Education Goes Outside... Or Does It? was originally published in the BFEC Newsletter, Vol.15/No. 3, Summer 2011.
Pairing young children with the magic of exploring the outdoors, from holding tadpoles to discovering the skittering creatures living under logs, is a natural fit.
Outdoor education meets children's innate inquisitiveness and need for physical, hands-on activity, and countless studies have shown that it improves learning, social skills, and physical health.
Hosting field trips for Knox County school children was one of the first programs offered by the BFEC (then the Kenyon Center for Environmental Studies) when it opened in 1996. Since then, 13,000 children have visited the center.
But recent state budget cuts and failed levies in many Knox County school districts are presenting challenges, despite the relatively minimal expense of taking a field trip. The BFEC is in the process of adapting to this new financial climate.
As we alluded to above, most children are like fish in water when it comes to nature. Any parent will tell you that children need to be active and are full of curiosity; the out-of-doors fits these needs perfectly.
Unlike the built environment, the outdoors are unscripted and unbound. Lacking right angles and walls, children's imaginations are free to take them in countless directions, and there are always new mysteries and treasures to uncover.
As children grow they are also dealing with new emotions, and being outside can help them blow off steam. Research indicates that children (and adults) who spend time outdoors are more cooperative, attentive and less likely to be anxious or depressed.
Adults and children also benefit from the physical activity of being outdoors, especially in light of growing obesity rates. One in every five children in the U.S. is now overweight, and the prevalence of childhood obesity has doubled since 1980.
The health benefits of getting outdoors are so great that some doctors are writing "nature prescriptions" for obese children. A pilot project is underway in 11 states with the help of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Refuge system, the National Environmental Education Foundation and health care providers.
Not all children, in particular older ones, are drawn to nature, especially if they had limited access at younger ages. This project helps get kids outside without the stigma of labeling it as "exercise" or "school." The study has reported that so far many children are turning over a new leaf.
These words came (unbribed!) from a second grader while hiking a BFEC trail on her class field trip. We had just encountered a large moth, fern fronds uncoiling in the spring sunshine, and a woodpecker hole with wood shavings piling up beneath it worthy of a carpentry shop.
Kids are spending more time watching TV, and with the availability of educational channels like Animal Planet they may surprise you with their knowledge of tropical rain forests or African savannahs. But what many are missing is experience with what lives in their home state or backyards.
This gap leads children to somewhat comically respond during field trips that their favorite Ohio animals are tigers and kangaroos.
Understandable for a kindergartener, but by second grade Ohio Academic Standards (the focus of rigorous testing) require students to know habitats, plants and animals that are actually found in Ohio. The BFEC, with ponds, prairie and forest, is uniquely equipped to allow students to experience these first-hand.
It does not take a teaching degree to understand the difference between viewing pictures of an animal in a book and actually seeing one with your own eyes. Or better yet, pulling it out of a pond with your own net, as students are able to do with tadpoles and dragonfly larvae at the BFEC.
This type of learning, accompanied by the sensory experiences of smelling the water or hearing a woodpecker drum on a tree, is described as "sticky," and retained at much higher rates. In addition, it gives children an opportunity to develop personal connections with nature that can last a life time. Long after glossary definitions fade, affinity remains.
In the fifteen years that the BFEC has been hosting field trips, schools budgets have accommodated bus transportation to our site and the $1-2 field fee per child (which is much lower than that charged by comparable facilities, thanks to the financial commitment of Kenyon College and our membership).
But the reality of school budgets have changed. Federal and state funding has decreased, and three of the five school districts that the BFEC serves have failed to pass tax levies in the last year.
In addition to painful cuts like loosing teachers, most districts have dramatically cut or completely eliminated field trip funding.
Anticipating this loss, the BFEC has created a small Field Trip Scholarship Fund to which schools may apply for transportation and entrance fee expenses. The BFEC was able to create the programs thanks to the Melissa Kravetz Memorial Fund.
In its first season this spring, the BFEC used it to bring 180 children to the center who otherwise would have been stuck inside.