Making Outdoor Education Possible in a School Forest

Making Outdoor Education Possible in a School Forest

by Matt Armstrong

            At the 2013 Minnesota Conference of Science Educators in Duluth, I attended a presentation about using a school forest to enhance outdoor education opportunities. Seeing as Cedar Park has been designated as a school forest by the DNR (way to go Kelli!) this seminar seemed like an obvious choice to attend. Presenters Robin Halverson and Chris Hanson teach science at Forestview Middle School in Baxter, MN. Eight years ago, the school was granted a 63-acre school forest just outside their back doors. While this is clearly on a much larger scale than what we will have at Cedar Park, the implementation opportunities will be very similar for us in the coming months and years.

            The main thing to remember when beginning a school forest is that it is an ongoing process. No one is expecting us to have a completely integrated and functioning curriculum utilizing the forest on day one. It will be a process that we will take steps at a time. Starting small and adding onto ideas over time is the best way to build up school forest usage. We can start by looking for individual activities that connect with our current curriculum. Our kindergarteners could go out and plant a tree and as a class adopt that tree. They care for it during the course of the year. They can observe it as it grows. They can name it. Then as they move into first grade, they have this tree to which they have a vested interest. I thought one of the most fascinating things Robin and Chris talked about was students being able to care for a tree all through elementary school and then when they got to Forestview Middle, they had a connection to their tree. We could try to foster the same for our students during the course of their elementary years.

            Another important aspect of a school forest is fostering a sense of community. A school forest is something that students should have a stake in; it belongs to them. If they feel ownership and responsibility for the forest, they will more actively participate, they will begin to care about what they are doing and they will make strong educational connections to the work they are doing. Along with involving students in the forest, we should also foster community support for the forest. It is on public land, after all, and the community should also feel some ownership in it. If we can get parents involved in helping us care for the forest that will help relieve some of the workload from the teachers. A school forest can be a great community builder and we should take advantage of that.

            The final point that I want to present is that we will be well supported in our implementation of our school forest. The people at the DNR that are responsible for setting up our forest will also be more than willing to help us support it. They will help us take care of the forest and they will also help us come up with ways to utilize our new forest. They have been doing this for many years and are very enthusiastic about their work. They take pride in it and we should as well. An outdoor forest makes for incredible outdoor learning capabilities and as we move forward, we can look forward to a school forest program that will nurture our students’ appreciation for the outdoors.

A Serious Talk

What are your thoughts?  Please share a comment. 

How well is your PLC functioning?

Characteristics of Effective Teams

1. There is a clear unity of purpose.
There was free discussion of the objectives until members could commit themselves to them; the objectives are meaningful to each group member.

2. The group is self-conscious about its own operations.
The group has taken time to explicitly discuss group process -- how the group will function to achieve its objectives. The group has a clear, explicit, and mutually agreed-upon approach: mechanics, norms, expectations, rules, etc. Frequently, it will stop to examined how well it is doing or what may be interfering with its operation. Whatever the problem may be, it gets open discussion and a solution found.

3. The group has set clear and demanding performance goals
for itself and has translated these performance goals into well-defined concrete milestones against which it measures itself. The group defines and achieves a continuous series of "small wins" along the way to larger goals.

4. The atmosphere tends to be informal, comfortable, relaxed.
There are no obvious tensions, a working atmosphere in which people are involved and interested.

5. There is a lot of discussion in which virtually everyone participates,
but it remains pertinent to the purpose of the group. If discussion gets off track, someone will bring it back in short order. The members listen to each other. Every idea is given a hearing. People are not afraid of being foolish by putting forth a creative thought even if it seems extreme.

6. People are free in expressing their feelings as well as their ideas.

7. There is disagreement and this is viewed as good.
Disagreements are not suppressed or overridden by premature group action. The reasons are carefully examined, and the group seeks to resolve them rather than dominate the dissenter. Dissenters are not trying to dominate the group; they have a genuine difference of opinion. If there are basic disagreements that cannot be resolved, the group figures out a way to live with them without letting them block its efforts.

8. Most decisions are made at a point where there is general agreement.
However, those who disagree with the general agreement of the group do not keep their opposition private and let an apparent consensus mask their disagreement. The group does not accept a simple majority as a proper basis for action.

9. Each individual carries his or her own weight,
meeting or exceeding the expectations of other group members. Each individual is respectful of the mechanics of the group: arriving on time, coming to meetings prepared, completing agreed upon tasks on time, etc. When action is taken, clears assignments are made (who-what-when) and willingly accepted and completed by each group member.

10. Criticism is frequent, frank and relatively comfortable.
The criticism has a constructive flavor -- oriented toward removing an obstacle that faces the group.

11. The leadership of the group shifts from time to time.
The issue is not who controls, but how to get the job done.

Sources: The Human Side of Enterprise, by Douglas MacGregor The Wisdom of Teams, by Kaztenbach and Smith

Cedar Park Goes Social

                   

           

Social Media and Cedar Park!

