Take Learning Outdoors

Take Learning Outdoors

I have always been an avid outdoors-woman. I was raised with parents that valued and encouraged outdoor play and experiences. An appreciation for the outdoors was so instilled in me as a child that I went on to get my degree in wildlife ecology and spent the first part of my career working with endangered species. Then I became a bio teacher, and now I am a stay-at-home-mom raising two young children to love and appreciate nature as well. 

I have been feeling on edge and foggy brained lately, and when I feel that way I know it's from one of three things: 1) stress, 2) not enough physical activity, or 3) not enough time spent outside. In this particular case, it was all three. So! My family and I hopped in the car and headed south to Whitewater State Park.  It was just what I needed and just what my children needed.

Study after study has shown the benefits of spending time outdoors, especially for young people. Harvard Medical School published a report in 2010 stating that spending time outdoors may be the prescription for better health. Stanford reported in 2015 that taking regular nature walks may lower risk of depression. Amazon is loaded with books dedicated to the simple idea that the human brain is wired to be outside: "Go Outside and Come Back Better" by Ron Lizzi, "The Nature Fix" by Florence Williams, "Balanced and Barefoot" by Angela J. Hanscom, "Vitamin N" by Richard Louv, and "Last Child in the Woods", also by Richard Louv. The list goes on and on.  National Geographic published an awesome article titled "We are Wired to be Outside".  I just started reading "Place-Based Education" by David Sobel who also wrote "Beyond Ecophobia". I'll let you know how I like it!

It's odd that we live in a time that books need to be written about the benefits of being outdoors. Why do we need convincing? At any given moment we find ourselves with screens at our fingertips. Many students in the US study nature using online simulations and textbooks rather than experiencing it first hand. I am not saying that screens should be completely thrown out of the picture. As I sit here writing this blog, I clearly have some appreciation for technology. But screens should not replace outdoor time, physical activity, or opportunities to create, imagine and explore, in the home or at school.

As I flip through photos of my recent adventure in Whitewater State Park, I appreciate the number of learning experiences packed into two days. My children put their hands in the dirt, bonded with their father whom they get little time with, inhaled fresh air, gazed at the stars free from city lights. My 5 year old walked close to four miles and my darling 2 year old climbed on everything. They learned how to build a fire! They found and made their own walking sticks. They practiced reading a map. They observed and inquired about the natural world. In just two days my children were able to do all of this with no plan, textbooks, lesson plans, PowerPoint lectures, note-taking, or testing. Just them. Just us. Just the great outdoors. 

When I was still teaching at a public school, much of my curriculum focused around being outside of the building. As a small, project-based school, we were fortunate to have the encouragement and resources to take learning beyond the walls of the classroom - out to the parking lot, to the local river basin, and even trips abroad through our school travel program (check out some of my past posts on student travel). 

Homeschoolers, experiential educators, and stay-at-home-parents like myself have the flexibility to embrace nature-based learning. If you are home with your kids, get them outside if you don't already! If you are a public school teacher that has the flexibility and support from the district to take learning outside, I sure hope you're doing so. If you are an educator that is confined to the classroom, check out some outdoor learning activity ideas below that could be done right on school grounds.

The photos in the slideshow below are of my students enjoying various outdoor learning experiences. Many of these photos are from trips taken through our travel program.

Books that Inspire
Want to get your children and/or students outside? Inspire the urge to explore, or simply the desire to chill in some fresh air for a few minutes, with books. Check out this list of great reads that inspire a love of (or at least a respect for) the outdoors. The lists vary by age and purpose. 

• 25 Books for Your Backpack: Nature and Field Guides for Kids - my son has the "Boys Book of Adventure" mentioned on this list and loves it. It's bound like a journal, with outdoor activity ideas and empty pages for taking field notes.  
• Top 50 Children's Books about Nature - the Gruffalo is a favorite in our house, among many many others. Consider reading some of these books with learners OUTSIDE. 
• Best Books about the Great Outdoors - teenagers are a hard sell. I worked with them for nine years, urban teens at that. Getting them outside of the city made some of them very uncomfortable for a variety of reasons. Introducing books that break down some misconceptions about nature is a good place to start. These books also light a fire in those that are already explorers at heart. 

Some of my own children's favorite books

How to Work Outdoor Learning Activities Into Your Curriculum

Take every opportunity to get your students outside. If you have a lesson that could just be moved out onto the grass, do it. Best case scenario is that your lesson incorporates natural surroundings. This is easy for project-based learners and life science teachers. For math teachers, maybe not quite as easy. Or is it?  Check out some of these fun integrated outdoor learning activities. 

