Writing About Nature

Content Objectives

Why Nature?

It struck me that this might be an important argument to make, especially as many principals may wonder why students are coming out of the classroom and engaging in close observation of the natural world in which the school is situated. There are a number of reasons why students need regular exposure and immersion in the natural world. These reasons include improved well-being, strengthened observation skills, developing a sense of wonderment, and improved writing skills.

Students who spend regular intervals in nature have a better sense of well-being. In an article that we read for seminar titled “Ecopsychology: How Immersion in Nature Benefits Your Health,” research from a study of 20,000 individuals found that 120 minutes a week in nature was an important threshold in order to achieve wellness.² Besides giving a number to help achieve wellness from nature, the article grounded some other interesting terms and ideas such as Nature Deficit Disorder, drawing the conclusion that “nature is not only nice to have, but it’s a have-to-have for physical health and cognitive functioning.”³ These studies have pointed to a variety of benefits including lower blood pressure and stress hormones, improved immunity, increased feelings of sense of self and worthiness, improved moods and lessened states of aggression. Individuals reported feeling more connected and calm while in nature; researchers believe this is directly tied to the “effortful attention” that is required in stressful environments created by urban environments and that people tend to pay attention in “more broadly and in a less effortful way” in nature.⁴ This improvement in well-being is critical given increased challenges anchoring students to school and to each other after the pandemic.

Students who are in nature often strengthen their observation skills through habitual practice. In On Time and Water, Andri Snaer Magnason shares an anecdote about a trivia show that appeared on Icelandic television that had educated college students compete to identify four different common fish: haddock, catfish, cod and perch. Most of the college students could not identify the type of fish because, even though they are common and consumed widely, people only see them filleted. The author notes that besides not seeing the fish intact, many young people also aren’t actively introduced to the folktale that might familiarize them in another way.⁵ Students need practice observing elements of their own ecosystems to understand something as basic as where their food comes from.

This act of noticing goes beyond just knowing where dinner comes from. It is important for other applications such as students pursuing STEM type work. Some things that can be incorporated into nature journaling that could build observational skills include having students identify the context, written observations, drawings and reflections.⁶ See the activities and teacher resource section for practical considerations about how I plan to use scientific observation for each area. It is important for students to spend part of their time while working in this unit as a scientist might approach a novel environment because of the complexity of the problems that the world’s scientific community will face in the near future. The world will need great scientific minds to solve vast problems. For example, we read about how the ocean is absorbing almost 90 percent of the heat that comes from global warming; the author of the reading painted that stat in very stark terms by comparing the current trends in ocean warming to “the denotation of four Hiroshima bombs per second.”⁷ These problems will be addressed by the children in our classrooms; teachers are powerful agents to introduce children to the challenges and opportunities within the natural world.

Students also develop a sense of wonderment from nature. Much like the Romantic poets that we read for seminar who recollect images of nature, students only have the chance to develop a sense of wonder about nature if they have regular access to nature. This unit seeks not only to meet that need but also to help students understand why being in nature is a need in the first place. Rachel Carson makes the following observation in the text The Sense of Wonder:

If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder without any such gift from the fairies, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement and mystery of the world we live in.⁸

Students cannot experience the wonderment that might lead to writing creatively like a poet or become an advocate or activist to help preserve nature if they have no connection to it. Carson’s advocacy grew out of passion that was inculcated in her from her youth. Teachers have a responsibility to be the adult in the lives of children that offers that first chance for children to have exposure they may not otherwise have to nature, especially in environments that are densely urban like the community in which my school is situated.

Students that spend significant time in nature making observations become stronger at describing what they see; this description is a hallmark of effective writing. Consider the following passage from Miracle Hill: The Story of a Navajo Boy:

A little boy was born as the wind blew against the Hogan with bitter colds and the stars were disappearing into the heavens. The little puff of smoke was gradually floating skyward. The floor of the earth was hard as ever with a few stripes of white snow still frozen to the grey colored ground. With a queer squeaking, the baby awakes. His eyes were as a dark as the colors of the ashes. His face is pink.⁹

A key aspect of getting my middle school students to become effective writers involves teaching them how to structure details that readers can use to recreate an image in their mind. If a reader cannot picture characters or settings that are central to a story or poem, a lot of the richness of the text is not fully developed. Many of the texts that we read in seminar were similar to the passage above. The setting becomes a tool to establish mood and requires recollection or careful observation in order to establish. Consider a different example from N. Scott Momaday from the text, The Way to Rainy Mountain:

A single knoll rises out of the plain in Oklahoma, north and west of the Wichita Range. For my people, the Kiowas, it is an old landmark, and they gave it the name Rainy Mountain. The hardest weather in the world is there. Winter brings blizzards, hot tornadic winds arise in the spring, and in the summer the prarie is an anvil’s edge.¹⁰

Strong, clear images situate readers in particular places for particular reasons. Achieving strong images is a challenge for my students to accomplish through their writing. Writing about observations we do together may make it easier. It is also important to think about how an item, much like humans, is affected by the seasons. As Dillard suggests in the Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, “nature is very much a now-you-see-it, now you don’t affair” ¹¹ Students need to understand this intentionality and see examples like the ones above to fully appreciate that effective writing often requires articulating visual observations in granular detail. This intense focus on articulating close visual observation will also be further explored later in the unit with the reading “The Turtle” by John Steinbeck and thinking about what can be described in granular detail from our own natural world and observations.