Naturalistic Intelligence: Tips For Development & Activities

You probably know that an individual’s type of intelligence is the key factor that defines their intellectual potential. According to psychologist Howard Garder, the author of Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences, the conventional conception of intelligence is too narrow and restrictive to capture the full range of abilities and talents of individuals.

In The Theory of Multiple Intelligences, Howard Gardner claimed that all individuals are born with one type of intelligence or more. Intelligence types can be determined by taking the multiple intelligences test and developed by practicing.

In this blog, we’ve aimed to help you define naturalistic intelligence, one of the intelligence types that affect kids’ skills, abilities, and intellectual potential.

If you want to learn about the strengths and weaknesses of naturalistic intelligence and explore learning strategies for naturalistic intelligence, keep reading!

What Is Naturalistic Intelligence?

Let's start with the basics and define naturalistic multiple intelligence. The definition of naturalistic intelligence is the ability to identify, classify and manipulate elements of the environment, objects, animals, or plants.

As explained in the context of the theory of multiple intelligences, highly naturalistic intelligent kids might be more in tune with nature than their peers. These nature-smart kids are often interested in nurturing, exploring the environment, and learning about other species.

Characteristics of Naturalistic Intelligence

Every individual might have one type of intelligence or more that can affect their characteristics. Still, highly naturalistic intelligent kids typically have the following characteristics:

• Motivated to understand how things work
• Enjoy being in touch with nature and care about the environment
• Are better at identifying fauna and flora than their peers
• Find exploring and discovering new species entertaining

Examples of Naturalistic Intelligence

Highly naturalistic intelligent kids can easily categorize, classify, explain, and connect the things of everyday life with nature. These kids can use their observations and classification skills productively in their daily lives.

Tracing the signs of naturalistic intelligence examples might help you better understand your kid's intelligence. In general, naturalistic intelligence examples for these nature-smart kids include the following:

• These kids might be interested in using observation tools, such as microscopes, binoculars, and telescopes
• As they like to spend time in nature, outdoor activities like camping and hiking might be their favorite activities.
• They enjoy interacting with animals, play animal games for kids, and see all animals, not just cats, and dogs, as pets to be taken care of.
• They spend their television time watching shows related to nature, like the Discovery Channel and National Geographic.

How to Measure Naturalistic Intelligence?

It is clear that standard IQ tests are not enough to measure someone's intelligence. So if you want to measure your kid’s naturalistic intelligence precisely, you should take a naturalistic intelligence or aptitude test to discover their potential.

If you are looking for a fun way to test for naturalistic intelligence, you can utilize MentalUP’s gamified naturalistic tests to discover your kid’s naturalistic intelligence potential and improve them with fun and educational games.

How to Improve Naturalistic Intelligence?

Howard Gardner claims that intelligence should be improved with related activities instead of paper and pencil-based tasks. Activities for naturalistic intelligence can help you support your kid’s observation, exploration, and classification skills. By adding these activities to your kid’s daily routine, you can help them improve their overall naturalistic intelligence skills.

6 Activities That Develop Naturalistic Intelligence

Naturalistic intelligence helps individuals recognize the environment and understand how different species relate to each other. Thus, whether your kid is highly naturalistic intelligent or not, it is essential to support them with activities for naturalistic intelligence.

1. Playing Brain Training Games With MentalUP

Along with improving naturalistic intelligence, playing fun and educational games that brain training apps, such as MentalUP, offer benefits kids’ personal development in many ways.

Helping your kid improve their skills according to their intelligence type is essential to supporting their personal development.

With the right educational activities and games, you can foster your kid’s curiosity and enhance their intelligence skills to have a more successful academic life.

2. Going On Nature Walks

Exploring outdoors increases kids’ discovery, creativity, problem-solving, and STEM skills. Check our imagination games for kids article to discover the best outdoor games ever!

You can take your kids for a walk in the forest, on a mountain trail, or by a river to support their natural curiosity and encourage them to observe with all their senses.

Spending time in such places can teach your kids to pay attention to the things around them. Also, nature walks can be a great stress-relieving activity for both you and your kids.

3. Watching Nature-Related Documentaries

Nature documentaries are great sources to improve kids’ intelligence toward nature.

Watching nature-related documentaries can help your kids to understand the fascinating world of nature and natural events that they might not have known about unless seeing it.

As Kids enjoy watching TV shows in their free time, you can choose from fun and interesting documentaries to encourage them to learn about the natural world.

4. Making a Herbarium

A herbarium can be explained as a handmade book that preserves plants and information related to these plants.

Herbariums improve kids' identification and wildcrafting skills by teaching them about botany and what plants look like. Thus, making a herbarium is a great activity for teaching kids about plants and the world's flora.

5. Making a Bird Feeder

Making a bird feeder is one of the easiest ways to teach kids about caring for nature and how to feed and identify animals.

As stated above, spending time with plant-animal-based activities improves kids’ naturalistic skills. In addition to that, by teaching kids how to identify different birds, making a bird feeder also helps kids improve their classification skills.

Naturalistic Intelligence Careers

Individuals with naturalistic intelligence can easily recognize and categorize plants, animals, and other objects in nature. Thus, career possibilities for highly naturalistic intelligent kids include:

• Horticulturalist
• Landscape architect
• Farmer
• Animal trainer
• Scientist.
• Botanist
• Wildlife illustrator
• Entomologist
• Zoologist
• Oceanographer
• Geologist
• Astronomer

Famous People With Naturalistic Intelligence

Throughout history, people with highly naturalistic intelligence have contributed to the exploration of species, continents, and nature.

Thus, examples of famous people with naturalistic intelligence include naturalists, geologists, biologists, oceanographers, academics, science broadcasters, and environmental activists.

These people include:

• John Muir
• Rachel Carson
• Charles Darwin
• John James Audubon
• Jacques Cousteau
• David Suzuki
• Jane Goodall
• Steve Erwin
• Neil deGrasse Tyson

Frequently Asked Questions

So far, we’ve answered your questions about naturalistic intelligence and proven tips to help you develop your kid’s naturalistic skills. To be more precise, let's explore some of the most common questions about this topic.