25
votes
At a Helsinki nursery, children spend all day in the forest – how outdoor learning benefits children's health and teaches them to value nature
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- Title
- How forest schools boost children's immune systems
- Authors
- Erika Benke
- Word count
- 2454 words
An interesting article. When I saw the title, I thought to myself: well that makes sense, summers are long and bright in the north, there's no reason why they shouldn't spend much of their time outside. But once again, I underestimated the Scandinavians. Spending all day everyday outside in the winter is a pretty wild thing to do imo. I know the article anecdotally suggests that the children are less prone to illnesses such as colds, although I have to wonder if the cold is affecting their health. According to this paper in the National Library of Medicine:
Earlier in the article:
The article goes on to specifically state that:
Of course, this is specifically looking at indoor temperatures, but I can't imagine it makes all that much difference, especially when it's as cold as it gets in the Finnish winter.
I don't mean to hate on this style of education, I think it's super interesting and I would have loved it as a child. I just can't help but wonder if, despite the health benefits the original article is claiming, could there be more at stake here?
I think the article you linked is very specifically associating low temperature with low income and inability to afford to heat or insulate a home. Which I think is different than children acclimated to the outdoors while being consistently active and properly clothed in a climate where the adults know how to protect child safety in that weather. Even the regular nursery has children playing outdoors in the Finnish winter for two hours.
The "more at stake" to me is the appreciation for the outdoors and respect for the environment. And the article while addressing an important issue isn't obviously connected, and probably doesn't consider Nordic indoor or outdoor temperatures at all.
That's true. I'm not so much doubting and condemning the article, rather being curious, just because I've always been told that spending time indoors in a cold room is bad for your health. From personal experience over the last few years when I have been unable to afford to heat my house over the winter (temperatures often well below the recommended 18C, often at 10C or below), I've noticed the effects on my health. Of course this is very different than being outdoors on the cold, partly because cold temperatures indoors are conducive to mould growth, but also because I would spend hours at a time sitting down watching TV, not the way children would run around and play.
I had thought that it was a well established fact that colder air temperatures indoors or outdoors came with a significantly increased risk of respiratory problems or illness such as the flu, COVID, or the cold, although the NLM states in their article:
so I guess it's not as clear cut as I thought it was. At the end of the day though, it's clear either way that there's no major negative effect on their health, which is why I don't have any outright criticism of it. I would definitely be in favour of this practice spreading to other places, and/or more research being done on on the educational, heath, and societal effects of this.
From my understanding, so long as you're avoiding hypothermia, being in the cold is only unhealthy because then you'll usually avoid ventilating the rooms (opening windows and doors regularly) and so breath in damp, germs rich air.
If that is true, open air classroom is better than being warmer inside.