Explore the Multiple Uses of a Simple Yet Engaging Tool
In its core, Nature Journaling is a tool for observing and connecting with nature. Once I put on my trainer’s hat to look at it, I saw there could be a lot more uses of it. Where can we use focused observation? When is it important to engage our learners’ hands and not only brains & ears?
Typically, nature journaling is used to collect and record your observations, questions, connections, and explanations on the pages of a notebook. While the name might mislead you, it is a combination of drawings, words and numbers—which makes the tool a lot more accessible, not only for learners with artistic streak. In a training, as the Wild Wonder Foundation points out, this practice can enhance observations, curiosity, gratitude, reverence, memory, and joy.
But let me share how I got in touch with this technique.
To me, as a frequent traveller, nature journaling means creating a unique memory and connecting to the place, wherever you are.
Sometimes the unique memory was a conversation with a stranger. For instance, when I was hiking the Painter’s Way along the limestone formations of Saxon Switzerland, in East Germany. In one of my breaks, I decided to make a sketch. And soon enough, two fellow hikers engaged in a conversation with me.
In other moments, I took a piece of paper, covered it with some colour splashes and lines. Even years later, looking at that piece of paper, I can recall the exact time and location and how I felt that day: a surprisingly hot sun, the smell of autumn leaves, and the sound of the wind playing with the falling leaves and the hopeful moment for my upcoming exams. During my outdoor education training, it served me as a tool to get immersed in a small corner of the park and understand the whole world of different animals and plants in just a couple square metres.
Besides grasping special moments and getting to know your environment, nature journaling supports education and plays a role in nature conservation, as the authors John Muir Laws and Emilie Lygren highlight.
And if we put the trainer’s hat on, we can realise how it supports the learning process of adult participants.
- work on conflict management and intercultural communication: ask participants to observe and journal about the same item, compare what different participants notice about the same element of nature.
- integrate a mindful break and recharge during a busy day: ask participants to concentrate on the tiny detail of nature, this helps them get centered and calms them down; or get in a flow of the observation/artistic process.
- project kick-off and familiarise participants with the trainings’ environment to make them feel more at ease: invite participants to observe and document different parts of the workshop location—even in an office room, ask them to look for “living things”.
- enhance team-spirit and collaboration building: invite participants to bring together their observations and build a map of the location together.
- transfer the learnings with a touch of emotion: ask participants to visit their favourite spot and draw what they see—this way they can create their personal postcard. In the below example, you can see how to make this exercise more powerful.
Here is how I used one of the many activities within nature journaling to create a mindful break during a three-day intense training.
1 – Introduce the concept and goal of nature journaling, asking if participants have had similar experience
2 – Introduce the steps of the activity
- Choose an element in nature: a leaf, a twig, a pine cone…Try to find a small one that will fit on a paper. Do not tear down living things.
- Observe it closely, study its shapes, colours, scents, every aspect you can.
- Put it on paper. Use a pen or pencil, use drawing, numbers and words to describe what you observe.
- What does it remind you of? Let your imagination fly!
My participants truly embraced this last part: Every one of them used a different form of expression: someone wrote a poem, someone used colours, someone made an almost scientific inquiry.
3 – Agree to return to the same spot—give them approx. 20 min to follow the above steps on their own
4 – Reflect on the experience
My participants highlighted the calmness and groundedness they felt after this activity.
Other positive effects include:
🖊 It strengthens critical thinking and supports principles of scientific research.
🖊 This method creates connection between you and nature, you and others and yourself with your own senses.
🖊 You do not need to be talented artistically in any way, and yet it will enhance your creativity.
🖊 It created a beautiful memory, a personal postcard from the training, for all of them.
A few things to keep in mind when you introduce the exercise
- I stay away from introducing it as a drawing exercise, which discourages too many people, unfortunately. I prefer saying “nature observation technique”.
- I show examples of different styles, more artistic and more scientific versions. This way people with different approaches can identify and be inspired.
Before starting the exercise, I emphasize that the resulting sheet of paper remains theirs and they do not need to share it with anyone or read it out. (Or in case of a collaborating end product, such as a map, I leave it optional if they want to show their sketch.) - In a follow-up debriefing, I ask questions: what was easy/difficult? What did you notice? What was new?
- There are many types of activities within this tool, so you can easily adjust it to your audience’s background and needs.
My favourite use of nature journaling is “presencing”: to feel present wherever I am. In a workshop, it can be used to help people create a connection with their environment, their fellow participants, themselves or the topic. Capturing a moment and creating an emotional memory is a powerful way to transfer your workshop to their everyday life. But the use of this method reaches further than that.
I encourage you to experiment with integrating this tool in different parts of your training, as you could see above, it can serve many purposes.
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