All children have a natural connection and curiosity towards the world around them. Nurturing this relationship has powerful and proven potential of becoming part of children's emotional resilience to changes happening around them.
The same natural connection can also help them reimagine a future where nature is central to our wellbeing and thus needs to be protected. "Creating opportunities for students to fall in love with the land imprints them with a natural desire to protect what they hold as special and meaningful, leading to an ethos of reciprocity and sustainability that can be enacted in various ways as forms of ecological regeneration and restoration." as Maria Vamvalis writes in here great UNESCO article: Regenerating Respectful and Reciprocal Relationships to Nature is an Educational Priority (unesco.org).
A great place to start learning about natural connection to the world is from people who never lost it. Natural Curiosity explores the possibility of deepening learning through nature that is deepened by Indigenous perspectives. Their free self-guided learning video series provides an overview of the Natural Curiosity pedagogy, developed at the Dr. Eric Jackman Institute of Child Study Laboratory School and shows how to enrich learning and nurture children's natural curiosity for nature.
