"Nature/Outdoor Time vs Tech- Why not Both?" discussion...

Currently, there is a discussion on the topic Nature/Outdoor time vs Technology-Why not Both?  https://hello.naeyc.org/discussion/nature-studyoutdoor-time-vs-technologywhy-not-both-1 in the National Association for the Education of Young Children HELLO discussion forum (over 58,000 NAEYC members have access to these conversations.) 

Young children using technology instead of spending time outdoors/appreciating nature is a concern for many early educators/families, which is why Donna Karno, a member of the NAEYC Technology and Young Children Interest forum, (and others involved in the group) decided to start a conversation on this topic.

If you have written a blog post/web-based resource about using tech tools with young children to inspire nature study/outdoor time, please let me know (Have appreciated/shared blog posts from Marc Faulder's Enabling Environments blog on this topic).

And/or if you are an NAEYC member (entry/digital level starts at $30 https://www.naeyc.org/get-involved/membership/benefits) please join in the conversation-another way/place to share your good ideas to benefit young children and families.




5 replies

February 06, 2024

Such an important topic. Thanks for the post. If you use the search icon in the upper right of the Forum and type in “Nature” you’ll find a number of stories & resources posted by educators here in the Apple Education Community that give lots of idea and activities that include Nature and the outdoors with technology. Hope this helps.

February 09, 2024

I went down the rabbit hole on a 'Nature' search in the forum and there are so many helpful resources to bringing the 'classroom' outside!

The first four that popped up are great for living things and a nature scavenger hunt: Word Art Scavenger Hunt Sounds in Nature and a Nature Walk...

February 15, 2024

I found another resource based on a scavenger hunt (Karen Irwin who created this has a wealth of knowledge in all areas of teaching and learning!) Is this what you are looking for?

October 04, 2024

Hi I just found this on a search result from Google! Thanks for sharing my blog :-)

October 07, 2024

Such a great topic. One of my favourite things to do is take iPads outdoors and capture nature and I am looking to work with many schools with surroundings that enable this.

When I had my own class we used to take the iPad for a walk on a scavenger hunt. I used to give them a list of things to find such as numbers on buildings, times on clocks, shapes of windows etc. Students used to always say it made them look at buildings differently after that and take in their surroundings.

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