Taking your students outdoors is about a lot more than nature observation. Holding lessons outdoors can grab the attention of students from preschool through high school with this multi-disciplinary approach. As long as the weather isn’t too cold, too wet, or too windy, you can consider taking your students onto the school grounds. In most cases, you may decide that going outside isn’t necessary; however, it can engage students in a more physical and intellectual way.
The Playground v the Classroom
The difference between holding a class outside and running an outdoor classroom is less subtle than you may think. You can take your students outside at anytime, for any activity that doesn’t involve too many books, papers, or other materials that may get lost or blown around.
In this case, students aren’t interacting with nature beyond getting some fresh air and sunshine. There is nothing wrong with just going outside; however, if students aren’t used to going outside for anything beyond gym and recess, they may go into ‘playground’ mindset.
The Outdoor Classroom isn’t about Nature Play
The first time you take your students outdoors they may seem more unruly than when they are in the classroom. The excitement of being outdoors may seem hard to contain and frustrate a teacher into deciding that an outdoor classroom in an unrealistic concept.
To encourage a series of successful outdoor classrooms, make the first trip outside about exploration. This thirty-to-forty five minute experience won’t be a waste of time. Send kids outside for a playground and schoolyard scavenger hunt that you create. Include things on the list that will entice children into learning in future expeditions. For example, ask the children to find and return with a maple leaf. Later in the school year if you talk about how colonial settlers or American Indians in the northeast survived, you can mention maple sugaring and have the children find a maple tree.
A directed activity will focus student’s energy and attention. They will learn in the future that when you take them outside that this isn’t a time to play but to follow a lesson plan that encompasses the outdoors.
Nature Lesson Plans
Connecting the plants and animals in your area to history, social studies, economics, etc gives students the sense that what they learn in history books isn’t just a bunch of dates. Kids can feel the trees and minerals that helped define the history of the place where they live.
For math, use rocks, sticks, or acorns to learn the base 10 system or to practice counting, subtraction, or multiplication. Learning to measure inclines or the heights of trees gives older students the opportunity of practice geometry.
Use nature as inspiration for poetry and storytelling. Drawing and painting in nature gives children an experience different from looking at a two-dimensional image from a book or magazine. Once you start thinking of ways you can connect nature and learning, you will realize how vital an outdoor classroom can be for you and your students.
If you aren’t sure about the benefits of taking your students outside or you need to justify to a principal your interest in featuring the outdoors as a part of your lesson plan, read Richard Louv’s Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2008).