Last month the district office opened up social media tools to schools and students.  This allows teachers to use social media to help teach and schools to use social media to communicate to friends and families.  Cedar Park was one of the first Elementary schools to create both a Facebook page and a twitter account.  We use these accounts to share information, pictures, and updates about what is happening at our school.  It is a fantastic way for friends and families to connect, comment, and post information about our wonderful school!

Please visit our homepage at www.district196.org/cp to “Like us on Facebook” and “Follow us on twitter”!

Imagine the Future of Learning

4 inspiring kids imagine the future of learning

from TED Blog by Jamia Wilson

After more than 13 years of research convinced him that children have the ability to learn almost anything on their own,2013 TED Prize winner Sugata Mitra aspires to shape the future of learning by building a School in the Cloud, helping kids “tap into their innate sense of wonder.”
In the spirit of Mitra’s invitation to the world to “ask kids big questions, and find big answers,” we asked four brilliant young people to tell us: What do you think is the future of learning?
Here, their answers.
Adora Svitak, 15-year-old writer, teacher and activist

“One of the most powerful shifts in the future of education will come from not only the tools at our disposal, but from an underutilized resource: the students whose voices have for too long been silent. We’re increasingly pushing for seats at the decision-making tables, empowering ourselves by shaping our own learning, and taking on activist roles both online and off. To me, this signals one of the most hopeful signs of the future of education — the shift from a top-down, learning-everything-from-the-authority-figure approach to an approach characterized by peer-to-peer learning, empowerment  and grassroots change.”

Watch Adora’s talk to discover “What adults can learn from kids” »

Kid President, 10-year-old inspiration machine

“My older brother and I believe kids and grown ups can change the world. We’re on a mission with our web series, Kid President, to do just that. If every classroom in the world could be full of grownups and kids working together, we’d live in a happier world. Kids want to know about the world and about how they can make an impact. Kids also have ideas. It’d be awesome if teachers and students could work together and put these ideas into action. There should be lessons in things like compassion and creativity. If those two things were taught more in schools we’d see some really cool things happen.”

Watch Kid President’s inspiring “pep talk” for the world »

Ying Ying Shang, 16-year-old blogger, teen advisor to the UN Foundation, and SPARK Movement activist

“For most of my life, the media has been a constant presence, whether it’s in the form of a TV droning in the background or the billboards that whiz by on the highway or the never-ending barrage of sounds and images on social media. That’s why I know the importance of learning media literacy early. It’s so important that the power of the media be recognized, both in its capacity for sexualization and distortion of reality, as well as its capacity to be harnessed for good.

Also, it seems inevitable that future educators will turn to online learning tools, replacing blackboards with smartboards and note packets with YouTube videos. In the wake of this shift, analysis and critical thinking skills should be taught more than ever in classrooms.”

Read Ying Ying’s blogs about creating healthy media and ending the sexualization of women and girls »

Thomas Suarez,13-year-old app developer and founder of Carrot Corp, Inc.

“The future of education should include programming as a major subject. The class will allow students to collaborate on code, teach each other, and communicate outside of the classroom using services such as Google+. This way, students will think more during other classes, be much more likely to get a job and, most important, have fun.”

Watch Thomas’s talk and learn about how he taught himself to build iPhone apps »

Join the conversation! What do you think is the future of learning? Tell us in the comment section below.

Great Links! - Differentiation Through Technology

Using Technology to Differentiate by Matt Armstrong

I attended a TIES training on using technology to differentiate instruction for our students. It was a workshop full of great ideas and the instructor provided great web links that I wanted to share with you. I think we are all aware of the importance of differentiation and I encourage you to explore the links on the following Wiki to see what you can use in your classroom and with your students.

Differentiate 4 Learners Wikispace

CK-12 Flexbooks

One website that I wanted to to highlight is called CK-12. It is full of resources that are divided by subject and content area. They cover everything from Math and Science to English and Astronomy. When you select a topic, it gives you links to resources that may provide readings, study guides, exercises, mind maps, etc. Much of it is teacher contributed, so you can share what you do with your class. Everything that I have looked at so far is free. It would be a great resource for you as a teacher to gain background insight into topics. It could also be a great resources for students, especially intermediate, to use for researching or independent work. If you only try one thing from the differentiation wiki above, I encourage you to check out CK-12.

Writing Ideas from the MnSTA Science Conference

Writing Ideas from the MnSTA Science Conference

By Carole Velasquez

At the MnSTA conference, I attended a session called “Do It, Write It:  Integrating hands-on experiments with great stories and kids’ writing.”  It reaffirmed the work we are doing here are Cedar Park around STEM and integrating lessons throughout our day.  I walked away with some ideas that I plan on incorporating around writing and science.

Here are those ideas:

• Do It:  Paper Chromatography; Read It:  Purple, Green & Yellow by Robert Munsch; Write It:  4-fold book with direction boxes, Beginning/Middle/End exercise
• Do It:  Paper Snowflakes; Read It:  Axle Annie by Robin Pulver; Write It:  Go outdoors to collect words for a group poem
•  Do It:  Color mixing; Read It:  Little Blue and Little Yellow by Leo Leoni; Write It:  Write directions in the boxes (see example)

_________’s Directions for __________________ Experiment

Words I need:

Step 1	Step 2	Step 3
Step 4	Step 5	Step 6