Project Director

Hansen, Christopher

Department Examiner

Sandefur, Sarah

Department

Dept. of Education

Publisher

University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

Place of Publication

Chattanooga (Tenn.)

Abstract

This study investigates one public school forest kindergarten in the southeastern U.S. The purpose of this study is to determine the perception of parents of a kindergarten classroom context that is somewhat unique for U.S. public schools (forest kindergarten). The researcher believes that there is a unique perception that parents of forest kindergarten students have, and this study seeks to identify and describe them in order to inform 1) the participants and participating school system so that they can make informed decisions for this and future school-context reform models, and 2) the education research community at large so that U.S. public school efforts to enact forest kindergarten learning contexts can become part of the international conversation on early childhood learning contexts. The researcher’s questions were: What are the perceptions of parents that applied for their child to be in forest kindergarten compared to the parents that didn’t apply for forest kindergarten? The researcher is interested in the differences and similarities between parents of forest kindergarten and traditional kindergarten students. The findings indicate that parents of forest kindergarten students believe that forest kindergarten will allow students a better transition to school while still achieving grade level academic performance.

IRB Number

19-068

Degree

B. A.; An honors thesis submitted to the faculty of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Bachelor of Arts.

Date

5-2020

Subject

Outdoor education; Environmental education -- Study and teaching (Elementary)

Keyword

Forest kindergarten; Outdoor learning; Forest school; Kindergarten

Discipline

Early Childhood Education

Document Type

Theses

Extent

26 leaves

DCMI Type

Text

Language

English

Rights

http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

License

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

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