Teacher Resources

“I like to play indoors better ’cause that’s where all the electrical outlets are,” reports a fourth grader. But it’s not only computers, television, and video games that are keeping kids inside. It’s also their parents’ fears of traffic, strangers, Lyme disease, and West Nile virus; their schools’ emphasis on more and more homework; their structured schedules; and their lack of access to natural areas. Local governments, neighborhood associations, and even organizations devoted to the outdoors are placing legal and regulatory constraints on many wild spaces, sometimes making natural play a crime.

As children’s connections to nature diminish and the social, psychological, and spiritual implications become apparent, new research shows that nature can offer powerful therapy for such maladies as depression, obesity, and attention deficit disorder. Environment-based education dramatically improves standardized test scores and grade-point averages and develops skills in problem solving, critical thinking, and decision making. Anecdotal evidence strongly suggests that childhood experiences in nature stimulate creativity.

In Last Child in the Woods, Louv talks with parents, children, teachers, scientists, religious leaders, child-development researchers, and environmentalists who recognize the threat and offer solutions. Louv shows us an alternative future, one in which parents help their kids experience the natural world more deeply—and find the joy of family connectedness in the process.

Preschool Beyond Walls:

Children are spending less time being outside in nature, playing, imagining, and learning about their surroundings. Instead, they’re spending more time with tablets, televisions, and overly structured routines. Preschool Beyond Walls shows practical and strategic ways educators can create rich, explorative, and interdisciplinary learning through extensive outdoor experiences.

Learn how to develop and implement a nature-based curriculum to support children’s optimal learning, from start to finish. Whether you’re creating a new curriculum or transitioning from a traditional approach, you will learn how to:

• Create a program philosophy

• Infuse nature into all aspects of your program

• Prepare teachers for a nature-centered approach

• Implement curriculum and pedagogy that emphasize inquiry-based learning through play and hands-on discovery

• Maintain high-quality early childhood practices that support children’s development

Designed to provide teachers and administrators with a range of practical suggestions for making the schoolyard a varied and viable learning resource, Moving the Classroom Outdoors presents concrete examples of how urban, suburban, and rural schools have enhanced the school site as a teaching tool. Herb focuses on the practical and the specific, including ideas for seating, signage, planting considerations, teaching/meeting areas, outdoor classroom management, pathways, equipment storage, raised gardens, and more. The book also provides an outdoor activity sampler, information on incorporating technology into the outdoor learning experience, and a chapter on the unique concerns of urban schools.

Schoolyard-Enhanced Learning shows how the school groundsregardless of whether your school is in an urban, suburban, or rural settingcan become an enriching extension of the classroom. In this comprehensive handbook, Herb Broda blends theory and practice, providing readers with practical suggestions and teacher-tested activities for using the most powerful audio-visual tool availablethe outdoors.

Emphasizing the practical, this innovative book offers teachers step-by-step guidance to help ensure success when they take a class outside. It provides:

• Background that helps present the case for outdoor learning: educational theory that supports the concept; overview of the terminology; research on the benefits related to student achievement; alignment of outdoor learning with current teaching practices.

• Ideas for making the schoolyard an effective outdoor classroom: the planning process; enhancing and maintaining the site; developing gardens and attracting wildlife; finding community resources and funding.

• Advice on working with a class outdoors: garnering administrative and parental support; considerations before going out; making the most of your outdoor time; using GPS as an educational tool; building on the outdoor experience back in the classroom.

• An array of proven activities that utilize the schoolyard: activities related to specific subject areas; activities that teach process skills; activities that encourage initiative and build community.

At a time when children's natural curiosity about the outdoors is eclipsed by the demands of busy schedules and the ever-present glow of video screens, schools may be the only place where they are encouraged to interact with nature. Schoolyard-Enhanced Learning can help teachers unlock the powerful learning experiences that exist just beyond the classroom door.

Connection to Nature