Learning from children’s drawings of nature

Abstract

This study investigated children’s ideas about “nature” as they drew them around the time they entered formal school education. It suggests how school education can scaffold learning from those ideas. Some studies suggest that children’s understanding of nature is not necessarily age-related (Shepardson et al., 2007; Littledyke, 2004; Loughland et al., 2002) and that even young children may have expansive conceptions of the environment (Cohen & Horm-Wingerg, 1993; Phenice & Griffore, 2003).