Sylvia Nichols, is a treasure of UUCSC. As the Leader of the World Room she’s carefully created a space that is exactly the right mixture of age appropriate nurturing and independence. Her goal is to help the children develop awareness of the interdependence of all living things.

 

The World Room’s year long curriculum involves the Unitarian Universalist principle of respect for the interdependent web of life. Learning to understand this principle is a deeply religious undertaking. Our emphasis on values differentiates this curriculum from the ecological content that children often receive at school.

 

Children need firsthand experiences to help them understand the meaning about the interdependence of living things. Throughout the year they will hear ways that specific living things relate to the rest of life. What the earthworm eats, what eats it, how it contributes to the soil, how that helps plants and helps us, who grow food in the soil...

 

We figure that the child’s attitudes towards nature are not unrelated to their feelings about themselves. After all we are part of nature! We share, in our own bodies the rhythms that permeate the natural universe. We too pass through natures cycles. And although a 5-8 year old might not be able to grasp the full concept implied in the “interdependent web of all existence,” it is not too early to begin giving them the building blocks out of which such eventual understanding will emerge.