Recreational na pedagogical activities in contact with nature and child development

Abstract

Pedagogical practices in Early Childhood Education should ensure Environmental Education by reconnecting children with nature. In the realm of childhood, one of the best pedagogical strategies consists of stimulating the teaching-learning process through play. Playing in areas that incorporate elements of nature allows children to develop more quickly and healthily on cognitive, physical, emotional, and spiritual levels, leaving behind a sedentary lifestyle and gaining independence and maturity. In this context, this research aimed to conduct a bibliographic review on recreational and pedagogical activities in contact with nature and their responses to child development. Data collection was carried out using information from the Scopus scientific article database, available on the Capes Journals Portal. For this purpose, a Boolean search of articles produced within the last ten years (between 2012 and 2022) was used, with a series of terms and indexers, namely: "outdoor AND activities AND child AND development AND child AND education." The following bibliometric parameters were analyzed using the "bibliometrix" package for the R environment: keywords, year of publication, country of affiliation, and year of availability. Next, we performed a Pearson correlation (r) (P < 0.05) between the total number of articles published each year to determine the trend in the increase of publications for each approach. Similarly, we checked the number of citations of these publications over time. Between 2012 and 2022, studies on outdoor activities and their impact on early childhood education did not show a growth pattern, but the annual growth rate indicates a trend of increasing publications. In the last decade, 2022 was the year with the highest number of publications on this topic. Through the present literature review, it was possible to verify that studies on the responses of children's contact with nature show that uniting children and nature is much more than just providing moments of fun or a simple outing. It is worth highlighting the need to promote continuous teacher training on the subject, towards promoting Environmental Education and the construction of the ecological subject. Only then will there be an awakening to the relevance of daily planning a range of activities in outdoor environments, such as trips to parks and green areas, as well as the creation of spaces in schools and CMEIs designed and built to meet the children's need to have contact with nature