Early Childhood Education Placement Students Experience the Arb
By Avita Ragnauth
The Humber Arboretum and the Centre for Urban Ecology appreciates collaboration, fosters learning, promotes love and care for the natural environment, and values curiosity and growth.
I was able to contribute to its mission as a Learning by Leading (LxL) Assistant, where I was apart of many activities and programs hosted by the Arboretum during the winter season of 2023. During this role, I participated in the activities, observed, took photos, learned and had a lot of fun! The Humber Arboretum is a place I call my Garden of Eden. To me it is a place that sparks feelings of comfort, belongingness, and peace.
Six students in Humber’s Early Childhood Education (ECE) program opted to do their co-op placement at the Humber Arboretum during the Winter 2023 semester. They were at the Arboretum twice a week to develop and exercise their skills while incorporating nature and making it relevant to their work.
The students worked together to create activities that were aimed at engaging and educating infants and toddlers with nature, thus forming and strengthening the bond between humans and nature. I found it quite impressive how they were able to creatively incorporate nature in their activities.
For instance, during a session with infants two students designed an activity that would stimulate the senses of sound and touch. They put small sticks, dried leaves and fallen pine needles into plastic bottles to create a shaker that an infant can pick up and shake to hear the different sounds it can make. It was a unique way to bring nature inside for babies to experience safely.
While there will not always be the opportunity to ethically bring things from nature inside, there are always substitutes. Another pair of students opted for a duck plushie to engage the toddlers and introduce them to how a duck looks like and what sounds it makes through a song. This was quite fitting especially since infants interact with and learn about the world primarily through their sense of sight, sound and touch.
However, when it comes to nature, the real fun is outside! The ECE placement students also designed activities that were safe and fun to do outside in the arboretum.
During a session with toddlers, a pair of ECE students connected nature with wellness. They showed photos of different animals and encouraged the toddlers to pose and stretch their bodies like the animal through a demonstration.
But it’s not all work and no play at the Humber Arboretum for these ECE placement students. To teach and encourage others to have a good relationship with nature, we must also have our own experiences with nature, which is one of the most important things that the Humber Arboretum fosters.
Winter may not always sound like a good time to be out in nature, but our Senior Nature Interpreter Angel, aka Hummingbird, taught us that winter is part of nature and there are still some activities that we can do instead of staying inside. Which is why he led us all to go snowshoeing!
It was the first time some of us, myself included had gone snowshoeing. We traversed the Arboretum together while it was covered in a thick, soft blanket of snow. As we explored the Arboretum, we fed chickadees and looked out for animal tracks. Hummingbird also taught us about the Alder trees, how some animals hibernate in the winter and signs to look out for to know where an owl might be sleeping in a tree!
There’s lots to do in and learn about nature, it certainly is a fantastic place to start forming strong bonds not only with Mother Earth but also with one another.
Avita Ragnauth is a Media and Communication Studies student at the University of Guelph-Humber (2024). As she pursued her undergrad, she completed the Humber Arboretum Ambassador-in-Training program, which allowed her to become a Humber Arboretum Ambassador, then on to a Learning by Leading Assistant. During her time she has assisted in conceiving, planning, and leading various activities aimed at promoting engagement between students and the Humber Arboretum.
