Internet and Project Competence/group5

Interaction between children and nature

The group members

• Robbins, Lindsay M.
• Hendrix, Dennis C.
• Bolick, Megan L.
• Stacy, Ashley E
• Jones, Whitney S.
• ElliA Elisabeth Altmann
• Gergana Georgieva
• Raia
• Eva
• Desislava Maneva
• Michelle Hemraj

final powerpoint

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiversity/en/8/89/Interaction_with_Nature.pdf

Working area: the questionnaire

Everyone needs to ask these questions to 2 or 3 students from their country and then create a slide that shows your results...this slide doesnt have to be the exact answers from your survey just an overall view of how your kids interact with nature.. then we can put them all together and make a few final slids comparing the different countries.

1. Personal Questions

- How old are you?

-what grade are you in?

- Mark with a cross: Girl o Boy o

- Describe where you live:city/village/town

2. How would you describe nature?

3. What animals do you offen see in nature?

4. Have you ever planted any plant?

Describe how you have taken care of it?

5. how much time during the week do you spend outside at home? what activities do you participate in?

6. How much time do you spend outdoors during the school day? What types of activities do you do?

7.What natural phenomenons have you seen? Describe them? (Suggestions: mist, rainbow, hail, dew, frost, a solar eclipse, etc.)

8. How do you think pollution affects our enviornment?

9. How much time do you spend a week watching tv/playing video games or using a computer?

what types of thing to you watch or play while watching tv or using a computer?

• edited by HemrajM
• edited by Elisabeth A.

• i wrote what i thought about the questions so that we can get them finalized and deside what questions we are asking... we really need to know by sometime this weekend so we can do this with our students next week....it is our last week in our schools.....i think we need to keep it somewhat simple...Thanks Megan

• HemrajM- I think we should take off the question about the dreamhouse, making it 10 questions; add an age/school/country/male-female section, and finalize.
• i canged some of the questions to see more how children interact with nature. i think through these we can see how children really interact with nature....i think we should stick to 2 or 3 students per person so we really have time to analyze the results. i hope this is what we can finalize the questions as???? we just need to know what questions we will be asking our students....because it need to be done in the next week or so....so we have time to compare our results.......Thanks Megan

Conclusion Questionnaire

okay, we have to work on it :)

questionnaire
Sofia	Charlotte	Eichstätt
All of the children we interviewed live in Sofia. Sofia is a big, populated city. It has much cars but not enough trees or parks. We interviewed 29 children, 17 of them boys and 12 girls. 1. They describe nature as beautiful, talented and capable of creating a lot of different things. “Nature is beautiful, because it has a lot of things which she can create, and we can’t. It has a lot of different and beautiful plants and animals.” 2. Children point at cats, dogs and doves as the most common animals they see. These animals could be seen especially in big cities. We have three children who have pointed to a squirrel, a deer and a dolphin as animals they’ve seen (they are an exception). 3. Almost none of the children have planted a plant, but it is observed interest in some of tem to do it if they have the opportunity and somebody shows them how. 4. Most of the children say they go to play with their friends. There’s one that says: “I take care of my cat. I and my friend cure the animals around the block.” 5. They go to the snack bar or out at the schoolyard to play. 6. They can describe what happens to them and how they feel when some of the listed phenomenon occurs. Some of them have tried to describe the phenomenon. “I have seen dew on flowers. It looks like water. Mist is not common to see. When you look around you can’t see anything. The rainbow is very beautiful and has seven colors. Hail is rain of little icy bolls. Frost looks like snow. It is like white powder.” 7. They all agree pollution is “a bad thing”. It is when people throw garbage in the water and into the soil. One of the kids says: “I think soon we will have to leave our planet with a ship and leave robots to clean it up.” 8. Unfortunately, even though a lot of them say they play out, they also spend a lot of time watching TV or playing games on their computer. The interesting part is they know they don’t have to but they do it. As a conclusion we can give our recommendations about how children can increase their understanding of nature, and their contact with it. The ultimate answer is spending more time playing outside, being shown how to grow a plant and take care of it, show them how an animal should be loved, and get them away from computer games and TV.	we did the survey and this is what we gathered from it... -american students are aware of nature like they know how to take care of plants and things that you would find in nature but they do not spend much time actually interacting with nature..... for powerpoint: What affect technology has on the interaction between children and nature? in the USA-kids spend alot of time watching tv and playing video games.....is that the same in yall countries???? What affect crime has on children not being able to go out and play? -here in America parents are afraid to just let their children go out and play....so that is one reason children dont play outside as much. How is the crime rate in yalls countries??? is that a big reason for you guys or is there something else that affects the interaction? or do you guys kids play outside more? and then we also found that the generation of playing outside is slowly decresing....We as 20 year old spent alot of time outside but now the generation does not spend their time out doors but rather inside....this shows us that in the future kids will be less and less exposed to the outdoors. do you guys see this occuring in your countries?????	Eichstätt is a small town with about 12000 habitants. Eichstätt is considered to be a green city. Three of the children come from a village that has less than 1000 habitants. We did the survey in 4. class with 19 children. There are 5 girls and 14 boys in the age of 9 - 10. What we found out: - Question 2: Nature is seen as something beautiful where animals are free, trees grow and it is green. Children make a diffrence between the world of the nature and the world of the people. (for example "Nature is that what the earth made, it is the world of the animals.", "forests, grassland, places that are not covered with buildings.") - Question 3: At most children are aware of birds and different insects (spider, ant). They don't distihguish between wild living animals (deer, fox) and pets (cat, dog). - Question 4: Most of the children have already planted a plant. - Question 5: Children spend lot of time outside the house. After school they meet their friends to play; they go by their selves. Eichstätt has no problem with crime. - Question 6: Most of the children use their recess to play or eat. Nothing special. - Question 7: They experience nature phenomena very detailed. - Question 8: the believe of the results of pollution are based on imagination and fragments, they probably got from media and adults. It seems like apocalypse will arrive ;) (for example That sometimes the world will explode", "Animals die out and we we can not make basic materials any more" - Question 9: Curios is the fact that girls are not interested in playing computer games. The boys spend on average 34 minutes a day to play computer. On average children (boys and girls) whatch TV 60 minutes a day. Above all they watch animations (Naruto, Yogio, Pokemon, Kim Possible) As a conclusion we can say the interviewed children play computer and watch TV, but they also spend a lot of time outside the house. So there is a health balance between technical "activities" and activities in nature. Although nature is formative for them.

KWL CHART

KWL CHART
WHAT I KNOW	WHAT I WANT TO KNOW	WHAT I LEARNED
Interaction with nature is important for children's development Children learn from and interact with nature no matter where they live Nature is a part of everyones life Outdoor activities may differ in different countries, ex. sports, games, etc.	What does nature actually mean? What influence does technology have on children's interaction with nature? How much do children really interact with nature on a daily basis? How does children's interaction with nature differ internationally? How does location affect a child's interaction with nature?	I learned that children in the United States do not have much interaction with nature. There is a coorelation between advancement in technology and children's interaction with nature. The more time children spend using technology, the less time they spend interacting with nature. Children in the US average the most time using technology. Children that live in bigger cities spend less time interacting with nature compared to children that live in smaller towns. This is in part due to higher crime rates in big cities.