ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the complexities of doing phenomenology with young children as co-researchers and how a phenomenological theoretical lens and teaching practices of listening led to our constructed knowledge of nature (Clark & Moss, 2008; Rinaldi, 2006; van Manen, 2014). Putting adult research agendas aside allowed for “in-seeing” of phenomenological experience while video methodology captured children’s experiences with less adult interpretation. Anecdotes of children’s experiences are shared to show how uninterrupted time in nature lends to a deeper understanding of children’s constructions of knowledge. During a year-long study, preschoolers discovered what nature is and what connections let them see that humans and nature exist together, not separately; like humans, nature lives and dies. Life and death are phenomena children grappled with and this chapter considers how studying nature led them to new realities with(in) nature’s living and nonliving existence(s) but also how their actions impact life.
