Wide Open Spaces: Outdoor Classrooms in Secondary Schools

Purpose & objective

Many youth today do not spend enough time outside, including during the school day. Most youth choose to stay inside, disconnecting from the natural world. In the last two years, particularly at the height of the pandemic, outdoor education, including outdoor classrooms, have become more essential than ever. Outdoor education helps teachers provide more outdoor time to students and more connection to the outdoor world. Furthermore, during the pandemic some schools relied on outdoor education and classrooms to give students ample opportunities to escape small classrooms, spread out, and move freely.

 In Spring 2021, our junior high school in Northern Utah funded an outdoor classroom for STEM and Maker education through a series of grants. Throughout 2021 our teaching staff and a group of volunteers built and maintained our outdoor classroom while also expanding our capacity for all students and curriculum areas. Our presentation will give all levels of educators (teachers, administrators, area leadership) a route to plan, fund, build, maintain, and innovate within an outdoor classroom. Although our experience is mostly in secondary and post-secondary education, the lessons in our presentation would be adapted to any level of education and any size of school. We will spotlight curriculum advantages and lesson plans that we have adapted or built specifically for our outdoor classroom. Many educators and leaders have a difficult time developing and implementing a maintenance plan for an outdoor classroom; there we will spend significant time focusing not only on how to maintain the physical space but also how to bring all teachers and students to an outdoor classroom and maintain a community of outdoor learners during all seasons.

Outline

Outline:

- 5 minutes

Introduction, share materials, and quick outdoor learning survey through Nearpod

- 10 minutes

Introduction to outdoor learning and its place in a 21st Century school
Introduction to our outdoor classroom, overview of the space and how we built it, and basic lessons learned

- 10 minutes

Discussion of planning our space
Discussion of how to find and receive funding to build your outdoor space
Discussion of preliminary activities during the building stages

- 15 minutes

Walk through of major curricular plans including sharing of lesson plans
How we built and maintained a community around our outdoor classroom

- 5 minutes

Share resources
Q&A

Supporting research

Works Cited

Chawla 2015 Benefits of Nature Contact.pdf. Accessed 1 Oct. 2021.

Crawford, Emily. “A Fun Way to Engage Students’ Minds and Bodies With Books.” Edutopia, George Lucas Educational Foundation, 27 Sept. 2021, www.edutopia.org/article/fun-way-engage-students-minds-and-bodies-books. Accessed 30 Sept. 2021.

Louv, Richard. Last Child in the Woods. Algonquin Books, 2008.

Nature as Children s Space A Systematic Review.pdf. Accessed 1 Oct. 2021.

Rich, Steve A. Outdoor Science. NSTA Press, 2010.

Rounds, Erin. “Getting Started With an Outdoor Classroom.” Edutopia, George Lucas Educational Foundation, 28 Oct. 2020, www.edutopia.org/article/getting-started-outdoor-classroom. Accessed 30 Sept. 2021.

Sampson, Scott D. How to Raise a Wild Child. Mariner Books, 2016.

Shea, Alissa Alteri. “Learning Blooms in Outdoor Classrooms.” Edutopia, George Lucas Educational Foundation, 20 May 2021, www.edutopia.org/article/learning-blooms-outdoor-classrooms. Accessed 30 Sept. 2021.

Viewcontent.cgi. https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=9094&context=etd. Accessed 30 Sept. 2021.

With Safety in Mind, Schools Take Classes Outdoors | Edutopia. https://www.edutopia.org/article/safety-mind-schools-take-classes-outdoors. Accessed 30 Sept. 2021.

Yates, Amanda. “Moving Your Classroom Outside During the Pandemic.” Edutopia, George Lucas Educational Foundation, 11 Dec. 2020, www.edutopia.org/article/moving-your-classroom-outside-during-pandemic. Accessed 30 Sept. 2021.