The Case For Outdoor Learning

(Opinion) Very early into discussions about how to reopen schools during the Covid-19 pandemic, we were presented with a choice — either continue distance learning, despite its possibility of worsening achievement gaps, or risk the lives of students and staff by bringing them back into school buildings. But are those really the only two options?

Craig Strang, associate director for learning and teaching at the University of California, Berkeley, offered another option during a recent call with environmental education organizations across New England: outdoor classrooms.

“The greatest challenge is overcoming the assumption that there is only one way to solve this problem, and it is with staggered schedules in hybrid learning,” Strang said.

By using outdoor spaces as classrooms, schools can bring more kids to in-person learning experiences, Strang explained.

“On those days when kids were supposed to be at home with remote learning, they could be back at school, working outdoors … in learning opportunities that are safer, healthier, more engaging, less likely to transmit the virus. This is a more promising solution than any of the solutions that the school systems are proposing at the moment,” Strang said.

Doable In New Haven

New Haven Public Schools has been planning to start September with a hybrid of days of remote learning and days of in-person lessons. This is neither the preference of Gov. Ned Lamont’s office, which has pushed schools to host every student every day this fall, nor of the many parents, teachers and paraprofessionals wary of the safety of returning to school buildings.

Distance learning offers a low-risk of Covid-19 transmission. At the same time, it requires adult supervision at home, compromises the access of some students to meals and health care, and may aggravate the digital divide and the achievement gap.

Outdoor learning solves these problems. Outdoor activities have better ventilation, fresh air, and more opportunities for social distancing than the same activities indoors, particularly inside poorly ventilated classrooms.

Outdoor summer camps in Connecticut were allowed to run their programs under Center for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines, and the vast majority of them across the state have reported no Covid cases among campers and staff. Such good news in the middle of a crisis should not be ignored.

Across the nation caregivers, students, educators and school staff are flooding school meetings and organizing petitions with thousands of signatures demanding that school districts shift to outdoor learning in the fall. Is it too late for New Haven to adopt outdoor learning?

Outdoor learning does not require a field trip to remote, wooded areas. Instead, caregivers, students, and educators can take advantage of green areas in our neighborhoods.

In the past decade, the New Haven Public Schools have been investing and collaborating with many local, regional and national partners to develop wildlife-friendly urban oases for children and the local community. Partnerships with other sectors have resulted in schoolyard habitats present in one in every four schools in the district, helping educators better integrate place-based environmental education into their curriculum. Together with parks, open spaces, and gardens, these living outdoor classrooms are readily accessible or at a walking distance from several schools in New Haven and should be enjoyed by everyone.

So, let’s talk budget: can we afford to shift to outdoor learning?

School districts willing to work with environmental educators have found outdoor learning to be much less expensive than the redesign of indoor spaces that they were considering. Strang shared an example from Plumas County, California. An environmental education organization in the area put together a plan that increases in-person learning from two to five days a week through outdoor activities, while the costs per pupil only rose 10 percent. Facing a tight budget during the pandemic, the school district has decided to partner with the organization to seek additional funding and philanthropy, Strang said.

Although not every school in New Haven has easy access to open, green areas, the use of outdoor learning in those schools that do provides a starting point for more creative, inclusive and equitable ideas.

New York City is considering closing streets around school buildings for use as car-free outdoor space. More detailed plans for safe and cost-effective outdoor learning have come from environmental organizations.

Strong coalitions are also appealing for federal support. More than 450 national, state and regional environmental and outdoor education organizations have recently urged Congress to give special consideration in providing funding towards outdoor learning during school re-opening.

Longterm Benefits

There’s a tremendous amount of research that testifies to the impact of outdoor learning on student development and academic success. Students learn quickly and demonstrate better focus and longer retention of skills when learning outdoors, even if they are just reading, writing or doing math under a tree or on a picnic table. Being in contact with dirt, seeing greenery and breathing fresh air during the learning process increases their creativity, leadership and problem-solving skills.

Yet the most important effect of outdoor learning, after its contributions to safety during Covid-19, is its benefits for mental health.

Educators are deeply concerned about their students’ well-being, particularly after their recent experiences with Covid-19 and racial injustice protests and conversations. Both situations have disproportionately traumatized Black and brown communities. Contact with nature relieves stress, fosters warmer and more cooperative interactions, and boosts a sense of enjoyment that can help students (as well as educators and school staff) overcome emotional and mental distress.

Public school teachers and paraprofessionals have done a very impressive, time-sensitive job transitioning to distance learning. They absolutely deserve to be praised (and fairly compensated) for that.

But staring at a screen for long periods of time and interacting virtually with peers and educators will never be a substitute for experiential, group learning activities and their long-lasting effects on child development and social skills. More than ever, we need to help our kids in their healing process, and outdoor learning can provide safe, healthy learning environments for face-to-face experiences that overcome the digital divides that have greatly impacted low-income families.

This piece is also meant to echo a shared sentiment that so many have expressed in our area, from students and caregivers challenging the importance and the validity of standardized tests to local youth-led movements advocating for climate education and structural changes that go beyond curriculum. These are not crazy, untested ideas. They are based on years and years of great results observed around the globe.

It’s reassuring to know that I am not alone in advocating for a dramatic change in our education model that invites students, caregivers, educators, administrators and partner organizations to participate in real, transformative learning experiences. It’s time to re-think, re-evaluate and re-imagine our schools.

Gustavo Requena Santos is an advocate for science literacy and outdoor learning. He has a PhD in evolutionary biology and is a board member of the Connecticut Outdoor & Environmental Education Association.