Learning+Locally+-getting+outside

=Strategy: Learning Locally -Community as Classroom=

From our first meeting the following notes

// -created habitats // // -cleaner environment –stewards of our yard –this would transfer in their homes and lives // // -debrief the learning experience // // -inspiring a love of outdoors with purpose –rekindling, strengthening // // -connecting to others in the community outside of our school eg. high school geo class, community groups, community leaders, cons areas, naturalists groups // // -**partner with another teacher** –accountability -keeps the momentum going –a means of collaboration and something that is a part of this project srk//
 * Strategies -start with local learning –community as classroom**
 * The following critiera were suggested**
 * // -go outside once a week –okay we agreed to start with this one –very measurable //**

This is an initial list of criterai for Learning Locally. We can think of criteria heer as a a "look for". What does success look like? Partnering with another teacher and debriefing are good strategies for getting there but not a true look for. We have agreed that at this point we are using **// -go outside once a week. //** Last week was our intial week. How did you do? Please share your expereince with others in the discussion for this page.

A Rubric for Learning Locally

Okay we started with using get outside once a week as a criterion for this goal. I am posting a rubric here to help advance discussion for this learning strategy and goal. Have alook below and looking forward to your comments and suggested changes that make it more relevant to our work together. Stan

Students learn about their local natural and built environments through guided first-hand investigation. Direct, experience is essential for many aspects of learning and development. || -Study of the environment happens primarily through electronic media, lectures and text books || -Going outside the classroom to learn is a rare, “special” event. -Stand alone organized field trips not linked directly to classroom instruction. || -Local environments outside the classroom are often and regularly used for student research and data collection || Learning outside the school is a regular activity that is an integral part of instruction. || Leadership and initiative are supported through learning activity design. || Students are passive listeners and significant time is spent indoors when on fieldtrips way from the school. || Activity-based learning plays a significant part of the outdoor learning activities. || Inquiry and student interests a are apart of the learning experience. || There is significant student involvement in what takes place before, during and after the outdoor learning. || Areas of the school grounds are built and/or maintained to be used specifically as a location for regular, on-going learning. The scale of school grounds projects matches the developmental abilities of younger and middle-aged students, preparing the way for older students to do similar work out in the local neighbourhood and beyond. || School grounds are dominated by pavement and fences and are used primarily for activities not directly connected to learning ♦ Informal opportunities may exist for field observation of natural areas or features. || One outdoor area is fairly well know within the school as an observation or study area. ♦ Students are involved at some level in taking care of outdoor and/or indoor plants. ♦ Learning on school grounds is occasionally supported by curriculum expectations and tools such as weather stations, bird feeders, gardens, water features, etc || Gardening activities (vegetable, flower, butterfly, greenhouse, etc.) are prominent and extensively integrated into many disciplines and grade levels ♦ Strategic effort (with some student involvement) is being made to expand the quality, quantity and frequency of learning on the school grounds || Conscious, consistent effort is made to develop school grounds to take maximum advantage of opportunities given existing constraints (e.g. roof top gardens for urban, nature trails for rural) ♦ Students take a leading role in the design and maintenance of school grounds as a vital place for learning about the natural world and other subjects. || Areas of the school grounds and/or nearby community are managed to enhance ecological integrity. This gives students first hand experience repairing compromised ecosystems || The built environment is the primary landscape feature. ♦ Existing vegetation is sparse and/or limited to ornamental (such as grass or non-native shrubs) ♦ The school landscape is inhospitable to other living things. || Some effort is made to reduce asphalt/ concrete, and increase green space ♦ Some school ground and/or local habitats are inventoried and monitored for species composition ♦ Students begin researching ecological history of place. || Small scale habitat projects are underway that emphasize native and migratory species and ecosystems ♦ Significant effort is made to plan for larger habitat improvement projects. ♦ Students research and document habitat restoration scenarios for nearby areas. || Schools work with local community to tie school grounds efforts to other land and habitat conservation projects ♦ Students take leadership advocating for and implementing significant school grounds and/or local habitat restoration projects ♦ School grounds are a thriving habitat for lots of native, nonhuman life || Being and playing outside (alone and in groups) is consciously supported as an essential component of healthy human development This encourages exploration and general comfort in the outdoors. || Safety of and respect for school grounds is an ongoing concern ♦ Structure, containment and reducing maintenance costs are the main concerns. || Some natural areas and equipment exist Specifically for outdoor play. || Schools grounds provide inviting places for students to have safe, vigorous and non-structured interaction with the natural environment with minimal adult supervision. || School grounds are the hub for a vibrant (both active and reflective) community life for students and a wide diversity of local people ||
 * An Educator’s Rubric for Local Learning Experiences**[1]****
 * || Level 1 || Level 2 || Level 3 || Level 4 ||
 * **Field Studies**
 * **Role of Students**
 * **Outdoor Learning Labs /Structures**
 * **Habitat Improvement/**
 * Restoration**
 * **Play and Recreation**

