As parents, caregivers and educators, it is now more important than ever to help our children connect deeper with the Earth, the Montessori way.
Dr Montessori wrote:
“We must study the correlation between life and the environment. In nature all is correlated. This is the purpose of nature. Nature is not concerned just with the conservation of individual life or with the betterment of itself. It is a harmony, a plan of construction. Everything fits into the plan: rocks, earth, water, plants, [hu]man, etc.”
– Maria Montessori, The 1946 London Lectures
At every age and stage
In Montessori, we want to help our children develop a deeper, more respectful relationship with Earth.
We do this with our babies and toddlers spending lots of time outdoors observing, exploring, touching, smelling, tasting, and listening. These hands-on experiences allow a rich sensorial experience of reality while also using their absorbent mind. We can offer loads of language and model a respectful approach to our Earth.
Our preschoolers continue to explore sensorially and their conscious absorbent mind now wants to know what everything is and why. They love to classify their discoveries by colour, size, weight, sound etc.
In the second plane of development, we can sow seeds of curiosity, wondering together, asking open questions, and sparking their interest to explore deeper themselves. One child may be fascinated by pond life, another by rainbows, and another by space. We can observe their interests and support them to find out more – they might arrange a visit to a museum, speak to an expert (like a neighbour or grandparent), or go to the library to research further.
They may also start to explore moral questions about the environment and identify injustices. It may be around why large companies are allowed to pollute or why there is food inequity or questions around climate change and environmental damage. They may want to take action to address this, or want to research further. They may support the WWF or join a youth nature organisation.
Adolescents can go further to form groups to take action around an issue that they find important. This can give our adolescents a purpose and meaning beyond themselves working in a group for a common purpose. This gives them valorisation in a time where they can be personally very fragile and insecure.
20 ways to connect deeper with the Earth, the Montessori way
Note: Rather than making these efforts top down with all the ideas coming from us, we can look for ways for the ideas to come from our children. What are they interested in? For older children, can they be involved in the research? Then make a plan together to make it happen.
- Plant a herb garden or vegetable garden – by seeing how much energy it takes to grow food, we develop more respect for all that the Earth provides for us
- Grow fruits from seeds (try planting apple seeds or watch an avocado grow from seed) or vegetables from scraps (like leeks, onions etc)
- Care for plants (eg, watering and dusting leaves) and gardening (including raking and weeding)
- Start a nature journal – observe and learn about plants, eg, observing a plant through the seasons, their leaves, the needs of plants, the names of the parts of plants, identifying plants from books/encyclopaedias or asking an expert (the child will use far more judgement than using an app to identify a plant). Observe and learn about animals and insects in our neighbourhood or local area.
- Move beyond the 3Rs (reuse, recycle, and reduce) to a 4th R “regenerate” – how do we feed and nourish the Earth to leave it better than we found it
- Toddlers can learn to separate food waste into the compost and grind up egg shells to use as compost; preschoolers can set up a worm farm; elementary age children can contact the local government to petition for composting services if they don’t exist in our home town
- Take part in a food coop or community garden
- Collect trash at the beach/our neighbourhood on a clean-up (or any) day
- Head outdoors often – depending on where we live this could be a park, a nature trail, the beach, or observing nature in our street
- Make craft with things found in nature – eg, making mandalas from fallen leaves, rocks, sticks
- Put the children in charge of recycling in our homes, setting up a system if we don’t yet have one
- Go on a nature treasure hunt in a local park, forest etc
- Collect rainwater
- Grow a pollinating garden to encourage bee communities
- Bake our own bread, make our own jams, and preserve fruits and vegetables
- Improve the soil quality in our homes and schoolyards
- Campaign to stop use of plastics in the community
- Wonder often with our children at the awesome world around us – ask questions, lie on the ground to watch the clouds, get exploring and never stop wondering together
- Bigger projects in the family could look at producing our own energy and improving our home design to need less heating and cooling.
- Work with our school community to connect with schools in other parts of the world to share experiences, ideas and solutions
Inspiring environmental work in Montessori schools around the world
Now I’d like to share with you some inspiring examples from some of my favourite Montessori educators around the world.
