Going Outside the Classroom...Literally!

I stumbled across this Facebook page recently of a teacher in Denver Colorado who kept posint the awesome pics of her students outdoors. She would have captions related to a new discovery her class had made in nature. As I looked deeper into her pictures and status updates, it is apparent that she is conducting a lot of her classroom instruction outdoors. Being a teacher myself, of course this sparked my interest. I am always looking for new, enlightening ideas!! As I was browsing her page even more, I ran across a link about Place Based Learning, that is a teaching strategy that incorporates nature and the environment into the curriculm. It's a really interesting teaching philosophy that has been around since the 90s.

There are a lot of benefits from this pedagogy. The students are absent less frequently, they have higher scores on their standarized tests, improved behavior in class, increased self-esteem, higher-level thinking skills! Pretty awesome, I must say :) .... OH! I almost forgot! It helps with ADD.

So the students like it..... and YES, you guessed it; the teachers do too :). They seem to be more excited and motivated to develop the curriculum, more likely to use local resources for teaching and learning, and are more engaged with their students. They even experience professional growth.

I want to present this topic in our next staff meeting.

What do you all think? Search the web. You tube has some awesome videos as well.

Until we meet again.... Happy Fall Ya'll! :)

~Kristyn Birdsong