A group of teachers from six classrooms have discovered that there are more chances for outdoor learning when teachers collaborate.
Getting students outside is the best way to teach them about nature. So through collaboration, teachers in six second through fourth grade classrooms in Madison Wisconsin discovered that they could achieve their goal of getting students outside one day a week during the school year if they collaborated with each other.
The weather did not deter the students from going outside, although the time of day varied. Students at Winagra students created “sit upons” from stuffing newspapers into ziploc bags. When snow was on the ground, students sat on their cushions.
Winter activities were found to be enjoyable by many of the students. Sagar Gomden, a Lincoln fourth grader, enjoyed pretending to be part of a dog sled team. Showshoeing was the favorite activity of Muir second grader Aaron Beard.
An Outdoor Education Summit at the Madison School Forest was the culimnation of the outdoor study.
Wingra teacher Tresi Smyth said that the point of the activity “was to dedicate a day and be really committed to it.” She noted that students became more hardy over the course of the year,
The point “was to dedicate a day and be really committed to it,” said Tresi Smyth, a teacher of 7- to 9-year-olds at Wingra School, who noted that students became more hardy as the year went on.
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