Place-Based Learning, Forest Schools and Environmental Education: A Conversation with Búho de Barro

Interview with Jerome Mangelinckx and Natalia Vizcarra Soberón, of the Peruvian civil association “Búho de Barro” (Mud Owl), on the methodology of Place-Based Learning and Forest School, and its relationship with Environmental Education.

Q: Tell us a bit about who you are.

A: We are a Peruvian civil association called “Búho de Barro.” We are the first Forest School initiative in Cusco and in Peru. We specialize in collaborative work aimed at building educational, environmental and social projects under the Forest School methodology, from an intercultural perspective. We seek to foster the involvement of a range of stakeholders — schools, communities, local governments and private companies — in order to create positive synergies through fun experiences in contact with nature. Networking, the exchange of knowledge and good practices, and impact evaluation are essential to innovating on educational and social-integration models and experiences.

Q: What is your educational vision?

A: Our Forest School proposal is carried out in a country of enormous diversity, so we seek to respond to very diverse needs and demands in terms of the national educational curriculum and environmental and social goals, in order to foster the physical health and social and emotional well-being of Peru's children and young people. Búho de Barro favors outdoor learning as a way to (re)discover the innate attraction and fascination for life in all its forms, generating experiences in natural settings that bring us closer to our purest emotions and desires.

Direct contact with Nature has a positive impact on human beings and on our relationship with the world; it creates pro-environmental values and attitudes. The predation of ecosystems and biodiversity, extreme heat waves, rising sea levels, the rights of Indigenous Peoples — everything is connected. Awareness of climate change is more effective and more genuine when it grows out of this direct connection with Nature, in contrast to the efforts we make today to take on responsibility in an imposed, and even traumatic, way.

We believe that the earlier we develop our senses through contact with Nature, the better we understand the world and feel part of it. Understanding and respecting the natural world from an early age will allow us to care for it, value it and love it.

Q: Are you familiar with the concept of place-based learning? How do you see it?

A: Place-based education is project-based, student-centered learning that seeks to unfold within local contexts (whether in nature or in local communities). It adopts an intercultural perspective (social, cultural, historical, etc.), so place-based educational proposals are built by recognizing diversity and are anchored in the social context.

Forest Schools and place-based education have a great deal in common, and both offer an ideal space for children and young people to have outdoor experiences in contact with nature. However, the great challenge lies in expanding the reach of these initiatives. There is a lot of resistance to the idea of learning outdoors, so it is essential to counter the negative perception among parents who see too much risk for their children, or the concern among educators that they will not manage to fit outdoor activities into the national curriculum.

Q: How did you come to Forest School?

A: 2019 marked a profound shift in our lives. We moved with our family to live in Bournemouth, UK, and it was there that we spent a year discovering and training in the Forest Schools methodology. Reviewing all the research and history of educational spaces of this kind over the last 30 years, we found a great deal in common with our own parental instinct to always stay in contact with nature and expose our children to natural spaces for their well-being. We believe this is best both for them and for any human being. The need to grow up and develop in natural spaces lets us feel free and “at home.” Accompanying children and young people properly as they discover the living, natural world through their own eyes is something very special that we must protect and care for. Children and young people carry an incredible potential that needs to be properly nurtured in order to build a special bond with the place where they live, with their family, their community and their country — a special bond with planet Earth, the home we all share.

Q: How do you define or apply it differently from the UK model?

A: We are still at an early pilot stage in Cusco, Peru. We apply the methodology from an intercultural perspective, learning more and more about Andean Peruvian culture and worldview; what matters is remembering that the methodology must remain flexible, and that what is essential is respect for children and young people and for their innate curiosity, wherever they may be. It is important to first observe and get to know the children and young people, who come from different realities and carry very different concerns. It is necessary to respect the knowledge they already bring from home, school, their neighborhood, and so on, and to respect their interests — what excites and motivates them. From there, using the various tools of the Forest School leader, we can accompany their need to discover the world around them, and learn from them as much as they learn from us. The way a child discovers an animal, an insect or a flower for the first time helps us see the world through their eyes and value what we sometimes have forgotten. It is wonderful when that curiosity catches us by surprise.

Q: In your view, what are the advantages and disadvantages of this methodology?

A: We don't believe there are disadvantages, but of course every human being is unique and carries their own history and circumstances; so it is important to take the necessary time to get to know the children and young people we work with, to help them overcome fears and challenges where needed, to accompany them through the uncertainties they face, to learn alongside them and to build community with the group. There are countless advantages, but we believe that the emotional bond with the natural environment, cultivated regularly, brings a peace with oneself that is necessary — and today, natural spaces are becoming ever scarcer. These spaces help us build respect and bonds with a group of human beings, and that is invaluable.

Q: Does this methodology have a foundation or intention specifically tied to ecology?

A: Forest Schools are an educational proposal that embraces the outdoors as a learning environment and the child's own interest as its main driver. In that sense, Forest Schools are grounded in a fundamental respect for children and young people and for their capacity to sustain curiosity about the world around them, in order to stimulate the development of confidence, self-esteem, creativity and resilience through experiences in nature. Direct contact with Nature has a positive impact on human beings and on our relationship with the world, and it also creates pro-environmental values and attitudes.

Q: Why is the issue of “green space” so important, in your view?

A: As journalist Richard Louv writes in his book Last Child in the Woods, today human beings suffer from a nature deficit. Families living in cities no longer factor the importance of contact with a natural environment, and its benefits, into their routines. Green spaces today are increasingly becoming artificial, plastic spaces. Many parents would rather their children not get their clothes dirty or take risks (like climbing a tree), and they don't grasp the potential of discovering, for example, the different textures of mud, clay, water, earth. At Búho de Barro we believe in the many benefits of connecting regularly with the life around us, and in the value of seeing nature not as scenery or as something occasional, but as a kind of “therapy” — something necessary and essential for human beings who live surrounded by other living beings.