| dc.description.abstract | Establishing a connection to nature as a child is a necessity as it is crucial to enhancing
children’s cognitive, attitudinal, emotional, and physical development (Driessnack 2009; Giusti
et al. 2014; Bratman et al. 2015; Broom 2017; Glettler and Rauch 2020; Sobko and Brown
2021). Although, barriers including the Coronavirus pandemic and increasing technological
advancement limit the opportunities of children to expand their experiences within nature and
establish this connection. With these barriers increasing, measuring the relationship between
children and nature is pivotal in determining the importance of nature connectedness and nature
experiences among preschool aged children. This study sought to analyze the environmental
knowledge and nature connectedness on a cohort of 3-5-year-old preschool children in Halifax,
NS, Canada. To execute this, a modified psychological games testing tool was employed to
determine the extent to which the children in the study demonstrated environmental sensitivity,
environmental awareness, and environmental preferences with nature. To measure this
relationship, this study conducted the games testing on a cohort of 30 children, and further
collected demographics including pre-school attendance and age. This presentation will explore
preliminary results including an analysis of each game to determine the relationship of the
children in the study and their connection with nature. The analyses will then further investigate
these results to determine whether attendance to nature based versus non-nature-based
preschools or the age of the children impact the level of their environmental knowledge and
connection to nature. Although the results of this study contribute meaningful contribution to
measuring nature connectedness using the games testing tool, future studies are needed to
conduct this research on a larger and more random sample size.
Key Terms: Connection to nature (C2N), early childhood environmental education, early
childhood development, games testing, psychological testing. | en_US |
