that support and promote children’s learning:

• Belonging, Being and Becoming: The Early Years Learning Framework for Australia (EYLF) or the Victorian Early Years Learning and Development Framework (for young children from birth to 5 years of age)
• My Time, Our Place: Framework for School Age Care in Australia (for school-age children).

Let's look at this in more detail:

National Quality Standards (NQS)

The Australian National Quality Framework refers to natural environments in:

• Quality Area 3: Physical environment covers creating physical spaces that offer a rich and diverse range of experiences that promote children’s learning and development.
  • Standard 3.1 covers design and topics such as inclusivity, appropriateness and safety.
  • Standard 3.2 covers use and areas such as how the spaces are organized, the resources available to children and supporting children to become environmentally responsible.

• Quality Area 5: Relationships with children provides an important context for meaningful interactions, responsive relationships, collaboration and conflict resolution.

While this standard does not speak directly about relationships with the natural environment, it provides an important context for how educators might think about those relationships.

The following 3-minute video showcases an educator and some children picking vegetables from their veggie patch to make a salad to eat. This displays a great example of how relationships and interactions with children can support the development of respect and appreciation for the environment, an understanding of how to care for the environment and an understanding of where food comes from.

Watch

National Education and Care Services Regulations

Part 4.3 of the Education and Care Services National Regulations 2011 (Regulations 103-115) focus on the requirements of the physical environment of Australian education and care services.

Here’s a brief summary of the regulations:

• 103 Premises, furniture and equipment to be safe, clean and in good repair
• 104 Fencing: any outdoor space used by children at the education and care service premises is enclosed by a fence or barrier that is of a height and design that children preschool age or under cannot go through, over or under it.
• 105 Sufficient furniture, materials and developmentally appropriate equipment
• 106 Laundry and hygiene facilities to be available
• 107 Space requirements—indoor space: 3.25 square metres of unencumbered indoor space available for each child
• 108 Space requirements—outdoor space: at least 7 square metres of unencumbered outdoor space available for each child
• 109 Toilet and hygiene facilities: adequate, safe, developmentally and age-appropriate toilet, washing and drying facilities are provided for children with convenient access
• 110 Good ventilation and adequate natural light
• 111 Administrative space available for private conversations with families and staff and for administrative duties
• 112 Nappy change facilities to be available and they are designed, located and maintained in a way that prevents unsupervised access by children
• 113 Outdoor space—natural environment
• 114 Outdoor space—shade: Natural environment to be available with adequate shaded areas
• 115 Premises designed to facilitate supervision, maintaining the rights and dignity of the children

Important: Please always access the National Regulations directly via the official website to read more about each regulatory requirement.

• Regulation 113 – Outdoor space focuses on natural environments

Service standards and policy and procedure documents

Service standards as well as policy and procedure documents are based on relevant legislation and regulations, and they are created to provide guidance to all employees regarding implementing these regulatory requirements in accordance with service philosophy and embedding them into the services practices.

Services should have the following topics covered in their policies and procedures related to the physical environment:

Here are a few examples of service policies and procedures related to the natural environment:

• Goolwa Children’s Centre’s (SA) Environmental Sustainability Policy
• Little Rascals Childcare’s (QLD) Environmental Sustainability Policy
• Trikkikidz Early Learning Group (VIC) Environmental Sustainability Policy

EYLF and the natural environment

Learning Outcome 2 of the Being, belonging, belonging: The Early Years Learning Framework for Australia (EYLF) emphasises the importance of children being connected with and contributing to their world. The learning outcome also emphasises the need for children to become socially responsible and show respect for the environment.

According to Learning Outcome 2 of the EYLF, children should be encouraged to:

• demonstrate an increasing knowledge of, and respect for natural and constructed environments
• explore, infer, predict, and hypothesise in order to develop an increased understanding of the interdependence between land, people, plants, and animals
• explore relationships with other living and non-living things and observe, notice and respond to change
• develop an awareness of the impact of human activity on environments and the interdependence of living things.

Educators can facilitate Learning Outcome 2 by:

• Modelling respect, care and appreciation for the natural environment
• finding ways of enabling children to care for and learn from the land
• sharing information and provide children with access to resources about the environment and the impact of human activities on environments
• embedding sustainability in daily routines and practices.⁶

  Check your understanding

  Read the following statements and decide whether they are ‘true’ or ‘false’ to check your understanding:

Use the following questions to check your knowledge. You can check the correct answer by clicking on the 'Answer' button:

Q1. In your own words describe what nature play is.

Q2. Identify the National Quality Standards that relate to natural environments.

Q3. List four (4) benefits of nature play.

Q4. Identify the education and care regulations that relate to natural environments.

Q5. List ten (10) natural resources that are appropriate for children to play with.