Cross-sector leaders launch national effort to advance nature-based play and learning in early childhood

Regular nature access in early childhood improves physical and mental health, develops social-emotional skills, and better prepares children for school. Cross-sector leaders are eager to bring these benefits to the youngest members of their communities — and to consider the role of nature-based initiatives in mitigating climate change. 

More than 40 of these leaders — including providers of early child care and education, policy advocates and funders — gathered recently in Washington, D.C., to launch the Outdoor and Nature-Based Early Care and Education Collaborative at a policy roundtable hosted by the Children & Nature Network and the National League of Cities, in partnership with the National Institute for Early Education Research, Natural Start Alliance, National Wildlife Foundation-Early Childhood Health Outdoors, and Trust for Learning. The two-day event was designed to showcase nature-based early childhood programs and build a coalition to kickstart state and national policy agendas.

“A variety of sectors are looking at this, but a public lever hasn’t been pulled to its full potential,” says David Beard, Director of Policy & Government Affairs for the Children & Nature Network. “With the current changes and uncertainty at the federal level, the Outdoor and Nature-Based Early Care and Education Collaborative is well-positioned to explore regional and state-level policy initiatives. The Collaborative will also engage the wider early care and education sector, funders and other potential partners in advancing nature-based experiences for young children, when these experiences can have a tremendous impact on the developing brain.”

Investing for impact — a funder’s perspective   

The event was funded in part by the Wyoming-based George B. Storer Foundation, which invests in early childhood education and the environment. “Access to the outdoors in childhood is powerful,” says Senior Program Officer Kathleen Doffermyre. “We have data that says that if you spend time in natural outdoor spaces, it changes the way your brain works. It changes your gut microbiome. That has huge implications on long-term health. If we can move from having outdoor playgrounds that reward only the biggest, strongest kids to playgrounds with nature that are designed for pro-social engagements and make-believe and other sorts of play, we can create spaces that reward and support all kids.”

Kathleen Belk Doffermyre, Senior Program Officer, George B. Storer Foundation. Photo: Children & Nature Network

Doffermyre notes that relatively small investments in early childhood can have a big impact. “The George B. Storer Foundation has limited resources, so we invest where we can have an extremely high return,” she says. “We look for opportunities without a lot of partisanship — and where we can make small investments that have significant systems-change impacts in multiple areas of child development, including social, emotional, physical and mental health, and cognitive outcomes. For us, that has proven to be nature-based learning and play in early childhood.”

Overcoming barriers — a provider’s perspective   

For those interested in creating equitable, nature-based early childhood programs, the barriers can be daunting, from regulatory and licensing requirements to a lack of professional development and funding. Nature-based learning meets education standards in just a handful of states, making it difficult to offer federally- or state-funded options, and programs are not readily available in all communities. Research indicates that these factors impact families with limited financial resources and Black and Brown families disproportionately, and contribute to a well-documented nature gap.

Deja Jones, MEd, Ph.D., attended the roundtable event because she wants to help remove some of these barriers. “I want people to see the benefits of microschools, forest schools and nature-based schools — how they are shaping and shifting early childhood education. We have to move with the times.”

Deja Jones, MEd, PhD, founder, Honeypot Montessori, co-founder Black Educator Network. Photo: Children & Nature Network

As a Newark, New Jersey, teacher, Jones knew she wanted to incorporate her lifelong love of the outdoors and gardening into her work. After adding Montessori certification to her impressive list of credentials, she began to explore ways to bring immersive and culturally relevant nature-based care and learning to Black and Brown children. It took her four years to develop a program blueprint, find a location, identify partners and launch Newark’s very first Montessori microschool, serving 30 students with a 1:10 teacher/child ratio. Jones received start-up funding and business planning support from the Wildflower School Network and its Black Wildflower Fund.

New Jersey requires child care sites to pass extensive — and expensive — soil, water and air quality testing. The state also requires child care centers to have an attached outdoor play space or access to one within close walking distance. After spending thousands of dollars vetting spaces that didn’t meet requirements, Jones found a location that worked and, in late 2022, opened the doors of Honeypot Montessori. Today, the school serves primarily Black and Brown children, ages 3 to 5, and offers a tuition equity model where one-third of families pay full tuition, one-third are eligible for reduced tuition, and one-third qualify for state subsidies and vouchers. The school is always at full capacity with a long waiting list. Children spend about 50% of their time outdoors in on-site gardens or a nearby park.