Take Reading Outside:  

• 10 Outdoor Literacy Activities - these 10 ideas came from the book "15 Minutes Outside" by Rebecca P. Cohen. These activities are geared toward younger children. 

Take Writing Outside:

What's great about writing is that you could do it just about anywhere as long as you have a pen and some paper. With phones, Chromebooks, Kindles, and iPads on the rise, we can even bring along our mobile devices.  Taking your writers outdoors is a great way to inspire writing topics, remove disturbances and distractions, and give them the space and peace that they need to focus. 

• Examples of Outdoor Activities to get your Students Writing  - applicable to all ages.
• 9 Ways to Take English Class Outside - Ok, I'm noticing a pattern. I like "lists". I'm obsessed with Pinterest, so there you go. This resource is intended for secondary language arts students. 

Take Social Studies Outside: 

• This resources provided by ERIC will bring you to a PDF loaded with social studies lesson plans (grades 3-10) that get kids out of the building. It's pretty creative and makes me want to teach social studies. When you get to the website, look for the "Download Full Text" link in the top, right hand corner. Click on that to get to the PDF.  ​​​​
• Check out these additional outdoor activities from National Geographic's Education Blog - "10 Ways to Take Your Classroom Outside"

Take Math Outside:

There are a lot of resources out there for implementing math activities outdoors. Most of them are for elementary aged students, a few for more advanced math concepts. 
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• Exploring Math in Nature - lot's of ideas for practicing measuring skills.
• Math in the Garden - a book with hands-on math activities to do in the garden. I like this resource because it is multi-disciplinary and get's kids' hands dirty! Downside is that it's not a free resource. 
• Fascinating Facts of Mathematics - this resource doesn't give details on implementing math activities outdoors, but rather explains real life applications, in this case, of trigonometry. A lot of trig concepts can be studied outdoors, like finding the height of a mountain for example. 
• Outdoor Math Activities for Kids - this one is geared toward pre-k and kindergarten children. Great for stay-at-home-parents. Don't forget about free-play though!

Take Science Outside:

Science outdoors is a no-brainer, especially bio. Simply bring students outdoors, let them observe their surroundings, ask questions, and design experiments. If you're looking for some other creative science activities to do outside, check these out:

• Citizen Science - love citizen science. I wrote a blog post on this last spring. Check out that post for citizen science project ideas. 
• Free Upper Level Ecology Scavenger Hunt and Mini-Project - this gets students outside observing nature while practicing ecology terminology. The kicker is that the final product is a photo gallery, which requires that students not only go into the outdoors, but really awaken their senses in the process. 
• Free Upper Level PBL Project on Endangered Species - I created this project and used it with my students when I was teaching.   
• Outdoor Physics Experiments - some of these look so fun, I want to do them myself. 
• 31 Days of Outdoor Stem - I LOVE THIS WEBSITE! I love STEM, and I love Little Bins for Little Hands. It is a free STEM resource. I have used several of their STEM activity ideas with my own young children and they LOVED it. 
• Teaching Secondary Science Outside the Classroom - fun ideas for the outdoors, and includes a variety of science concepts. 

You might be thinking, "How do I get my students outdoors in the winter?" I know this conundrum better than anyone. I live in Minnesota where it seems to be below zero four months of the year and we get blizzards in April. Here's what I'll say; even bringing students outside for 10 minutes per day is better than nothing. You might also consider again starting a student travel program at your school. Finally, if at all possible, incorporate the weather into your lessons. Test snow or rain for acid using a pH kit. Calculate relative density of snow, ice and water. Paint in the rain. Write in the outdoors on a snowy day! Even tough weather days inspire curiosity and creativity. 

With that said, we are down to very few nice days! Get outside now, enjoy the fall colors, get your students inspired BEFORE the weather takes a dramatic turn. Good luck!

Check out Experiential Learning Depot on TpT for student-directed learning resources that take learning outdoors:

• Maker PBL Challenge: Build a Wildlife Habitat
• Solar Energy Budget Bundle
• Student-Directed Water Pollution Bundle
• Project-Based Learning: Learn a New Skill
• Free Ecology Vocab Scavenger Hunt 

I also have a handful of free resources on student travel. 

How do you take learning outside? I would love to add ideas to this post! Have a great fall everyone. Happy outdoor learning! 

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