A ‘forest preschool’ immerses children in nature. Can model be expanded in Tarrant County?

Liam and his 3- to 5-year-old classmates sat around a large picnic table in the Bob Jones Nature Center and Preserve, feet dangling from the bench, as they learned about the life cycle of frogs.

Meanwhile, nearby mammals were close enough to overhear how their amphibian counterparts lay eggs rather than give birth to live young. Liam was able to multitask, watching a pack of deer graze while absorbing the traits of a tadpole, which has gills before it transforms into a frog with lungs.

“You know what else has gills? A fish and shark,” Liam, 3, declared.

This was a typical day at the Cross Timbers Forest Preschool in Southlake, a suburb about 30 minutes northeast of Fort Worth. The nature-focused program run by the city’s Community Services Department includes hiking, storytime and discovery with 70% of the day being spent outside. One child can enroll up to two days a week in the 15-week program, which spans from 9 a.m. to noon Tuesday through Friday.

“We have a mixture of families who participate in our program. Our goal is to create a world-class experience for all of our campers and allowing them to come twice a week allows us to include more students,” said Vicky Schiber, Southlake’s community relations manager.

The concept of getting children outdoors to play and learn isn’t new, but Cross Timbers’ publicly-run, multiweek program is notable among a patchwork of similar nature-based programs in the area offered by private organizations or that cater to homeschool families. The desire for these programs is growing in the Tarrant County area, experts say, but more staffing, public land and marketing of existing programs is needed.

Kathy Dorris remembers when her son, now 31 years old, attended the Fort Worth Zoo’s preschool program, which is currently offered September through May to children ages 3 to 5. Now, as the zoo’s director of education, she’s helped oversee the expansion of the long-running program with an additional, parallel program known as Nature’s Navigators that includes longer learning days with a focus on 4- and 5-year-olds.

Nature’s Navigators is starting its third year with classes that span five hours with more broad topics such as comparing humans’ and animals’ sense of sight. Preschool program classes are three hours and focus on a new animal each week, starting with aquatic animals and working toward flying animals.

“We just saw the need, and (parents) wanted something more extensive,” Dorris said of Nature’s Navigators.

Julie Neville, the zoo’s education program coordinator, said conversations she’s had with parents have highlighted a growing desire for outdoor learning that gets children away from screens. As a result, some families enrolled in these programs have decided to go toward a homeschool route, or something that strays from a “typical school route.”

“(Parents) are like, ‘I want to find something where my child’s outdoors, being outside and not on the screen so much, getting out in nature.’ I think a lot of parents are feeling that that’s something they want for their children and their families,” Neville said.

Rose McKinney, a mom of four boys who has enrolled each of them in the preschool program since 2013, drives from Cedar Hill to the zoo once a week to bring her 4-year-old son to the program, she said. The drive is worth it, considering her family’s history with the program and the trust and familiarity that’s been built with the teachers there.

“I think that there’s so much value in fresh air and being able to move instead of being stuck in a classroom all day,” McKinney said. “We also liked that it is a little bit more experiential learning instead of academic heavy… they’re able to learn concepts through real-life examples instead of just textbooks.

“It would be cool if the public schools and other organizations were able to mimic that and provide a little bit more of a holistic approach to education,” she added.

Benefits and accessibility of outdoors

Children who regularly play and learn outside are healthier both physically and mentally, said Sarah Coles, executive director of the Texas Children in Nature Network.

Physically, natural environments yield stronger bone and muscle development and benefit children’s sense of balance and depth perception when interacting with those spaces, she said. Emotionally, children’s social development evolves when connecting with their peers, and rates of depression and anxiety have been shown to be reduced with outdoor time.

“It’s not a cure-all, but it really makes a huge, positive impact in terms of kids’ growth and development,” Coles said.

One of the obstacles of getting children outside, though, is accessibility to parks and green spaces, as Texas has a small percentage of lands available to the public, she added. Ideally, children should live within a 10-minute walk or ½ mile of a park.

Proposition 14 in the Nov. 7 Texas constitutional amendments election could be a step forward in addressing this gap if approved by voters. It would create the centennial parks conservation fund that would be dedicated to buying more land for the state parks system.

This is one of the initiatives Texas Children in Nature Network supports for accessibility to green spaces, but there are other layers to the issue that the nonprofit is addressing as well. This includes making sure parks can be enjoyed by people living with disabilities by building accessible pathways, for example.

“We’re also thinking about the comfortability in the outdoors in terms of, ‘Do people feel safe? Do they feel welcome in those outdoor spaces that are near them as well?’” Coles said.

For the Fort Worth Nature Center & Refuge, which hosts summer camps for children in kindergarten through fifth grade, better public transportation could help improve accessibility to the 3,621-acre site, said Michael Perez, natural scientist supervisor. The park is one of the largest city-owned nature centers in the U.S.

“We’re just kind of on the outskirts of Fort Worth if you will. There’s no transportation out here, so that can be a limiting factor for some,” he said. “Public transportation to get out here would help.”

Additionally, improved marketing to let people know about the nature center, its programs and “the concept of outdoor education” would be helpful, Perez said.

In terms of expanding its children’s programs to younger ages, the main obstacle is staffing, he added. But in the upcoming spring or next school year, the nature center could be starting a new program on Mondays for homeschooled children.

“That would be our way of expanding our program to homeschool groups and or early childhood,” he said. “We’re trying to see how we can get that done, but it’s all going to be based on, can we get more staff or can we manipulate schedules where it would work in our favor to do that,” he said. “There’s an interest in that being available to the community.”