What’s the Point of Nature Study?

Today, where I live, it’s a beautiful day outside. The sun is shining, the sky is blue, the temperatures are in the mid-70s, and the birds are singing. Today would be an easy day to do nature study. Go outside, observe God’s creation, watch the birds busily flying here and there, maybe spot a little anole lizard perfectly camouflaged on the brown bricks of the house or on the bright green leaves of the daisies in the front garden. 

But these picture-perfect days are rare, aren’t they? It seems much more common to battle gray skies and pouring rain or high heat and humidity or plunging temperatures and bone-chilling winds. Weather doesn’t always cooperate with our good intentions. 

And on those less-than-picture-perfect days, it might be helpful to remind ourselves why we include nature study in our homeschool schedules. Especially if you didn’t grow up spending much time in nature, you might be asking, “What’s the point of nature study?” I’m glad you asked!

Charlotte Mason arranged her school schedules to include one half-day per week for her students in the open fields. They would observe what they could and record their observations in their personal nature notebooks. Why?

Nature study encourages a child’s natural curiosity and cultivates a love of investigation. What is that? Why is that happening? Why isn’t this happening? Why here and not there? Why now? Those self-led questions urge your student to develop the good habits of observation and sensory awareness, using all of the senses that she safely can to try to discover answers to her questions.

Those good habits, along with the knowledge that she is gaining from her observations, lay a solid foundation for her science lessons. Now she has a first-hand, personal relation with the nature friends that she is reading about in her lessons. The book-knowledge complements and expands on what she has discovered for herself. And what she is discovering outside in nature fuels her interest in learning more through her science lessons. Nature study and science lessons complement each other beautifully.

Plus, when your student has formed a personal relation with some nature friends, she begins to care about them. And that’s important. We can tell our children to take care of the earth, but it’s hard to care about something that you don’t have a personal relation with. On the other hand, the more time your student spends in nature and observes and learns about the intricacies and beauty of creation, the more reverence and passion she will develop over protecting and being a good steward of what God has made.

There’s something about being outdoors, surrounded by what God has made, that is completely different from being indoors, surrounded by what people have made. It’s a whole different atmosphere. Studies have shown how time in nature refreshes our bodies and minds. Regular nature study offers your student, and yourself, a powerful opportunity to reset—mentally, physically, and emotionally. It provides a wonderful change of pace with many benefits, and it’s not difficult to do. We just have to pause, open the door, go outside, and allow the quiet schooling of nature to teach us. That’s the point.

Nature Study Resources

Save some time and give yourself some guidance as you explore the wonders of God’s creation through nature study.

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