Nature and health - students' perspective on nature assisted interventions

Outdoor environments for health and well-being is the main topic for an international master’s programme offered at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Alnarp, leading to a master's degree with a major in Landscape Architecture (120 credits). The programme is offered at full time and part time study. Each course includes 2-4 meetings. The programme offers both theoretical foundation within environmental perception, place attachment and landscape architecture. There are courses covering topics on health promoting outdoor environments for different groups of users ranging from public places for children’s play and education for elderly in sheltered living. The courses also focus on specific target groups with specific needs such as rehabilitation or therapy. Two such courses are: 1) Nature-Based Interventions (NBI), with focus on the different types of outdoor environments where the na-tural space is the primary element of the intervention (focus on the landscape and places as health promoting resources) and the course 2) Nature-Assisted Interventions (NAI), with focus on nature and natural elements such as plants and animals as a medium in a health promoting intervention with focus on activi-ties (focus on the actvities that can be perfor-med either outdoors or indoors such as hospitals, elder care homes, schools, space shuttles/in space, etc.). This factsheet is based on students’ work within the course Nature-Assisted Interven-tions during spring 2018. The course is divided into four modules where the two first blocks provide overview and introduction into the field of research on plant-human interactions and animal-human interactions as well as introduction to practical examples in real world situations. The third module is performed as a case study, where the student visit and study practical examples of Nature-Assisted Interventions with focus on activities (independent of place - outdoors or indoors). The last module focuses on abstraction of knowledge from the cases. The students presented their cases for each other in smaller groups and afterwards, extracted what they understood as the “core essences” of NAI. From there, the students discussed and wrote abstracts on the topic illustrated in posters, presented in this factsheet.