Outdoors at School, Safer at School II

"Outdoor learning could offer a template for socially distanced schooling, according to practitioners who believe the coronavirus pandemic could push parents and teachers to embrace the benefits of education in the outdoors."

So says a May 10, 2020, article in the Guardian. Do you think outdoor educating could be a solution for your school so that in-school learning can begin again in the fall?  After all, "[t]he more time you spend and the closer in space you are to any infected people, the higher your risk. Interacting with more people raises your risk, and indoor places are riskier than outdoors." says Dr. William Miller, an epidemiologist at Ohio State University.  And a May 27, 2020 article on EdSource recommends no more than 16 children per 960 square feet of classroom space.

But how in the world can your school get ready for outdoor learning in time? At this stage, an effort to plan on spending the whole day outside in any kind of weather seems out of reach in terms of outdoor infrastructure, space and staffing, in my opinion. Better to consider each class taking turns spending a couple of hours outside each day.

Decide which classes will spend time outside, how often, and when.  Schedule a cautious amount of classes at a time, given the size of your school grounds. Each class will need a shelter for both shade and rain, and a stimulating space to explore.  Students are not going to spend all their outdoor learning time sitting still, right? Whether your school has a naturalized area already or not, prepare for this new and unusual school year by making the exploration spaces more interesting with logs and stumps for climbing. In addition, worms and insects will start to make their homes under them for your students to explore. Practical ideas for naturalizing the school grounds more permanently and meaningfully are coming up on this site during the school year.

What kind of shelters can the school put up?  I'm thinking event tents, but they must have good airflow during the pandemic. Louvered sided or curtains with ventilation holes can keep things comfortable during rain.

In the shelter, will students sit on the ground, have standing desks, or will there be seating in the form of chairs, benches or stools? Or a choice of all three?

National Geographic Bioblitz

What other supplies are needed in the shelter every day?  Are there rolling carts or wagons at school that can be used to transport the supplies in and out?

If outdoor learning is new at your school, it's likely that students will equate time outside with recess.  Be prepared at the beginning of the school year to spend time teaching and practicing the procedures and parameters of your outdoor classroom. Depending on their age, literally march with your students along the perimeter of your space outside to delineate the boundary as clearly as possible.  Even so, have it marked off with cones, field marking chalk or construction marking paint.

Consistently and calmly make clear that expectations outside are almost the same as they are inside, and clearly teach and practice in which ways they are different.  Proactively teach and practice how students may appropriately react to a distraction like a duck or a firetruck. Be patient and generous with them and yourself during the first few weeks. You are learning to do new things together; this is not the time to be rigorous about curriculum expectations first of all. And count on being even more exhausted than you normally are at the end of each day of the first week of school.

What subjects lend themselves well to learning outside?  The life sciences, of course, but also the literacy subjects.  Some of the subjects can be taught outside the same way you would inside, but for many lessons you can take advantage of the wider spaces and the opportunities to explore. There are not many subjects which you cannot teach outdoors, and my goal for this blog is to support teachers by providing practical outdoor lessons at your fingertips. Outdoors science lessons for each grade level that support curriculum expectations are coming up on this site in August and September.

Does your school's WiFi reach to all parts of the school grounds?  Or will you and your students need to use more paper and less Google Classroom than you have become accustomed to? Or will you use the time outside mainly as motivation for, and reinforcement of, learning that students do in the school building (or at home in the case of a hybrid approach to in-school learning)?

Consider staggered and longer recesses. Consider rolling snack and lunch times where kids eat in smaller groups.

There will probably need to be a hallway monitor between the outdoor classrooms and the bathrooms. Custodians will need to be part of the planning for outdoor learning. Provisions and procedures for very hot and very cold weather will need to be thought through. Here is the push-comes-to-shove opportunity to build resilience in students (and their teachers, let's be honest).

If the weather is such that your class cannot be outside (let's say thunderstorms are in the forecast), but the school's modified in-school schedule depends on it, will the school call the equivalent of a snow day?  If not, how will the school deal with that instead?

And, as a school, have an exit plan. What if this outdoor learning idea just really doesn't work?  How will you modify it?  What happens if the school needs to opt out of outdoor learning altogether?

Have you thought of other possibilities? Concerns? Leave a comment, and let's brainstorm together.