The Covid-19 pandemic has provided ground for an old but renewed form of education. Outdoor learning is now slowly growing to be a much more viable and practical mode of teaching and education. Hence, increasing number or schools and universities are now opting for more of outdoor learning programs.
Outdoor learning has become popular now as schools and colleges are seeking safer ways to bring the students back to classrooms. And such type of learning programs has been widely linked to a variety of benefits for an overall mental, emotional and physical development of students. These benefits are well documented and extensively covered that provide evidence of positive health, academic performance and development of formative years.
Learning and teaching outdoors provides the added advantage of a natural and easily accessible solution to the soaring screen time everyone had to go through since the last year. Additionally, this form of learning also showed to improve physical, mental, and social health, emotional and behavioral development, along with reduced levels of stress, anxiety and ADHD, among others. It can also help to introduce a sense of environmental and civic consciousness as well as responsibility that could lead to healthy community building.
Outdoor education is basically an organized learning program that takes place in the open, outdoors. It can therefore be artistic, enjoyable, stimulating and adventurous that helps students and younger generations learn through experience. Their journey through this program can further help them grow into confident and accountable citizens who value and cherish the natural and cultural environment around them.
With all being said, it can be a challenge for schools and colleges to practically implement this program in an effective manner. Their concerns vary from safety, location and budgeting to scheduling the classes in an organized way. Therefore, here we bring you a few steps that can help you get started with organizing your own outdoor learning program.
Know Your Goal
Before you actually begin the process of planning and organizing the entire outdoor learning program, it is important to know your ‘why’ as in your goal. Having a basic idea and understanding of your motive and goal helps you and your organization put up a united effort with utmost clarity.
Why Outdoor learning? What are its benefits for your students? What can be the learning outcomes? What is the organization willing to invest for the program? What kind of learning do you want to focus on for the students? Is it more about outdoor expeditions or environmental education, or just about creating outdoor learning spaces?
As seen above, there are a number of questions you need to come across before setting out for the task of organizing such programs. And drafting the objectives to your context is necessary to plan everything accordingly. Addressing these goals in the first place can help to make an integrated attempt and thus make the process easier.
Do Your Background Research
Programs of such nature are to be implemented on a large scale basis. An outdoor learning program involves various stakeholders from teachers, faculty and staff, administration, students as well as parents or guardians. Therefore, it becomes highly necessary to research well and arrange the program in line with the standards or goals of the university or organization.
Subsequently, you also need to research about the ideal outdoor location and identify the one that meets all your requirements. Make sure that it’s in a quiet place, away from the chaos of the main streets and buildings, along with nearby bathroom facilities for convenience. Collect ideas for the location to accommodate students properly, for example, from universities with similar already existing programs. You are sure to find helpful and collaborative outdoor learning communities from whom you can learn about executing these programs.
Develop a Proposal
With the help of all the gathered research, the next important step is developing a proposal. Analyze all the ideas and information and the risks involved, if any. Then accordingly, prepare a detailed proposal explaining every step and idea with proper reason.
Make sure that they are carefully sequenced with clear steps mentioning every requirement with detailed motives. Also add whatever precautionary protocols that you might need to follow regarding the health and safety of the students as well as the faculty. Set up and elucidate thoughtful, direct responses that align with the needs and wants of your decision-makers.
Gather Stakeholders and Resources
As all the stakeholders available are needed to be equally involved in the outdoor learning program, their engagement is something that ought to be taken care of. You would require the support of the faculty, administration, parents and students for such a community based effort. It might be long, dreary and time consuming, but is necessary for a smooth functioning of the program.
Gather the most enthusiastic and passionate members of all the groups to form planning and execution committees. This can aid you in dividing the work among them efficiently thus strengthening your plan with additional support. It will further ease your process of gathering the essential material resources required to carry out the learning program.
Begin the Program
Once you are done with the planning and initial execution, slowly begin the program with a small group of students. Once you witness a positive development, eventually expand it to all the students. While on this journey, look out for new and innovative ways of student assessment and evaluation. There might be doubts and bumps along the way, but with the community support and proper planning, they could be easily overcome.
These were some of the most basic and simple steps that anyone who aims to begin an outdoor learning program can follow. Such an initiative is firstly quite refreshing and a welcome change from what the world has been witnessing since the last 2 years. These steps are practical and achievable with small beginnings. Education cannot stop because of any setbacks and such situations can be reversed only with these new kinds of pioneering ideas and approaches.
