Mary:
Please find below a serious discussion of your request for a further and a better understanding of what an outdoor classroom "IS" and "Can BE"..... Perhaps Mary you should be talking with Teacher John directly?
HPS 4 HPS*..... Edward E. Kirkbride NCARB REFP
*High Performance Schools for High Performance Students
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Re: [Fwd: Define 'The Outdoor Classroom'] |
Date: |
Thu, 3 Mar 2005 10:07:36 EST |
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In a message dated 3/3/05 9:40:54 AM, eek@bee.net writes:
‘The Outdoor Classroom can be said to be an organised and defined teaching and learning setting outside of the school building or can also refer to the whole of the school grounds as a learning environment.’
March 2005 - LTL.
The outdoor classroom is a place where authentic, real-world Project Based Learning takes place. it is defined not by place but by the particular discipline and activity being studied and resolved. If the project is water monitoring, then the outdoor classroom is on the stream (river, canal, pond, sea, etc) bank. If students are studying, say, migration patterns of songbirds, then the outdoor classroom might be where the bird feeders are being maintained to attract the birds. Neighborhood architecture? In this case, the outdoor classroom is anywhere students can safely sit outside to sketch examples of dwellings, details, whatever. The outdoor classroom, then, provides the rich context in which to study, gather data, work on a project and is defined by the particular place outside thaat will best suit the
parameters of the project.
FYI, I have many compelling video examples of real students doing real projects in outdoor classrooms in a variety of milieus. Whoever wants a definition might want to see some of my work in this regard.
The point of it all is that the first part of the definition above (an organised and defined teaching and learning setting outside of the school building) as defined by Mary Jackson sounds like an indoor classroom - outside. To me, an outdoor classroom is much messier than such a static idea.
The 2nd part of this definition (or can also refer to the whole of the school grounds as a learning environment.) is unnecessarily limited by the geographical limits of the school grounds. Imagine how ridiculous such an idea is at an inner city school whose entire fauna may be the weeds growing out of the cracks in the recess yard's, glass strewn asphalt.
I'm sorry to say that the definition provided fits the description of an indoor classroom minus plumbing, temperature control, and walls.
Peace and Love,
John Sole
Guerilla Educators
Sole Productions
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