Knowledge
Connecting with Nature: Why Outdoor Education is Essential for Primary School Students
In today’s world, especially in India, our young generation has been confined within a closed environment. The pandemic saw a further shrinking of their immediate space. They remained plugged into the digital world for learning as well as for recreation.
While there are numerous advantages to having such easy access to information, it has been well established that it impedes the holistic development of our young ones, both physically and mentally. Today, children spend less time outdoors and are missing an important block in their developmental structure. This has especially impacted learners at the primary/ELC stage.
A way to overcome this is to aggressively encourage a return to Nature/Outdoor Education. Outdoor education refers broadly to outdoor play, adventure activities, and nature projects. Research shows that activities conducted outside the four walls of the classroom have many benefits-they reduce stress, increase focus, and enhance engagement within the classroom. When children are taken outdoors to learn, they become more self-motivated, self-assured as well as self-directed. It also leads to an increase in the health, social well-being, and environmental awareness of the participants.
There are several factors that help promote this:
Outdoor Education lays emphasis on experiential encounters. While outdoors, students learn to interact with one another. This leads to the acquisition of skills of inquiry, experimentation, cooperation, and collaboration. Students learn to review and reflect upon their actions.
Outdoor Education develops curiosity and generates new interests. The children, while participating in outdoor activities, are led on the path of self-discovery in which they recognize their strengths and discard their fears. They achieve the targeted learning goals and learn to follow safety rules.
One of the foremost potentials of Outdoor Education is that it leads to real learning. As it is experiential in nature the students can see, hear, touch, and smell. The active use of these four faculties leads to real-life experiences and hence to real learning. These actions lead to consequences getting impressed upon each participant. Failure to reach a goal is viewed not to be as a step back but as a stepping stone to success in the future.
Increased Motivation – Outdoor activities freshen the body and mind of students. They focus on concepts as play stimulates neural connections in the brain, allowing better problem-solving and emotional stability.
It enhances imagination and curiosity. Learning when confined within the four walls of the classroom becomes boring and rote. However, when periodically shifted to outside spaces, it stimulates interest while enhancing recall and retention.
Builds teamwork and communication – Outdoor learning allows collaboration and problem-solving thereby building team spirit, leadership, and social skills.
Promotes wellness – It teaches children to efficiently deal with challenges thus reducing stress. It helps them to cope better by building essential life skills e.g inability to complete a task or failure to understand a concept is taken in stride. They understand the underlying cause and the remedy for it. Collaboration and cooperation in completing a task build a positive attitude and confidence.
To achieve success in Outdoor Education it is important to ensure that students are presented with an array of learning spaces in which they can pursue activities that interest them and can reflect upon them according to their current stage of development. They should be able to indulge in active play and independent exploration. These should be planned and actively guided by teachers.
Just imagine a child’s glee when schools associated with just study lessons, get transformed into adventure sports grounds. The fun zones can be designed to offer multilayered benefits to students resulting in strength building, teamwork, and learning of various life skills in a fun experiential way. The shrieks of laughter coupled with the determination to finish the tasks are evidence of the fact that life skills are often learned better experientially and easily when coupled with a dash of laughter and fun. Such activities reiterate the fact that learning must not be confined to only books and smart boards. The world and nature around us are wonderful masters who teach us about life, its challenges, and how to overcome them.
Some Best Practices
I spy… exploring mirrors
Mirrors are an excellent inquiry tool for children, as they can help them observe things in an entirely different way. They are led to discover mirrors on their own and one should not explicitly direct their attention to them. The students are taken outdoors. They are shown a mirror and answers to simple questions are elicited. The children though young, are known to come out with appropriate responses.
We dress up in front of the mirror.
The barber cuts our hair and shows us.
Mumma does make-up in front of the mirror.
The dentist uses the mirror to clean our teeth.
We brush our teeth in front of the mirror.
Having the responses, this exercise is taken forward. Each child is given the fiber mirror and asked to keep it at the nose level and to look down at the mirror. They are then asked to share what they see in the mirror. As teachers, we must ensure the mirror is kept at the right place and angle, or the fun is lost. Slowly, children start observing tiny birds on the trees; some trees have small leaves and others big leaves; they may note the wind play of the leaves; some may even observe a bird/plane flying by. The fun generated is infectious and responses shared by the students can be unique.
I am walking in the sky.
I can see the sky and some cotton clouds.
My shadow is different from my reflection.
I can touch the flying bird in the mirror.
I cannot open my eyes; the Sun is so near to me.
The tree appears to fall on me.
The mirrors add dimension, light, and reflection and offer a completely different perspective to the observer. They significantly extend the playtime and attention span of the children.
As the children are learning through play, they observe their own movement and reflection in the mirror. This activity also allows the children to explore and indulge in conversation. The opportunities for real-time learning are endless and can be graded as per the age of the participants.
Melting Moments
Children learn through hands-on activities. Before this simple experiment, we can discuss the importance of the Sun and the many ways it helps us.
After this, the students are taken outdoors. A few items like pebbles, cheese cubes, leaves, ice cubes, ice-cream cups, chocolate bars, coins, and Lego blocks are kept in a muffin tray. The students keep the trays in the sun. After an hour, they are brought back and made to keenly observe the items in the muffin trays.
Some of the responses expected from the children are:
Ice cream melts and becomes liquid.
Coins and pebbles are hot to the touch.
My head is hot, but I am not melting.
Cheese has become soft.
Butter has become oily.
No change in the Lego block.
Leaf has changed its color.
Through this activity, the students learn about the cause and effect of the heat of the Sun and how some items have changed their appearance. A post-activity, worksheet will help them recall and retain the learning.
Shadow Play
Shadows can trick us …they run ahead of us, jump behind us, and sometimes even disappear completely. Children love to learn about and play with shadows. They enjoy chasing them and trying to catch them. An outdoor, fun-filled, and interactive session on how shadows are formed can be showcased for early learners.
A variety of hands-on activities can be undertaken like chalking an outline of the shadow cast by a buddy; understanding why the shadow cast is shorter in the afternoon than the one cast under an early morning sun; watching the movement of the shadow on the sundial. Shadow play helps children develop a basic understanding of cause and effect as they observe what makes the shadows.
Some responses gathered from the children would be:
I cannot catch my shadow.
My jacket is red, but my shadow is black.
Sometimes my shadow is longer than mine and at times it’s shorter.
My shadow does not have eyes, nose, and lips.
My shadow can walk, run and jump like me.
My shadow always comes first in a race.
Through these activities, the students learn that shadows are made when objects block the light. Children make shadows with their bodies and other objects. They observe that a shadow can show an object’s shape, but it cannot show colors or details. The children’s imaginations can be sparked through such nurturing experiences.
Author – Rashmi Singh, Academic Consultant, Primary Years, DPS Sec 45 Gurgaon and Jaipur
