This posting is on Forts and Special places. The themes I will be focusing on come from the combined work of David Sobel and Jon Young. Both of these great educators have found some really wonderful themes and models of education by working with and observing children playing outdoors for decades. I recently did a workshop for YMCA camp professional on the findings of Sobel and Young and how to use them in program designs. These postings will be an expanded version of that workshop. So here we go!
In his years of research David Sobel has observed some pretty amazing things about children at play in the outdoors. One of them is that when provided the opportunity to play outside with some structure, mostly for safety, children do certain things regardless of background. One of those behaviors is the building of forts and creating special places. Kids are naturally drawn to building structures outdoors and creating special places to gather and play. It might be a tree fort, a shelter, or simply a wall of logs to provide some privacy.
So what can we do as nature educators to use this tendency of children to help our efforts in teaching kids about ecological literacy and nature? Well, quite a few things. One activity you can do that requires the least amount of work, but perhaps the most patience is to simply build in some unstructured play time in a natural area on your property or program area. There are some camps and nature centers that are creating specific areas on their property that are design to facilitate this activity. The areas usually have a mixture of materials for children to use. A sand area, sticks, branches, leaves, rocks, stumps, and water if possible. In most cases the area is simply for outside creative play. At the school run by the Teton Science School in Jackson Wyoming, they have areas on one of the hills outside the school where kids can build forts, and the hill has many forts in different stages of completion. It is the hill in the right of this photo.
You could also have a shelter building activity for your program. Before I go any further, the vast majority of survival shelter classes I have watched teach really lousy shelters. Mostly because of time constraints and the fact that mot too many outdoor educators/naturalists have every slept a night in a shelter that they have built in weather that might be a challenge such as cold and rain. The shelters have no insulations, are not really strong, and are WAY to big to be practical. Just some observations.
Just building a structure like the one above can be fun and enjoyable to be sure. And think about taking it one step further and asking about insulation, water proofing, and heating. With some adult groups I have worked with, when we finish our shelters, we test them by pouring water on top to see what happens. If you are going to teach survival shelters, then please do it correctly.
Another activity you can do is have your kids build micro-shelters in different biome regions on your property. Fields, forests, and water ways provide a wide range of possibilities. Have your kids build small shelters for mice or other rodents. Ask them to think about what a small mammal might want and need for a shelter. You could also have kids build a small version of a human town in an area and ask them to consider concepts like erosion, wind/storm direction, and sun exposure. See what they can come up with. With these small scale models you can do fun demonstrations with erosion with water from a water bottle supplying the "flood". If your group builds these structures at the beginning of your program week and you get some weather during the kids stay, revisit the structures and see how they did.
These are just a few thoughts on how to incorporate children's natural proclivity to build forts and special places into your programming. There are many more options, and you are only limited by your imagination and natural resources of your site. Have fun and keep a little wildness in your program design.
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