Effect of Five Senses Activities in the Forest on Young Children’s Daily Stress

The purpose of this study was to find out the effects of five senses activities in forests on the reduction or mitigation of daily stress using various forest healing factors such as water, sunlight, topography, phytoncide, landscape, sound, fragrance, etc. The subjects of this study were 40 young children aged 5 in an early childhood education institution located in Cheongju. The children were divided into two groups: 20 in the experimental group and 20 in the control group. The experimental group participated in the program of five senses activities in the forest in total of 12 sessions (1-2 sessions a week), with each session lasting 60 minutes from May 8 to June 16, 2017. The control group, who did not participate in the five senses activities in the forest, participated in the Nuri Curriculum operated by the educational institution. Before and after the program, tests to measure daily stress in three different situations (encountering blame-aggression situation, experiencing anxiety-frustration, and losing self-respect) were conducted on young children and the data were analyzed using SPSS 21.0. As a result, daily stress of the young children decreased in all three situations with statistical significance. Through the five senses activities in the forest, young children could feel the nature by observing and exploring it in the forest, so which reduced their daily stress compared to the activities carried out in the classroom.