- Carlos Chivers lives in Mexico City and is the person that first challenged me to think about regeneration rather than green choices or sustainability. Of course a green-choice is better than a non green choice but there is still a negative impact to the eco-system. A sustainable option is better than an unsustainable option and has a neutral impact to the eco-system. Regeneration on the other hand is the idea that we need to give back to the Earth, feeding and nurturing it, and improving upon it. If you have ever seen the film “Biggest Little Farm,” this is a great example of how we can help the planet to regenerate itself.
In their school, they are nearly at the end of the first year of a program developed by Mauricio De La Puente which translates roughly from Spanish as “Vital Rhythms.”
* each day, the children observe the rhythms in their territory (their school) such as seeing where on the horizon the sun is going up, the climate, any fauna and flora they observe etc
* they develop their own code to record it (eg, stones from the yard, painted red if it rained etc)
* they collect the recordings from moon to moon and connect with other territories to see what is the same and different (eg, when this happens in my school, what is happening in someone else’s territory, eg, what is happening in dry season/everything burning)
* the children are observing the vital rhythm that sustain life – with the weather, with a new butterfly coming, etc
* the children are developing their natural curiosity and ability to observe
* they are learning how they can engage with these rhythms to promote more life, to engage in relationships based on care and tenderness, and how humans can be part of this rhythm of life
It’s such a simple idea, they are not yet at the end of their first year, but hopeful to do it over 5 years so they can also observe cognitive and other developments happening.
- My friend Kim Anh Nguyễn Anderson, a Montessori educator based in San Diego, told me about an interesting experiment they did on one of their school camps. To show the children how much food waste there was at meal time, the children were in charge of weighing the food that was left over each day of the camp. The first day there was a lot of food waste but by the end of the camp, the children had reduced the amount of food waste to nearly nothing. This project helped the children gain awareness of an important issue and one that they could then share with their families upon their return.
- Matthew from MJDS in Toronto, Canada has shared some things they are doing at their school:
* They have developed their first Carbon Action Plan. It covers things like purchasing policies, food waste, use of lighting, opportunities to go to solar, moving off gas to electricity (having green electricity) and the importance of staff education. They connect with other schools in North America to see what they’re doing and to share best practices. The idea is to make short and long term plans to move towards a zero emission school.
* For food waste, they have compost bins and the older students help the younger students take care of worm bins in the school garden. The upper elementary students water the garden with compost tea that they made out of the worm castings (the decomposed material excreted by the worms). They also have boomerang lunches which means that if children have food left over, they take it home and put in in their green bin at home.
* There’s a sensorial aspect to their school garden that is very toddler friendly. The toddlers help to harvest some herbs from the garden (eg, sage, mint, rosemary) and bring it into class and feel it and smell it and pass it around to each other
* They have an after school art program called eco art
- Marvin and his bilingual Montessori school, Vincerola, in Aachen, Germany received a UNESCO Award for Education for Sustainable development. They:
* do regular trips to explore in the forest
* have school gardens that the children are in charge of
* have projects like a rainwater collecting station, a small pond with fish, frogs and plants which the children helped to create themselves
* have a ‘bee meadow’ which the children look after and make observations there, as well as having experts visit like beekeepers and farmers
* they have a special storage cupboard in each classroom (Marvin 2.0) designed to store and access materials for upcycling for art projects
Want to go deeper?
I absolutely adore the book Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer. The book shares Indigenous wisdom, her scientific knowledge of botany, and her beautiful words which are like a poem to the Earth. I have underlined nearly every page, but my book opened to this line to share with you today:
“These plant mothers feed us and leave their children behind as seeds, to feed us again and again.”
I also adore the chapter “Learning the grammar of animacy” which talks about how in Indigenous language, all nature from rocks to mountains, water, fire and places are a “who” rather than a “what.” It’s such a respectful way to speak about nature.
Further reading
- For lots of free resources to get started find a Roots & Shoots group (established by Jane Goodall)
- For more about regeneration read The Regenerative Life by Carol Sanford
- For a practical guide to bringing your children in touch with nature, Wings, Worms, and Wonder: A Guide For Creatively Integrating Gardening and Outdoor Learning Into Children’s Lives by Kelly S. Johnson
Our hope is these children will grow up wanting to care about the Earth and leave it better than when they arrived. And in the process, we may just find ourselves breathing in more fresh air, feeling a little more connected with our planet, nurtured and held by beautiful Mother Earth.
Links to books in this post are affiliate links – a small amount is received to go towards books for my classes at Jacaranda Tree Montessori in Amsterdam. Thank you for your support.