According to Jones, there is a strong environmental justice movement in Newark, but climate justice and STEM/STEAM programs don’t start until middle school. “What about our little ones?” says Jones. “They are very capable. We believed we needed a preschool in the city that focused on nature play and taking care of nature as a foundation for future environmental stewardship.”

“I love how we were able to curate a day for our children, full of joy, engagement and play,” concludes Jones.

Working at scale — a partnership perspective

Social entrepreneurs like Deja Jones are playing an essential role in bringing nature-based programs to young children in their communities. On a broader scale, creative partnerships are accelerating access to nature-based early care and education across entire cities.

San Francisco Children & Nature is a cross-sector collaborative working to ensure that all children in the city have “the same opportunities to play, learn and grow in nature.” The Low Income Investment Fund (LIIF), a nonprofit community development financial institution (CDFI), is a member of the collaborative. LIIF mobilizes capital and partnerships to increase equitable access to opportunity, with a focus on affordable housing and early care and education for Black, Latino and other people and communities of color whose opportunities have been limited by exclusionary policies and practices. LIIF’s work includes co-locating early care and education centers within affordable housing developments, providing families with easy access to high quality, affordable child care.

In 2020, SF Children & Nature hosted a hands-on nature play building workshop at the Presidio of San Francisco, a national park site. Collaborative member Elizabeth Winograd, ECE Deputy Director for LIIF, attended. 

“We were rolling logs and stumps to create this incredible playspace that encourages kids to explore and climb and use their critical thinking skills,” says Winograd. “The light bulb went off. There are about 1,100 child care centers and family child cares in San Francisco. My dream is to renovate every single one of them to be more natural — to become nature play spaces.”

San Francisco nature play partners Elizabeth Winograd, LIIF (left) and Maria Durana, San Francisco Children & Nature (right). Photo: Children & Nature Network

“Elizabeth and LIIF have been a big part of our collaborative, but I wasn’t sure how a CDFI could fit into our nature play strategy,” says Maria Durana, Director of the San Francisco Children & Nature for San Francisco Recreation and Parks. “But LIIF is an organization that has the capacity to do infrastructure projects. They have officers on the ground with connections to early childhood centers and family child care homes. They were uniquely positioned to take this idea and run with it.”

Neither organization had done early childhood nature play renovations before. “It was a process where we learned together and figured out how to make it happen,” says Durana. They brought in partners like the California Native Plant Society and Rebuilding Together San Francisco, and in 2021, completed nature play renovations in nine early childhood sites. At the end of 2024, the partnership had created 21 nature play sites and is currently working on 14 more. They continue to leverage local partners and funding, and are now providing training for local landscape architects to develop expertise in nature play space design.

The partnership is helping both SF Children & Nature, San Francisco Recreation and Parks, and LIIF achieve mutual goals for children’s health and well-being. “There are so many benefits to growing up with nature, especially in the early years, that in turn, have a ripple effect across families and neighborhoods and communities,” says Durana. 

Next steps  

Following the policy roundtable, the Outdoor and Nature-Based Early Care and Education Collaborative began meeting regularly in December 2024. The group will work to raise awareness of nature’s benefits for young children and highlight the connection between high-quality outdoor learning environments and strategies to limit the impact of climate change. The Collaborative will support the development of local, state and federal public policy approaches and messaging, and the creation of tools needed to engage communities in public policy agenda-building. 

“The movement is growing and now is the time to highlight and replicate state-level approaches to supporting this vital work,” says Vera Feeny, senior program specialist with the National League of Cities and one of the lead organizers of the policy roundtable and new collaborative. “This comes at a critical time given the need for environmental education, high-quality and accessible early learning programs, the lack of equitable access to the benefits of nature for children and families, and early childhood’s yet-to-be-defined role in ending the climate crisis.”

The Outdoor and Nature-Based Early Care and Education Collaborative roundtable was made possible with support from the George B. Storer Foundation and the Freedom Together Foundation (formerly The JPB Foundation).

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