Earth to Class

One one level, it seem like a natural to teach geoscience as much as possible in the field.

On the other hand, unlike at the college level, few k-12 teachers seem to employ field experiences.

There are many reasons that public school teachers seldom take their students outside. Even for the best teachers, engaging whole classes of young students in meaningful and measurable educational activity is a formidable task. Both of these are essential.

Here are a few ideas from a k-12 teacher who has used them.

As much as possible, use the school grounds. This can eliminate the need to plan off-campus transport as well as extra coverage and logistical planning. I used my campus to show soil maturity locations, have students construct a landscape slope profile and measure streamflow. (Obviously these depend upon your on-campus natural resources.)

I had very good luck engaging my students in orienteering on my suburban school grounds. This was conducted as as a topographic map reading exercise taking students to about 10 check points marked on a map. Groups had staggered start times and I kept a record of the group times to complete the course. Young students probably need this kind of challenge to keep them on-task. Maintaining the “control points” and occasionally changing them was a challenge. (I used letters of the alphabet posted high, mostly on trees.) I used a double period lab time frame. Of course, at any given time, students might be anywhere within about 1/2 km of the building.

The popularity of the activity with students and our isolation from places of danger or off-campus interest were helpful. So was my rapport with students. Most students have watches and I had arranged a loud noise to alert students of the approaching end of the class time. In practice, this may have been redundant. I could have asked for help from an aide or parents, but regardless behavior management is stretched thin. Consider asking help from an administrator when you start to use something like this.

Building in time flexibility for weather conditions is important, even to the point of considering dew early in the morning.

2. Consider running “family field trips” outside school time (afternoons or weekends). This avoids many of the difficulties that would occur in running class trips during school hours.

Invitations were sent to each family telling them the time frame and what we would observe. We used family vehicles for transport. These trips were voluntary. I suppose you could make some extra credit available, but I’d feel obligated to offer a parallel task to anyone unable to attend. Parents and families seemed to eliminate discipline issues and guaranteed on-task participation. Unfortunately, student participation on any given trip is a small fraction of those I would like to serve. But the opportunity to interact with parents is very helpful to both teacher and parents.

3. A variety of geology exercises can be run using the classroom as a geographic setting. This might include measuring and mapping a temperature field or setting out rock samples as “outcrop locations” for observations or for mapping. You can even have students make astronomical observations by reflecting sunlight into the classroom or setting up constellation models. (See the attached activity.)

4. When possible, use authentic materials. Such things as sand or pebbles for groundwater measures, real fossils for paleontology, local rocks for geological samples, current weather conditions to illustrate concepts in meteorology make science more relevant Have you considered having your students make their own instruments including thermometers or other measuring devices. If a student doesn’t understand how an instrument works, can the student understand what she/he is measuring? Think about it.

Several factors seem to characterize the best of such ideas:

I.      Think “outside the box.” The best activities involve the creative use of locations and resources.
II.     Concentrate on what students do, not on what you do.
III.    Students are engaged by being involved in unique experiences. Students are more like to learn and remember what they have done when they are engaged.
IV.     Be sure it’s clear to students what you expect of them, even if they find the academic objectives obscure.
V.      Be sure that your students and supervisors buy into your ideas. Many of the best ideas involve different risks than you encounter in traditional teaching.
VI.     Science is not what you know, but how you know it.

Enough for now. I hope you find this useful.

If you use any of these ideas or adopt them, I’d enjoy hearing form you. I’d also be pleased answer any questions or provide resources off-list.

Regards,

Thomas McGuire
Author & Educator, Cave Creek, AZ