PRE-SCHOOL CHILDREN’S PERCEPTIONS OF NATURE

Early childhood is a critical time for the inculcation of the love and consciousness of nature. Interaction with nature at an early age leads to positive results in terms of healthy development of the child as well as of the awareness, commitment and ecological responsibility towards nature. The purpose of the current study is to determine how pre-school children perceive nature. The data of the current study were collected from 100 children attending pre-school education institutions. In order to collect the data in the current study, drawings of nature produced by the children and a semi-structured interview form were used. The interview data and paintings drawn by the children were analyzed by means of content analysis. The findings of the study revealed that for the children, nature is a place where there are plants and animals, which is distant from human life. The children who were found to have not enough level of perception of the relationships in nature mostly have the object-oriented perception of nature. In this regard, it is suggested that out of class and school activities should be incorporated into pre-school curriculums and that nature should be turned into an area of learning and living through these experiences