Friday, June 18, 2010

Naturalistic Intelligence

Naturalistic is the most recent addition to Gardner’s theory (Gardner,2001) and has been met with more resistance than his original seven intelligences. According to Gardner, individuals who are high in this type of intelligence are more in tune with nature and are often interesting in nurturing, exploring the environment and learning about other species. These individuals are said to be highly aware of even subtle changes to their environments.

Naturalistic intelligence is the ability to recognize patterns in nature and to classify according to minute detail. For those students in tune with nature, the inclusion of the following activities may help them learn material by creating a naturalist inclusive atmosphere: nature walks, pet or plant in the classroom, and nature films (Amstrong, 1994). Armstrong also suggests using plants as props, this is where natural things or elements are used to explain course concepts and it also invokes learning from observation from class windows. To incorporate the naturalist intelligence, Kagan and Kagan(1998) suggest using categorization of class concepts. Activities such as blindfolded walks (for the purpose of relying on different senses), inferring, theorizing, keeping field logs, noting distinctions among similar items, understanding interdependence, hypothesizing, and experimenting all engage with the naturalist intelligence as well (Campbell, Campbell, Dickinson,1996).

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