WordNet
n. the study of animals and plants in the natural world (usually at an elementary level)
Wikipedia
The nature study movement (alternatively, Nature Study or nature-study) was a popular education movement in America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Nature study attempted to reconcile scientific investigation with spiritual, personal experiences gained from interaction with the natural world. Led by progressive educators and naturalists such as Anna Botsford Comstock, Liberty Hyde Bailey, Louis Agassiz and Wilbur S. Jackman, nature study changed the way science was taught in schools by emphasizing learning from tangible objects, something that was embodied by the movement's mantra "study nature, not books."
The movement popularized scientific study outside of the classroom as well, and has proven highly influential for figures involved in the modern environmental movement, such as Aldo Leopold and Rachel Carson.
Usage examples of "nature study".
What it offered was a wide range of possibilities for nature study and botanizing, and she took to these with enthusiasm.
There are also nature study groups and agricultural studies, however we consider this among the most dangerous because they are young and in a formative stage.
With this special dance in mind, Millicent Maude McGuckin's mother had made her a new gown of electric blue satin, wonderfully gathered so that it shimmered and crinkled as she moved, making her, as the instructor in Nature Study remarked admiringly, look just like an electric eel.
He's real keen on nature study, and damn if the Cloyds ain't nature study.
I saw this dead sparrow lying nearby and I kept thinking about what I learned in nature study when I was a kidhow some birds go south to the sun.