Weather worlding: Learning with the elements in early childhood

Learning in and with the weather rather than about the weather is proposed as a new approach in early childhood environmental education

The author of this theoretical paper argues for engaging more closely with children’s relationship with weather as new environmental pedagogies are considered, specifically in relation to early childhood education. She advocates moving beyond thinking about the weather as a phenomenon separate from our human selves and suggests that children learn “in” and “with” the weather rather than “about” the weather. The author introduces the terms ‘weather world’ and ‘weathering’ as starting points for rethinking child/weather relations. These terms and related concepts, she suggests, “may open up alternative, less human-centric ways of coming to know and respond to the environmental challenges ahead.”

In building her argument, the author discusses some ideas presented in the recent literature on early childhood education for sustainability and references UNESCO’s Education for Sustainability and the Australian Government’s Early Years Learning Framework – both calling for educational practices which help children learn to be environmentally responsible and show respect for the environment. She also draws on ideas from the ‘common worlds’ perspective in which the world is recognized as the place that is shared by others, human and non-human. From this perspective the weather is seen as part of children’s complex and entangled relations with the rest of the natural environment. This perspective differs from some more common views about the weather, including the idea that weather is something that happens to us or something we observe and record or something we try to manage or protect ourselves against.

The author notes how research to date has explored children and weather from several different angles and from a variety of disciplines. Studies in education and health have focused on the impact of weather on children’s health and outdoor play, on their levels of physical activity, on preschool activities and routines, as well as on children’s social and asocial behaviors and their sense of well-being. In environmental education — especially in relation to learning outdoors — studies sometimes refer to weather as part of the experience. Such research, the author suggests, perpetuates the idea that humans and weather can be distinguished from each other. In the author’s opinion, it’s time to re-think human and non-human relations as being more intertwined and mutually interdependent.

One suggestion offered by the author for helping children learn “with” instead of “about” the weather is to link weather-related experiences to encounters with place and inhabitants of place. She provides an example of observing how on a hot day snakes and other reptiles may be out in the open seeking warmth from the sun, and how rain may wash creatures out of their usual homes. Such observations can help children see that our experience of place is never “weather-neutral.”

Other suggestions offered by the author include (1) walking in the weather and attending to the sensory and affective engagement this affords; (2) building connections with and returning to places to increase awareness of weathering over time; and (3) nurturing modes of attention to more-than-human encounters and concerns. The important thing, she says, is “to focus on practices that avoid reaffirming any type of artificial separation between humans and weather, but rather highlight the intermingling of these.”