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Illnesses and injuries at nature preschools

Nature preschools are safe for young children

Nature preschools, as the term is used in this paper, refers to preschools where children spend the entire school day outdoors. In some places, such schools are referred to as Forest Schools. While nature preschools are becoming increasingly popular, health-related outcomes aren’t well researched. This study focused on two health-related concerns: illness and injury. The design of the study allowed researchers to compare the incidence of illness and injury among children attending nature and conventional preschools in Seattle, Washington. The nature preschools were located in the city parks.

Children in the nature preschools spent 4 to 6 hours a day, five days a week, outdoors. Children in the conventional preschools spent less than 1.5 hours outdoors each day. Over a period of 11-15 weeks, the preschool teachers logged illness and injury data for 141 children: 71 attending nature preschools; 70 attending conventional preschools. However, several preschools did not adhere to required injury reporting procedures and their injury data was excluded from analysis resulting in smaller sample sizes for the injury data compared to the illness data. There were more boys (56%) than girls in the study; the age range was 2- 5 years. All the teachers used the same tracking log, and all participated in a 15- to 20-minute training session on how to record illnesses and injuries.

Results showed no significant difference in the incidence of illness between children at nature and conventional preschools. However, children who attended after-school care after nature preschool experienced more illness than those who didn’t. Afterschool care did not influence the incidence of illness for conventional preschool students. This finding suggests that after-school care might moderate the protective effect of nature preschool; however, larger studies are required to test this idea. While the incidence of minor injuries was the same for boys in the two types of preschools, there was a higher incidence for girls at nature preschools than at conventional preschools. There were no serious injuries at any of the preschools. The finding of a higher incidence of minor injuries for girls differs from other preschool injury reports. Such reports indicate either no gender difference in injury incidence or a higher incidence among boys. While this study showed a higher incidence of injuries for girls, the finding was based on a small sample and involved only 16 minor injuries. The authors offer a variety of possible explanations for this finding that will need to be tested in future research.

These findings indicate that nature preschools provide a safe environment for young children.

Citation

Frenkel, H., Tandon, P., Frumkin, H., Vander Stoep, A., (2018). Illnesses and injuries at nature preschools. Environment and Behavior

DOI

http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0013916518773469

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