Elementary teachers need continued administrative support to take science out to the schoolyardThis U.S. study collected teacher data during a series of professional development workshops for teachers at two elementary schools. The authors—two classroom teachers and a university faculty member—designed these workshops to help teachers see the value in taking science instruction outdoors and to adapt their existing lessons to the schoolyard. Their professional development program linked lessons to science content standards, included models of outdoor instruction, and utilized active learning and collaboration to help classroom teachers adapt their science lessons to outdoor instruction. For the study, they analyzed observation and interview data to understand teachers’ experiences with outdoor learning, so they could better support teachers’ instruction in the outdoors.
The two elementary schools represented contrasting contexts. One school was a small private school, which supported K-5 classroom teachers to teach outdoors. The second context was a large public school receiving Title 1 funding to serve students from low-SES backgrounds; this school had an explicit environmental theme supported by the administration but other district mandates limited outdoor science instruction to the early grades (K-2). The professional development team conducted observations and interviews with participating teachers and school administrators to address the following research questions: <em>What are teachers’ outdoor experiences as children, adults, and teachers? What are teachers’ teaching experiences and their impressions of student experiences with science in their schoolyards? What are lead teachers’ goals for supporting teachers’ outdoor science instruction?</em> The authors coded thematic patterns in interviews conducted before and after the professional development program to understand teachers’ experiences, their understandings of schoolyard science instruction, and perceived barriers to taking science outdoors.
The qualitative data documented that these elementary teachers had more outdoor experiences as adults than they had as children. The study did not link teachers’ own outdoor experiences with their willingness or ability to take science outdoors. From teachers’ perspectives, children benefited from schoolyard-based science lessons in terms of their engagement, vocabulary development, attitudes, and behavior. Teachers also recognized potential interdisciplinary uses of outdoor learning beyond their science lessons. However, teachers also noted barriers to moving instruction outdoors, such as concerns about academic rigor, managing student behavior outdoors, and difficulty developing teaching ideas for outdoor learning. According to school-based leaders and workshop facilitators, students’ attitudes toward learning were much better outdoors, thanks to situating science in a familiar, real-world context. Likewise, teachers seemed engaged in the professional development and seemed to grow more comfortable with the idea of taking science classes outdoors, where students could make real-world connections and teachers could make interdisciplinary connections. Even so, they noted teachers’ concerns about the weather, managing student behavior, and the unpredictability of outdoor education versus their indoor routines. The study did not compare and contrast findings from the two schools.
Overall, the study captured the potential and the challenges of elementary teachers adapting their existing science lessons to outdoor education situated in the schoolyard. From the authors’ perspective, the program’s success was due in large part to the workshops foregrounding teachers’ concerns about managing student behavior outdoors, identifying specific ways that outdoor science lessons connected with science standards, and making interdisciplinary connections. In addition, the authors argued that it was important to model effective outdoor instruction for teachers and to focus on adapting existing lessons to the outdoors versus creating entirely new learning experiences outdoors. Even though both schools demonstrated adequate green space and administrative support for outdoor learning, it was also noteworthy that teachers still needed continued administrative support to take science out to the schoolyard.
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