The effect of nature on the learning rate of elementary school students in cities with dry climate from the perspective of teachers and their parents

Abstract

Unfortunately, in today's world, along with the expansion of cities around the world, children are separated from daily experiences in the natural world. Changes in homes,  streets, and the advent of technology that take away children's free time instead of being outdoors have made children's free time increasingly full of predetermined and monitored moments. They limit their lives more than before. Schools are one of the important spaces where children spend many hours of their day in the most important ages of modelling and learning, and it is one of the most important spaces to re-establish this relationship. Schools are one of the important spaces where children spend many hours of their day. They spend their day there in the most important ages of being exemplary and teachable, and it is one of the most important spaces to re-establish this relationship. The presence of nature in educational spaces is often very limited, and this limited presence is also done without considering the special needs of children and the high capabilities of natural environments in meeting these needs. It is necessary to design natural environments in schools with the aim of meeting the different needs of children in growth, education and learning. This research was conducted with the aim of investigating the role of nature in children's learning from the perspective of teachers and parents. This research is of a hybrid type and field methods, indirect observation and library data collection have been used. In indirect observation, two types of questionnaires related to parents of students and teachers were prepared and randomly distributed among 580 parents of students and 50 elementary school teachers. The reliability of the test was obtained using Cronbach's alpha of 0.890. The results of this research indicate that physical location as one of the factors of children's learning has the greatest effect on children's education and learning.