Teach Your Children Well
by Vicki Wolf, February 2007

Studies show children spend 90 percent of their time indoors, going outdoors mostly just to get from their house to the car or from one building to another. Some schools and teachers are working to change this trend by using experiences in nature as laboratories for learning.

Learning to live in harmony with nature at an early age enhances child development and promotes good stewardship of the environment and natural resources for the future. Teachers and volunteers are learning that outdoor hands-on activities really help children become enthusiastic about learning.

Linda Knight, Ed.D, conducts middle school science teacher training at the Model Science Lab, a partnership between Rice University and Houston Independent School District (HISD). Although emphasis is on testing and accountability, Knight works to help teachers include nature experiences and environmental awareness in their teaching. “I enjoy working with teachers and helping them to embrace earth and environmental science,” Knight says. “I continue to try to impress on people the concerns we need to have locally and globally.”

Knight has rich experience for training teachers in earth and environmental science. She was a school teacher for 33 years. Knight ventured outside the classroom to get children more in touch with their natural surroundings. Knight tells about a field trip to a ditch outside Revere Middle School that offered adventures in learning for her as well as the children.

“I decided it was a great opportunity to get near some water,” Knight recalls. Before going on the field trip, Knight gave strict instructions about safety and reverence for nature. “But somebody slipped and splashed water up on the pant leg of another kid. We finished the activity and came back inside. Ten minutes later I got a call from the office about a concerned mother worried that her son got sewage on his pants . . . and the office staff believed it,” Knights says as if still in amazement. Knight learned from this experience that she needed to explain the difference between surface run-off and sewage.

Knight and her students continued to make regular visits to the ditch that ran along the property separating the school from the neighborhood. She realized the students had become good observers when one day, just before a storm rolled in, they came running into the classroom to tell her something was wrong with the stream that flowed through the ditch. They had noticed that the water was white. They took a test kit out and when they put the water in the test tube, water started to pour out the side – the plastic tube was disintegrating. “Someone had poured something caustic into the system upstream,” Knight says.

The storm washed the white stuff downstream, so Knight and her students were not able to complete tests to determine what chemical was polluting the water. But in those moments Knight realized the children had become better observers, and they were concerned. “It doesn’t take a whole lot to raise students’ awareness and raise a sense of stewardship,” she says.

Richard Klein also says that getting students outside helps them learn and care about the environment. Klein teaches math and science in the Challenger Program at Monarch School, a school for children who have learning differences and special needs. The Challenger Program offers students the opportunity to take responsibility for their own behavior and learning. They have six to eight hour-long classes a day with different teachers. He says students have the biggest difficulty transitioning from one subject to another.

“I’m finding that if students can do something with their hands instead of worksheets and writing, they are more engaged and they are able and willing to learn more information. Children who have Asperger’s Syndrome or autism, often avoid socializing and making eye contact. Klein has engaged them in building canoes and kayaks out of plywood. “We have a little woodshop here,” he says. The children learn to use power tools, and many tasks require teamwork.”

When the boats are built, Klein plans to take the children down Buffalo Bayou to clean up trash and test the water. “They will be learning about pH and dissolved oxygen in water,” Klein says. “A lot of this is biology. It’s an opportunity to learn about pH with a reason for learning it,” he adds.

Another outdoor project for Klein’s students is what they call their discovery garden, near the Discovery Center at the Houston Zoo. They have built garden beds with plants that attract butterflies. They also are making a pond and planting vegetables. “Students visit the garden on a regular basis,” Klein says. “I have noticed they have real ownership. They use to say, ‘Do I have to do this?’ Now, after about three trips they say, ‘I want to do compost’ or ‘I want to do weeding.’ They are coming to me telling me what they want to do,” Klein says. “I don’t find that in a classroom with four walls,” he adds. “I do find that in a classroom with no walls.”

Another school that views the outdoors as a resource that can serve as a catalyst for academic growth is The Houston Outdoor Learning Academy (HOLA). The full-time school offers a learning environment that uses a hands-on approach to enhance self-esteem, academic knowledge, social skills and personal success. Teachers and students here have found that the outdoors provide an ideal laboratory for learning math, science and social studies and a motivating tool to enhance reading and writing skills.

Also in Houston, Urban Harvest supports about 100 school gardens to help children learn to appreciate the source of their food and the work required to grow food. The garden also provides a natural laboratory for learning in all subjects.

Urban Harvest volunteers teach children the organic method of gardening with natural fertilizers, such as compost, to enhance the ecosystem’s natural process for controlling pests rather than using toxic pesticides.

To help others learn about nature, Cath Conlon, a permaculture designer, created the Blackwood Land Institute. The 23 acre permaculture farm, located 44 miles west of Houston on Highway 290, features a 5,000 square-foot environmentally friendly straw-bale house, an organic garden, a greenhouse, a spiral herb garden, a butterfly garden, bee hives, a chicken coop, water-harvesting systems and cisterns (water-collection systems), a passive solar heating system, and a labyrinth.

People of all ages within the Montessori community come to the farm for land-based learning. Blackwood offers students a bridge between the indoor school classroom and the outdoor classroom. Students ages 10 to 16 work in cooperation with nature, learning how to best utilize and preserve the natural integrity of the land.

“They learn about building techniques, gardening, water harvesting, weather patterns, waste management, planning, designing, horticulture, entomology (study of insects), topography, native plants, organizational flow, and relationships between people and the earth,” Conlon says. “This intimate involvement with nature also leads to an understanding of invisible forces, relationships of all, and the laws of nature.”

An understanding of these things, and a respect for and love of nature serves children in all areas of life as they grow and become adults. For more ways to get children involved in the outdoors, learning about nature and taking care of the environment, check out CLEAN links.