What is outdoor learning?
What if the classroom existed in the open air, where clouds meet the ground on which we stand? Where instead of reading about biology, students could watch it happen in real time: hands clutching grass and minds opening to the rhythm of the natural world?Outdoor learning brings the classroom outside. It involves students learning in relation to their distinct natural surroundings. Education in these spaces takes many forms, such as writing lessons on the playground, managing a school garden, or collecting observations at a local nature area for a STEM lesson.
This education style allows students to learn through movement, sensory observations, and with an investigative approach. It encourages curiosity and confidence in the outdoors, making it accessible to a variety of student learning strategies.
Inhaling the earth through sight, touch, and smell, outdoor learning helps students learn with their whole body. Their senses, movements, and curiosity create an investigative approach, driving confidence outdoors. In this embodied approach, nature offers lessons to a variety of student learning preferences, too.
Within the Stevens Point Area Public School District, Boston School Forest Program Leader Karla Lockman emphasizes that the emotional aspects of learning outside are just as important as the curricular aspects. When students spend time outside, it has two unique effects on their minds.
“Our brain rests from the overstimulation of flip, flip, flipping through videos, and yet it comes alive when it processes the multi-sensory input from the natural surroundings. Our thinking becomes clearer, our hearts become more joyful, and our emotional state comes back to being centered and managed,” Lockman says.
Indeed, outdoor learning has been found to increase emotional wellbeing, focus stamina, positive social skills, and physical activity for students.
“People who spend time being active outside have been shown to have less stress, less anxiety, and more creativity, and those attributes only strengthen our communities,” Lockman says.
Is outdoor learning an option for my school?
Nature reminds us to be adaptable, and outdoor learning is no exception. It offers options for both urban and rural schools. Some build outdoor gardens, guide classrooms on nearby walking paths, and even direct field trips to local parks and nature areas. The programs emphasize natural places on school grounds or close by areas, which keep costs low and accessibility high.Nature is all around us, and with sustainability at the core of many of these initiatives, they rely heavily on what resources schools already have.
For example, some schools have repurposed streets or parking spaces for placing planters with native plants or bike racks. At one school in New York City, they used the street to teach kids how to ride bikes, which otherwise would have been challenging for kids to learn independently in the busy city streets.
At Boston School Forest, outdoor lesson themes relate to students’ age and interests. Elementary students enjoy hands-on lessons about life cycles and food webs, while high school students conduct citizen science projects peppered with career skills, Lockman says. Some outdoor lessons teach fun too, such as rope courses, archery, and skiing.
Preparing to learn outside
With nature’s bounty waiting just beyond school doors, it’s challenging to know where to start. One popular curriculum of outdoor learning goes like this:- Identify an accessible outdoor learning site
- Determine how features of the site relate to classrooms topics in STEM, but also arts or history
- Provide students with a bit of structure for learning at the site by following a pre-visit, site-visit, and post-visit framework
Balancing structured curriculum with exploration is the key to engaging students' curiosity, confidence, and learning. When adopting these outdoor initiatives, it's important to keep comfort in mind. Educators should factor in adequate clothing, seating, and weather protection for students. Some schools partner with local families and charities to receive clothing items so that all kids, regardless of their background, can comfortably participate in outdoor learning. It’s also important to integrate rest periods and bathrooms breaks when kids are off campus.
Sometimes the transition from classroom to outdoor learning is confusing for students. Lockman recommends making outdoor learning part of their school routine. “The first week of school, take your class outdoors for a read-aloud. The second week, take them outside for a read-aloud and a read-to-self. The third week, take them outside for the reading sessions and also a writing prompt or an art project. Then, when you are ready to do your outdoor science investigation lesson, your students have a context for learning outdoors, which is different than recess,” she says.
Future implications of outdoor learning
Outdoor learning brings student consciousness to parts of the land that stir quietly around us. Curriculum helps students see the world through observations, and the living creatures they observe help students remember their relationship to the land around them. They develop an interest, a love, and a stake in the proceedings of nature, and leave with a sense of responsibility to the land. Indeed, a recent Stanford review of outdoor learning case studies found that 83% of kids who participated in outdoor learning showed increased environmental behaviors.In a time of environmental crisis, bringing student awareness to their relationship with nature is important. Textbooks and worksheets can get them partway there, but nothing compares to seeing, living, and breathing nature’s lessons first-hand.
Outdoor learning can take students another step forward by preparing them for careers in science and the outdoors. Rural partnerships across districts in Colorado recently implemented outdoor STEM projects which connect high schoolers with local private and state environmental organizations. Working with community partners in K-12 learning connects students directly to future careers in trades, environmental monitoring, and agriculture, right in their region. Across the community, these outdoor learning partnerships support sharing resources, funding, and ultimately better social wellbeing for students and community members.
Like the environment in which these programs take place, outdoor learning is an ecosystem with multitudes of functions. Whether it's supporting student learning, community connections, or environmental wellbeing, outdoor learning can have a meaningful place in every school.
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Chloe Hansen Edtech Thought Leader |
