Evaluation of the Educational Impact of a Fish Observation Program for Children

Analyzing Dreams and Drawings as Indicators

Abstract

 Among the five subjects of childcare content in the Japanese governmental guidelines for nursery schools and kindergartens, “environment” could be largely covered via nature experiences. However, there has been insufficient consideration of the quality and quantity of natural experiences that should be provided in early childhood education. In fiscal years 2020 and 2021, the present study implemented an experiential learning program, “Anywhere Fish Market,” at a kindergarten in western Tokyo. The authors hypothesized that an intense experience could influence the content of a dream and that an observational experience enhances the details in drawings for related targets. To investigate these two hypotheses, the dream contents during sleep in 2020, and the fish drawings before and after the program in 2021 were analyzed. In 2020, 52 children participated, and dream records were collected from 32 of them. Based on the results of the state space model, the total number of dream records showed a decreasing trend overall, while the number of fish appearances in dream records increased after the experience. In 2021, 60 children participated, and fish drawings were collected before and after the experience. There were no significant differences in the number of species, individuals, colors, or expression of scales depicted in the pictures before and after the experience, whereas there was a significant increase in the depiction of fin rays after the experience (U-test: p = 0.0004). These results suggest that the experience could provide children with an opportunity to recognize fish in more detail and leave a lasting impression on their memories, at least for part of the children.