Outdoor Education is a huge passion of mine because I see how important it is when I reflect on my own learning experiences. As humans, we depend on one-another and the environment, everything is interconnected and in order to flourish we need to acknowledge and sustain this practice of community. Outdoor Education builds the connection between students and the environment, it helps them learn about their impact on Earth and the respective feelings that come along with destroying or nurturing. It’s a win-win if we look at it like this, because while teaching students about interconnectedness, it also teaches them how to conduct themselves in the ‘real-world’. This is exemplified in many ways, one being the treatment of plants and forest dwelling creatures. Students learn how fragile the leaves are, how tearing a branch can cause an entire tree to collapse. All of this is explained in further detail through my resources. Check out, “Gill, T. (2014). The Benefits of Children’s Engagement with Nature: A Systematic Literature Review. Children, Youth and Environments, 24 (2)” for a more detailed discussion on this.

Hartley Banack, a professor at UBC is by far the best resource that I have used. He changed my thinking to make the question more practical. I had a passion of Outdoor Education before and I wanted to share my passion for it before, but it was my discussion with Hartley that allowed me to see the direction I need to take in order to put the sharing in effect. I want teachers to see the benefits of Outdoor Education for what it is, and I want them to have simple, practical ways to make it happen. This is what I want to bring out of my Inquiry; a practical resource for teachers to pick-up and be able to see why it is needed and how they can use it.

In summary, my passion for Outdoor Education is sourced from its behavioral benefits. In order to share my passion with as many people as I can, I need to reach other teachers. If I can hook them with the benefits and show them how simple it is to do then I feel I’ve done enough to make a movement.

Thanks,

Chris

Inquiry Pamphlet

Having finished my presentation on my Inquiry project the other week, I consider myself to be ‘going further’, according to Kath Murdochs inquiry cycle. I feel this way because I’ve ‘sorted out’ information during my interviews, and speaking to experts in the field of Outdoor Education has taught me about some important considerations regarding my topic. I’ve learned what I’m interested in moving forward with. Although I consider myself to be ‘going further’, I am also in stage one, ‘finding out’ more resources that align with my direction. I have a lot of resources that provide lesson plans outdoors, but not much on outdoor classroom management. Moving forward, I think this back and forth between Stage 1 (finding out) and Stage 3 (going further) will lead me into brief periods of stage 2 (sorting out), as I determine whether my new sources are credible and related  to my new question. That’s not to say I’m out of Stage 2 right now, because I believe they all weave together and are really interconnected. For example, my thinking is always changing as I read through new websites, like ‘wildaboutvancouver’, and I’m constantly challenged to determine what is actually useful and practical to provide teachers. I anticipate that I will be moving interchangeably between all of these stages as I progress into the next inquiry stage.

Thanks,

Chris

My partner and I just met with a UBC PhD student who is researching ways to make Math experiential, and avoid doing worksheets. He provided us with a number of example-lessons we can use to bring our students outdoors, and I’ll definitely be using them during practicum. I feel however, that I’ve changed direction once more, and my practical lesson plans will only be a portion of my final Inquiry product.

Part of my question asks, “how can we introduce Outdoor Education into the B.C. curriculum for grades 4-7”, and originally that meant practical lesson plans teachers could use. What I’d like to do instead is provide teachers with step-by-step instructions that will move them towards implementing those lessons more easily and effectively. For example, step one may include Google searching the nearest community park and doing a risk assessment on the route getting there.

I hope I can spark interest during our panel discussions next week!

Chris

My partner and I were given class time this week to work on our Inquiry projects in a setting of our choice. I think we both agreed that meeting with a professor that advocates for Outdoor Education here at UBC was the best way to spend our work period. We didn’t waste any time emailing him and he agreed to meet with us for 30 minutes. After our discussion I feel like I have a wealth of knowledge and a stronger passion for my project. It was so great to speak with someone who lives and breathes a subject that I value so much. I felt myself scrambling to write down thoughts as he spoke, and I jotted down a number of take-aways and leads for further research.

This professor works with an organization named ‘Wild About Vancouver’, and they help provide schools with practical resources to get their students outside – which is exactly what I’m inquiring about! So I plan to look a little more into this website and read some of the case-study schools they have worked on. I think this will be a good place to start for building my resource, and maybe it’s possible to broaden the scope of their studies in order to encompass all schools in B.C. rather than specific ones. I’ll keep you updated!

Chris

The word I took away from this week was “practical”. My partner and I decided that both of our questions need to be practical and easy for others to understand. I’m going to layout my inquiry in the form of a mind-map and branch all of the BC curriculum subjects from the main hub, ‘Outdoor Education’. From there, I want to provide tangible resources that other teachers can use to apply in their lessons during each subject. In addition to the curriculum subjects branching out from ‘Outdoor Education’, I’d like to have a bubble for classroom management techniques. I’ve found that a lot of my resources bring forward the notion of fear from many teachers towards Outdoor Education because of difficulty with managing their students. Hopefully I can remove this stigma and create more lessons inclusive to the outdoors.

I just finished writing up a lesson on heart rate for my students, which is geared towards Science, P.E., and Math. If all goes well then I’ll add it into my bucket of resources that will eventually end up on my mind map.

My partner and I are meeting with a renowned UBC professor next week to hopefully gather some insight into more resources. He runs some amazing programs at UBC, and I’m sure he’ll provide us with an abundance of material.

Chris

This weeks Inquiry class allowed me to get my head back into my inquiry project. I ended off on Christmas break with a vague idea of how to approach my topic, and meeting in groups with partners really tightened the gap to send me in the proper direction. We have like-minded questions, which made it easier to put ourselves in one-another’s shoes  and see what steps are best to take next, or what could be refined in our questions to make them manageable.

My original inquiry, ‘How does outdoor education benefit students learning and behaviors’, is pretty clear to me and I have gathered an abundance of resources on the benefits of outdoor education. I’m now going to expand on my question to include, ‘Is it possible to include outdoor education into the new BC curriculum for grades 4-7, and to what extent’. I’m hopeful that my findings will provide some useful tips and resources for myself and fellow teachers.

This week, during math I asked my students (who are data collecting and graphing at the moment), how they would like me to plan their lessons. I gave them a scale of 1-5, 1 being completely inside and 5 being completely outside. We collected the numbers and graphed them to find a strong interest for the outdoors. I hope my inquiry can provide the students with lessons they’ll look forward to!

Chris