Dive Brief:
- More schools are turning to environmental education as a way to incorporate multidisciplinary instruction and get students involved in project-based learning.
- While some focus on traditional ecology and nature-related learning, others, with limited outdoor space, have found alternative ways to incorporate environmentally-minded teaching.
- That can include offering green tech courses, as a vocational system in California did, or incorporating urban water reservoirs, as a school in New Jersey did.
Dive Insight:
Environmental education has deep roots in American schools, with summer camps, field trips, and class hikes forming a part of many students’ experience for decades. In recent years, however, books like "Last Child in the Woods" have documented how few students have easy access to nature on a regular basis. In partial response to that research, which also found that play and outdoor experiences can have a positive effect on students’ learning, some schools have begun to take steps to engage students more in the natural world around them. It has even become a turnaround strategy in some areas. One low-performing rural district in Colorado took on outdoor-based experiential learning as a key part of its academic overhaul.
