{"id":91126,"date":"2024-02-26T17:04:06","date_gmt":"2024-02-26T22:04:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/?p=91126"},"modified":"2024-02-26T17:04:06","modified_gmt":"2024-02-26T22:04:06","slug":"horizon-scholarship-recipient-studies-how-children-interact-with-nature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/2024\/02\/horizon-scholarship-recipient-studies-how-children-interact-with-nature\/","title":{"rendered":"Horizon scholarship recipient studies how children interact with nature"},"content":{"rendered":"

NOTE: This is one in a series of articles on Brock\u2019s 2023-24 Horizon Graduate Student Scholarship recipients. Read other stories in the series on\u00a0<\/em>The Brock News<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Transdisciplinary scholar and Brock graduate student Melody Minhorst leaves no stone unturned when it comes to finding the next step on her research journey.<\/p>\n

The PhD student in the Department of Child and Youth Studies says she was \u201csuper-excited, relieved and thankful\u201d to receive one of this year\u2019s Horizon Graduate Student Scholarship, which is helping her pair a lifelong interest in how children learn in their environments with social justice theories, including queer theory and disability theory.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m interested in children and how the spaces they\u2019re in affect their experience of learning and exploring and growing,\u201d says Minhorst. \u201cI also have a strong interest in challenging ideas around identity and the inequalities that can get overemphasized for minorities, including children.\u201d<\/p>\n

Minhorst, who holds undergraduate degrees in Landscape Architecture and Psychology as well as a Master of Education, has no qualms about pursuing different avenues to find exactly what she\u2019s looking for, whether that\u2019s in the classroom or beyond.<\/p>\n

In her youth, Minhorst tried out the Girl Guides and the Air Cadets, but grew frustrated with the nature of the programming. When Scouts Canada announced that girls would be permitted to join the previously male-only organization in the 1990s, she not only jumped at the chance to join \u2014 and stuck with it through Ventures and Rovers \u2014 but also immediately began volunteering with the Cubs program and in other roles, eventually holding the volunteer position of Youth Commissioner.<\/p>\n

Minhorst says her interest in how children and youth learned in outdoor spaces, which blossomed with the Scouts, combined with her work at her family\u2019s garden business in Niagara-on-the-Lake, both played a role in her somewhat unpredictable academic journey.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn landscape architecture, we looked at what sort of spaces humans feel safe in; and in psychology, we focused on inner mind processes, how people make decisions and why particular things work for them,\u201d says Minhorst. \u201cTo me, those clearly interacted, but I was missing some of the human aspect in terms of how people experience their space, especially children outdoors, and that\u2019s how I ended up on the education side.\u201d<\/p>\n

Minhorst says she is now excited to work with her supervisor, Professor Rebecca Raby, with whom she shares a determination to let children and youth speak for themselves and have their voices and experiences heard.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt bothers me that children and youth are not listened to or taken as seriously as they are once they turn into adults. I want to be able to use my voice and my stubbornness and my research to enact change around that,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Starting out on this next chapter, she wants to encourage others to find whatever works and not feel bound to a linear or expected journey.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you have a weird path that doesn\u2019t seem to connect and people don\u2019t seem to get it, that\u2019s OK,\u201d Minhorst says. \u201cDon\u2019t try to structure yourself into what has already been done \u2014 just keep going and in the end, you\u2019ll meet so many cool people and learn so many interesting things.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Transdisciplinary scholar and Brock graduate student Melody Minhorst leaves no stone unturned when it comes to finding the next step on her research journey.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":91127,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[188,55,1,38],"tags":[8485,607,522,9928,13276,1532],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91126"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91126"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91126\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":91128,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91126\/revisions\/91128"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}