=** Outdoor Math **=

Teaching grade 2's to differentiate between cm, m and km - it makes sense to take them to the great outdoors to measure big things. Equipped with our clipboards, metre sticks, pencils and snow for good measure, we walked around the outside of the school to find things that were between one metre and 10 metres. Some complaining about cold hands and partners who weren't on task but otherwise successful. Deepti

=‍Snowball math! (Measurement)=

0 row selected - rows selected - [|clear] || My grade five students regularly meet with their grade one/two math buddies. The primary students are currently working on measurement and so we decided to take the learning outdoors. We let them make snowballs (on school property!) and see how far they could throw them. They then had to find some way to measure the distance the snowball traveled without using standard measurement tools (e.g. rulers, yard sticks, etc.). The students learned about approaches to non-standard measurement as well as the need to use a consistent method for measuring when you are comparing distance. Specifically, the primary students discovered that their snowball appears to have gone much further when they use their footsteps to measure distance and much less far when their 10 year-old buddies used their footsteps. This helped lay the foundation for understanding why we often use standard measurements in math. My grade five students learned responsibility in the face of temptation (snowballs) and that powder snow is a terrible material for building snowballs! I think we might graph the distances we threw snowballs today and compare it with the distance we can throw snowballs when we have packing snow. This will help us meet our data management curriculum goals. || ata management outside
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 * jbaileyILPS ||  || [|jbaileyILPS] ‍ Jan 20, 2012 10:34 pm

0 row selected - rows selected - [|clear] || We brainstormed possible sources of data that we could collect on our daily walks through the woods. The class came up with some great ideas (tree diversity, wind, CO2 absorbed by the trees, animal observing/counting etc. Another was measuring the rate of water flow in the river and comparing it to temperature. Any suggestions for calculating the flow rate? Thanks || || [|[delete]]  [|jbaileyILPS] ‍ Jan 20, 2012 10:13 pm Sounds like a potentially rich learning experience! I can't help you with calculating flow rate, sorry. I am curious if you had time to follow up on any of these ideas for collecting and managing data? If so, how did you go about it? Did you use a knowledge-building circle and let the students choose the topic/question that most interested them? Or, did you start with a class-wide focus in order to walk them through the fieldwork experience? Sounds like a great opportunity || =‍Active, outdoor, math lesson=
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 * bembrey ||  || [|bembrey] ‍ Jan 15, 2012 8:14 pm
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 * jbaileyILPS ||  || **re: data management outside**
 * jbaileyILPS ||  || **re: data management outside**

As part of my data management focus before the break, I had my students play a game of "Oh deer!" during DPA. We played outdoors and they learned a bit about deer population flux in relation to the resources (in this game: water, food, shelter) available to the animals. We used wipe-off clip boards to record our number of deer each round and then used this data to create a broken-line graph once we returned indoors. The experience led to a discussion about conservation, human impact on animal populations, as well as appropriate ways to graph particular data (e.g. broken line graph to record change over time). ||
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 * jbaileyILPS ||  || [|jbaileyILPS] ‍ Jan 20, 2012 10:12 pm

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