The nature study movement (alternatively, Nature Study or nature-study) was a popular education movement in America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Nature study attempted to reconcile scientific investigation with spiritual, personal experiences gained from interaction with the natural world. Led by progressive educators and naturalists such as Anna Botsford Comstock, Liberty Hyde Bailey, Louis Agassiz and Wilbur S. Jackman, nature study changed the way science was taught in schools by emphasizing learning from tangible objects, something that was embodied by the movement's mantra "study nature, not books."
The movement popularized scientific study outside of the classroom as well, and has proven highly influential for figures involved in the modern environmental movement, such as Aldo Leopold and Rachel Carson.
Read more about Nature Study: Background, Definitions, "Study Nature, Not Books", Education For Children, Women in The Nature Study Movement, See Also
Famous quotes containing the words nature and/or study:
“I wish to say that, in so far as I can, I hope to promote the enactment of further legislation of this character.
There’s nothing else one can say about me—I’m superfluous, in a word. A supernumerary—that’s all. Nature evidently didn’t count on my appearance, and consequently treated me as an unexpected, uninvited guest.”
—Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev (1818–1883)
“Note too that a faithful study of the liberal arts humanizes character and permits it not to be cruel.”
—Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso)