LEARNING OUTDOORS: Keeping students and teachers safer, improving education, and bringing healing during the pandemic
Eighteen months ago, school districts were mostly at a loss when it came to dealing with a global pandemic. Today, educators and communities should have everything they need — if not in money, then certainly in good examples — to turn their schools into safer environments for students and teachers, and at the same time, improve educational outcomes. But once again, as the school year begins, too many schools are unprepared to handle COVID-19 and its variants. “This time, things were supposed to be different,” according to a new report by The Atlantic. “Instead, the 2021–22 school year is kicking off with more of the same: confusion and fear.”
In recent months, young children were assumed to be more resilient against the virus than adults. That may still be true. But on August 24, ABC News reported that fifteen percent of all new COVID cases in the U.S. are among children. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, pediatric COVID-related hospital admissions are at their highest level since the pandemic began.
COVID challenges are occurring in a wider context. Children and families are experiencing multiple and simultaneous traumas, from the climate crisis, to the accumulation of personal aggressions, to economic worries, housing insecurity, isolation, boredom, and fear — not only of the virus, but of each other.
Of all our institutions, schools are expected to balance society’s expectations and compensate for its failings. In the best of times, that is nearly impossible. Now educators grapple with the society’s Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, a recognized condition that results not from a single event or experience, but from repeated or multiple traumas over months or years, ones that are difficult or impossible to escape.
Think of children who have lost parents to COVID, and parents who have lost their children. Consider teachers who enter their classrooms every school day knowing the risk to themselves and their families; teachers quarantined every time one of their students tests positive for the virus. Think of the other essential workers, the frontline medical teams caring for COVID patients; the supermarket checkers, postal clerks, service industry and transit workers who sublimate their fear just to do their jobs. Put yourself in the shoes of parents who want to return to their jobs but can’t because of the childcare shortage or school-from-home requirements.
Our culture wars do not help. We have watched the dissipation of what we once considered shared truths, the devaluing of civility, and a rapid increase of physical attacks on people because of their race or politics — or even because they choose to protect themselves and others from the virus. Here’s one example. Last week, a good friend was at a supermarket when a group of men marched into the store, yelling at customers and store employees: Take off your masks, take off your masks, take off your masks. Now! The men were doing this in the name of liberty. Theirs. Not yours. Perhaps they missed the irony.
Beyond the breaking point
Some brave souls were born for an era like this. Others find themselves at or beyond the breaking point. In late summer, the pandemic seemed to be ending. Then Delta lifted its flicking head. That psychological reversal was, for many, a trauma too far. More than ever, the healing qualities of nature are needed at every level of society.
In 2020, against the odds, teachers, parents and students rose to the challenge. They adapted to distance learning and the paradox of Zoom — a gift of connection in a time of isolation, but one that also divides attention and drains warmth and touch. They struggled with shifting public health recommendations. They improvised complex schedules to reduce the number of students present in a classroom at any one time. Some schools staggered the positions of desks, a few created outdoor classrooms. Most of all, they grappled with ever changing rules in the absence of a workable plan for responding to a pandemic.
A patchwork plan did emerge, but it was, and remains, fluid. The CDC originally suggested a gap of six feet between desks, but recently changed that to three feet — except in common areas like lobbies or lunchrooms, or “in situations where there are a lot of people talking, cheering or singing.” Which to anyone who attended high school, would apply everywhere except inside the lockers. The American Academy of Pediatrics still recommends six feet between desks, and the CDC advises that “teachers and other adults should stay six feet from one another and from students.” State to state, there is no standard for classroom mask-wearing, even though most experts agree that masks work well.
Science is continually self-correcting. That’s the way the method works. But the corrections now occur at record pace. For example, many schools installed plexiglass shields to divide teachers’ desks from students. This week, Lydia Bourouiba, head of the Fluid Dynamics of Disease Transmission Laboratory at MIT, told ABC’s Good Morning America that the shields may do more harm than good. “We are keeping the particulates longer in that room because we are hindering the airflow mixing that we want to create,” she explained. Do keep doors and windows open for airflow, she says, but don’t sit a student “next to the inlet of fresh air… If that individual turned out to be infected, that could be a problem.”
The point here is that the array of recommendations are so complex, altered or inconsistent, that neither teachers, administrators or parents can keep them straight.
A fresh (air) solution
So, where’s the safest place for students to learn? Probably not in a school classroom. And not exclusively online, because of mental health and academic harm — especially to students who are disadvantaged. The best learning location may well be outside. In outdoor settings, air moves more freely, social distancing is more realistic, and relief from the traumas of COVID more likely.
We have all we need to shift learning, lunch, and other school activities to outdoor spaces for the 2021-22 school year, at least some of the time. The Children & Nature Network offers research, case studies, news articles, green schoolyard design and funding ideas and more on its website. The groundbreaking National COVID-19 Outdoor Learning Initiative is bringing together the best thinking and best approaches for outdoor learning.
The benefits will extend far beyond protection from COVID. Outdoor learning is better learning. A growing body of research points to improved critical thinking, problem solving, teamwork, leadership and personal resilience; as well as longer attention span, better motor skills, a stronger sense of independence, better impulse control and increased environmental literacy. Green schoolyards and outdoor learning also help reduce the effects of economic inequity and systemic racism. Not incidentally, the research suggests that teachers who take their classes outside suffer lower rates of burnout. What’s good for the student is good for the educator.
Of course, outdoor learning is not problem free. A teacher recently told me that his principal “is OK with me taking the kids outside, because in theory I could use my cell phone to access Zoom for the students at home.” But when cold and rainy weather sets in, how will students stay safely socially distanced? Some creative school districts bring in buses as temporary classrooms. Companies could donate the use of empty warehouses with good ventilation. Open-air tents with portable heaters could be set up in parking lots and playing fields. And cold weather hasn’t prevented outdoor learning in Finland, which ranks near or at the top of all nations in math and science scores.
What about space for outdoor learning? Some school districts insist they don’t have room on their campuses. But public schools are among the top three land holders in most communities, a resource largely underutilized. Then there’s the rest of the community. As I reported in “Vitamin N,” nearby nature can become the school of million acres. In 2010, two Oregon State University researchers, writing in American Scientist, brought this into focus.
In “The 95 Percent Solution,” John H. Falk and Lynn D. Dierking write, “The ‘school-first’ paradigm is so pervasive that few scientists, educators or policy-makers question it. This despite two important facts: Average Americans spend less than 5 percent of their life in classrooms, and an ever-growing body of evidence demonstrates that most science is learned outside of school.” Falk and Dierking contend that “a major educational advantage enjoyed by the U.S. relative to the rest of the world” is its out-of-school learning landscape, including museums, libraries, zoos, aquariums, national parks, 4-H clubs, scouting, and I would insert nature centers, state and local parks, and the nearby nature of our neighborhoods. They add, “The sheer quantity and importance of this science learning landscape lies in plain sight but mostly out of mind.” Rather than increasing time in the indoor classroom, “perhaps we should be investing in expanding quality, out-of-school experiences.”
Leaders of a better normal
Moving faster and further toward outdoor learning will require far more collaboration between school districts, teachers’ organizations, PTOs, individual parents and public officials. Not an easy thing to accomplish. Turf-consciousness is, after all, the normal state of affairs. But if and when COVID does retreat, none of us will be returning to the old normal. A new normal is ahead, filled with possibilities. Which suggests one more benefit of learning outdoors, referred to indirectly in the research, and not often mentioned.
Over the past fifteen years, I’ve spoken in nearly every state of the Union. I can’t tell you how many teachers have come up to me afterward and, using almost the same words, said that the troublemakers in their classrooms become the leaders when they head outside to learn. Not just better behaved. The leaders. In the coming years, we’ll need more than a few good leaders. Today, they may be hiding in plain sight at the back of the classroom. Some become truly visible only when their feet touch the grass and their eyes scan the clouds. So, in itself, the cultivation of a new generation of earth-connected leaders seems reason enough to create outdoor classrooms and green schoolyards on every school campus in the nation.
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Environmental Education of New Mexico outdoor learning resources
Green schoolyards and outdoor learning resources
Outdoor Learning in the City of Baltimore
Outdoor Learning at Austin TX Independent School District
The urgent case for green schoolyards during and after COVID-19, Sarah Milligan-Toffler and Richard Louv
Using ARPA funds for green schoolyards, National League of Cities
Design resources for green schoolyards, Green Schoolyards America
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WOMEN'S HISTORY MONTH
Women’s Herstory Month: Nature connectors and protectors who inspire the children and nature movement
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FEATURE
ELSO’s summer STEAM camp connects Black and Brown youth to nature through culture
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Nature helped Nicole Jackson see possibilities over trauma; today she helps others do the same
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Girls Who Click: Inspiring young female nature photographers
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WOMEN'S HISTORY MONTH
Steam Beans is demystifying nature — and science — for Black girls
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RICHARD LOUV
How to create a neighborhood butterfly zone — and a homegrown national park
😊 Loved your article! If OK, I will hyperlink when writing a blog about outdoor classrooms!
Raising Nature Smart Children: Outdoor Classroom Learning
“No child left inside” — Pacific Domes
Thanks, Marika. We’d be thrilled to have you share a link to Rich’s article. Our August Research Digest also helps make the case for outdoor learning, you can find it here: https://mailchi.mp/childrenandnature/rd-august-2021-schoolyards.
Great article by Louv. I am sharing with school system early learning administrators and with local school board. Hopefully we will make some progress in getting outdoor learning implemented on a significant scale. Thanks for all you do. Ed
Thanks, Ed. We’ll pass your comment along to Richard. Good luck with your efforts with your local school board. You can find more resources in our green schoolyards advocacy toolkit.
This is a brilliant article. My students always looked forward to any, and every outdoor learning experience particularly when it involved working in the garden or exploring the nature trails. I realize that there are many schools that do not have access to such places. Winter is also restrictive. But, just 20 minutes of quiet reading on the playground, simple mapping or science activities, notebook sharing, or manipulative math with our Kindergarten Buddies engaged and inspired all of the students in meaningful ways. This was particularly true during the 2020 – 2021 school year in upstate New York. Students had no complaints about having to wear masks six feet apart as long as they were outside. Thank you for this article.
Thank you, Jean. We agree. Special thanks to Richard Louv for sharing this insightful column — and to you for providing nature-based learning opportunities to your students.