The UN’s Global Goals for Sustainable Development state a commitment to reducing inequality and promoting wellbeing for all (UN, 2015); with this in mind, this project aims to explore how creative engagement with local environments might contribute to sustainable development through promoting children’s wellbeing. Building on earlier trends in education literature (e.g. Hicks and Bord, 2001) recent research has revealed that children in majority world contexts respond with fear and apprehension to the challenges posed by changing climates (Lee et al., 2016). These affective responses suggest a number of issues that need to be considered, including how to enable children to overcome their sense of helplessness in the face of these challenges and to express their concerns about these matters. This is particularly significant in school settings where attainment is likely to suffer if children are feeling disengaged from issues that impact their ability to learn. 

Teaching outdoors in a natural environment has been shown to promote appreciation of and lifelong connectedness to the environment (e.g. Gray and Martin, 2012), and there is evidence to suggest that indicators of wellbeing are correlated with connectedness to nature (e.g. Cervinka et al, 2012; White et al., 2013). People who feel connected with nature, regardless of their material circumstances, tend to view their lives as fulfilling and feel less powerless, fearful or depressed. One way in which to achieve this is to use the medium of the arts in wild places that are familiar to children. Place-based learning is rooted in the local, that is the unique history, environment and culture of a particular place; for children, it takes place in their own ‘place’, such as their school grounds. In particular, place-based outdoor learning promotes a relationship with the natural environment and constructs deep environmental knowledge and understanding of the world that surrounds learners (Lloyd & Gray, 2014). Starting from a perspective that children have a profound sense of attachment to the places they live in and using that as the inspiration for artistic forms of expression through relating children, art and place is an increasingly popular approach for non-government organisations working on these issues. One such organisation is the charity Cambridge Curiosity and Imagination (CCI). 

This study aims to explore how the work of CCI contributes to children’s connectivity with the natural environment and, in doing so, not only their relationship with nature, but also their feelings of wellbeing. CCI’s work is underpinned by a commitment to creativity and exploration of the local environment; they undertake project work with schools that enables an interplay between art, artists, children and educators in and around wild places, drawing on existing emotive attachments to places to develop an individual’s sense of wellbeing and self-worth. We intend to undertake an ethnographic study of the work that CCI does with the aim of exploring how place-based learning through the creative arts influences children’s connectedness to nature and feelings of wellbeing.  This overall project addresses the research question ‘How does place-based learning through the creative arts influence children’s connectedness to nature and feelings of wellbeing?’ The preliminary stage of this study, early findings of which are reported in this poster, aims to consider:

1. What are the aims of CCI stakeholders (including directors and artists) in their work with children? What do they perceive their impact to be on children’s connectedness to nature and feelings of wellbeing?
2. To what extent and in what ways are these evident within archival CCI materials?
3. What are the implications for environmental and sustainability education of place-based learning through creativity?

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