Friedrich Froebel, the inventor of Kindergarten, imagined early childhood education as a child-garden school (1). As schools globally consider moving classes outside to help lower the risk of Covid-19 transmission, children entering Kindergarten this fall may be the first class of students to actualize his vision.
Since 2012, Land to Learn, a nonprofit based in Beacon, NY, has taught thousands of students at school gardens outside on the grounds of Hudson Valley elementary schools. Kids do math by charting the growth of pea vines they planted, write poetry about scientific observations using their five senses, and explore how worms help gardens grow. School garden teachers and other outdoor educators have a lot to offer school districts as they figure out how to successfully teach students in an outdoor setting.It is highly beneficial to teach kids outside: even in 'normal times,' a growing body of evidence indicates that outdoor education boosts students' academic and health outcomes while fostering much-needed social and environmental interaction.
Numerous studies show that children get better grades when learning outside (2–5). Garden-based learning in particular has a positive impact on students’ grades, knowledge, attitudes, and behavior (3–6). Learning in gardens gives children the chance to be outside and actively engaged, applying their reading, writing, math, science, and other related academic skills in an interesting, interactive environment. This significantly increases comprehension and knowledge retention. Students in programs like Land to Learn’s display an increase in overall academic achievement, evident through improved grades and test scores, and experience an increase in school engagement (3–6).
One of the reasons students’ academic achievement improves in outdoor settings is because outdoor environments decrease stress. In a study analyzing data from more than 290 million people from more than 20 countries, scientists found that spending time in green spaces led to lower biological stress indicators, reduced heart rate, and increased sleep duration (7). The study also linked myriad diverse health benefits to time outside including reduced risk of type II diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and premature death (7).
Simply breathing fresh air outside can be hugely beneficial to students since the elevated levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) inside schools directly suppress cognition (8). A survey of classrooms in California and Texas discovered that, on average, classroom CO2 levels balloon to about 2.5 times atmospheric levels—which hover around 400 parts per million (PPM)—with some classrooms reaching up to 3,000 PPM in a given school day (9). After even a 400 PPM CO2 increase, a fraction of that observed in the study, cognitive abilities are estimated to drop by 21% (8). NASA found that elevated CO2 levels on the International Space Station contributed to negative health and cognitive impacts for astronauts (10), implying similar troubling impacts for students inside school buildings. What students learn while outdoors is more likely to sink in, and helps their brains grow throughout the school day.
We also know that the more time children spend outside, including in school gardens, the less myopic (nearsighted) they will become (11–13). Simply looking up from their desks or screens and surveying the wider world around them, and focusing their eyes at varying depths and on naturally moving objects in the school garden benefits their eye health.
When outdoor learning takes place in a school garden setting, students get added health benefits: according to the CDC, school gardens reduce obesity, increase physical fitness, and improve nutrition (14). Every year we see Land to Learn’s students go from cringing at carrots to begging for thirds! This love of nutritious eating is of increased importance since obesity is a COVID-19 risk factor.
It might seem strange in this time of extreme cleanliness, but one of the benefits of learning outside is getting hands in the soil: exposure to soil’s diverse microbes has positive immune impacts, as well as antidepressant-like effects (15, 16).
Students benefit from other mental health improvements as a result of learning outside: time outside increases students’ attention and self-discipline, and indoor classroom engagement is significantly better after an outdoor lesson. Classes that learn outside have better social connection and show more creativity. Even seeing green plants as part of their view every day allows students to concentrate better and control their impulses, helping them focus and learn. Concentration, focus, social connection are all challenges children are feeling particularly keenly because of the pandemic, and learning outside fosters each one.
"I find on [garden] days the students are more engaged and ready to write more. They have a smile on when they get to taste something new from the garden." -Matt Scully, 1st Grade Teacher at Gidney Avenue Memorial (GAMS) High Tech Magnet School
Why this is necessary (healthwise) in COVID-19 times
Health experts and White House officials are expecting a second wave of COVID-19 infections to hit the U.S. in the fall (17), colliding head on with the school calendar and eroding any lingering expectations of normalcy for the fall semester.
Even if learning outside wasn’t already incredibly beneficial to students, it’s suddenly imperative. According to an article published by Environmental Health, "Low moisture and nutrient levels, combined with high levels of ultraviolet (UV) radiation mean that the atmosphere is inhospitable to microbial life. The huge volume of air outdoors compared to air indoors also helps to dilute the concentration of microbes and reduce the level of exposure." (18)Greater air circulation in outdoor environments decreases transmission of not only coronavirus, but also long standing threats such as the common cold, norovirus, and flu, to name a few (18).
Since the first week of the pandemic shutdown in March, Land to Learn has been offering distance virtual garden education lessons to thousands of our students through each elementary school’s video conferencing platforms, as well as posting videos online for students and their families to follow along and learn more on their own. The garden lessons are carefully crafted to align with school curriculum and state learning standards, ranging from celery stalk experiments to recipe journals to indigenous agriculture.
"I know, insects have 6 legs. I am getting smart at this! I am smart. And I’m a scientist." - Daddyan, 1st grader at Glenham
Some may ask, “why not keep teaching students from a distance, both with garden lessons and in public schools across the country?” Remote education is not serving students well. As almost any family who has watched their kids through the pandemic can attest, online learning offers generally suboptimal educational experiences and worsens educational inequalities. Outdoor education for all helps fight pernicious inequalities including the digital divide (20, 21) (for instance, 38% of families in Newburgh, NY don’t have internet access (22)), and widening achievement gaps between middle class and low-income or other historically disadvantaged groups, including people of color. This equality of access is especially important since the communities most impacted by COVID-19’s health and economic impacts, especially Black and Latinx communities (22), are those being most left behind by the new distance-style of education. Wide-scale outdoor public education offers an innovative solution that can enhance educational experiences for all students while allowing for social distancing.
Teaching students outside is very different from conducting lessons inside a classroom. Many schools and teachers don’t yet know how to teach outside. You can’t just pick up the same lesson plans and move it out onto the lawn — that would be setting up teachers and students alike for failure and frustration. The dynamic outdoor environment is full of opportunities to learn, which could appear as distractions or roadblocks if teachers and students aren’t prepared to adjust away from rigidity to an activity-based, engaged learning experience for which the outdoor setting and all the wonders it contains is perfect. In addition to being expert at implementing this style of education themselves, before the pandemic, Land to Learn’s staff had already developed and piloted a teacher-training program, called ToolShed, so that elementary schools can learn to teach students outside in their own school gardens.
Some fear that weather may prove an obstacle to outdoor education. How can you teach outside if it’s raining, or snowing, or cold? In over seven years of teaching outdoors throughout the whole school year, we have found that students are eager to be outside regardless of the weather. There is no such thing as bad weather, only inadequate clothing—which is a concern for some students, given that 74% of our current students are economically disadvantaged (23), and sturdy shoes and warm coats are a stretch for many families. Investment in a few marquis-style tents would go a long way to providing a balance between fresh air and shelter from the elements. Other countries have already been implementing outdoor education in response to the pandemic - The fact that the places where they have been most successful at implementing year-round outdoor education for years include Scandinavia (24), Scotland (25), and Minnesota (26) shows that it can be done. The New York Times reported last year that outdoor models of preschool education are rising in popularity (27), and Forbes forecasted that the forest school model will become a major player in COVID-19-era education systems (28). Details like boots and tents are much more easily solvable challenges than most of the other hurdles related to restarting COVID-19-era education.
We don’t have to start reinventing the wheel—or the outdoor classroom. Outdoor education models already exist in at least eleven Hudson Valley elementary school garden program. Teachers are already familiar and supportive of outdoor learning at elementary schools in Newburgh, Beacon, Kingston, and Garrison year-round. In other communities there are certainly other garden and outdoor education programs that would be eager to support public schools in this learning curve. This pandemic is an important and unique opportunity to dramatically improve the way we provide education in (and outside of) public schools throughout the Hudson Valley and beyond. Let’s make sure that when teaching starts up again, we don’t do it in a way that leaves behind a large swath of our students - and instead learn from the models of successful fresh-air education that have been here all along.
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