Bringing Outdoor Science in


Book Description

Clearly organised and easy to use, this helpful guide contains more than 50 science lessons in six units: Greening the School, Insects, Plants, Rocks and Soils, Water, and In the Sky. All lessons include objectives, materials lists, procedures, reproducible data sheets, ideas for adapting to different grade levels, discussion questions, and next steps.




Outdoor Inquiries


Book Description

Outdoor Inquiries offers approaches to help students become skilled at asking their own questions, gathering their own data and analyzing it for themselves-to become real inquirers. We recommend it to all of our teachers. -Lynn Rankin Director, Institute for Inquiry, Exploratorium The book is a great treasure for all science educators. -Hubert Dyasi City College of New York Here'ssome advice for teachers looking for science instruction to supplement their science textbooks and kits: Take it outside! Conducting science investigations beyond the four walls of the classroom is one of the best ways for young people to develop scientific thinking and to practice gathering and analyzing their own data. Outdoor Inquiries is the clear, concise handbook that shows you how. Outdoor Inquiries takes you step by step through guiding intermediate and middle level students to new and deeper understandings of scientific content, thinking, and procedures. From smart, pragmatic advice-including how to select an appropriate site for investigation, what to bring with you, and how to ensure student safety-to powerful, detailed lesson plans, suggestions for cross-curricular integration, and useful ideas for assessment, Outdoor Inquiries offers everything you need to get started. It outlines five interrelated strategies to use with students as they investigate their local environment: journal keeping mapping collection making field-guide development behavior study. In addition, detailed classroom vignettes from a variety of settings demonstrate how each inquiry strategy helps your students meet several recommendations of the National Science Education Standards by engaging them in: close observation long-term data gathering the generation of thoughtful questions data analysis. Step outside the usual kit-based science instruction. Nurture the inquiries of your science learners by helping them apply critical thinking skills to the real world as they make meaningful connections to their natural, dynamic local environment. Use Outdoor Inquiries and discover that when it comes to teaching science, the natural world can be your most effective instructional tool.




Outdoor Science


Book Description

Research shows that environment-centered education improves student achievement. Whatever your school's setting-urban, suburban, or rural-you can create stimulating outdoor classrooms for your students, with a little help from Outdoor Science. Author and state science specialist Steve Rich shows teachers how to create outdoor learning spaces that can be used from year to year-with little extra effort or resources. These practical suggestions for creating, maintaining, and using outdoor classrooms work for both elementary and middle school students. The simple and inexpensive lessons satisf.







Learning Science Outside the Classroom


Book Description

This book shows how a wide range of contexts for learning science can be used outside of the classroom, and includes learning: at museums, science centres and planetaria from newspapers, magazines and through ICT at industrial sites and through science trails at zoos, farms, botanic gardens, residential centres and freshwater habitats in school grounds. With contributions from well known and respected practitioners in all fields of science education and through using case studies, Learning Science Outside the Classroom offers practical guidance for teachers, assistant teaching staff and student teachers involved in primary and secondary education. It will help enable them to widen the scientific experience and understanding of pupils. The advice in this book has been checked for safety by CLEAPSS.




High-Quality Outdoor Learning


Book Description

This open access book reviews evidence and case studies on the effects of outdoor learning on teachers and learners. It shows how real-world learning outside the classroom contributes to unlocking the full potential of learners, demonstrating its benefits for academic learning, social competencies, personal and emotional development, psychological well-being, and physical activity and health. In addition, the book highlights how outdoor learning nurtures environmental awareness and helps learners to tackle current sustainability challenges. Its focus on high-quality learning makes it a unique contribution to the implementation of SDG 4. Aimed at lecturers at teacher training universities, teachers, professional educators, coaches, and multipliers who train staff of educational NGOs, as well as decision makers on all levels of education systems, this book is of interest to all those who seek a more in-depth understanding of the future of education.




Science Fix


Book Description

A practical guide to teaching science and bringing science learning to life in the primary classroom.




The funding of science and discovery centres


Book Description

Examines the role and effectiveness of science centres, how science centres are co-ordinated and organised, and how they are funded. This report also welcomes the offer by the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills to take responsibility for science centres.




The Outdoor Classroom in Practice, Ages 3-7


Book Description

The outdoor environment is now an integral part of many early years settings and schools, but is it being used to its full potential? Providing extensive, challenging and ever-changing outdoor play experiences is an essential and valuable aspect of early years education. This book offers comprehensive guidance on how the outdoor environment can be used to teach and challenge all children across a range of settings drawing on forest school practice. Following a month-by-month format, each chapter provides a selection of theme-related play experiences alongside planning and evaluations of how the ideas described were carried out, and reveals the impact that they had on the children. Including detailed information on the role of the adult, the environment, planning and using children’s interests to guide their learning and development, the book features: over 100 full-colour photographs to illustrate practice diary entries that reflect how the planning was delivered, what changes were made and how aspects of learning were recorded and assessed examples of practice as well as comprehensive resource lists and safety guidelines links to indoor play and opportunities at home. Written by a leading authority on forest school practice and full of practical ideas that can be adapted to suit individual children’s needs, this book aims to inspire practitioners to make the most of the outdoor environment throughout the year.




Field Notes on Science and Nature


Book Description

Once in a great while, as the New York Times noted recently, a naturalist writes a book that changes the way people look at the living world. John James Audubon’s Birds of America, published in 1838, was one. Roger Tory Peterson’s 1934 Field Guide to the Birds was another. How does such insight into nature develop? Pioneering a new niche in the study of plants and animals in their native habitat, Field Notes on Science and Nature allows readers to peer over the shoulders and into the notebooks of a dozen eminent field workers, to study firsthand their observational methods, materials, and fleeting impressions. What did George Schaller note when studying the lions of the Serengeti? What lists did Kenn Kaufman keep during his 1973 “big year”? How does Piotr Naskrecki use relational databases and electronic field notes? In what way is Bernd Heinrich’s approach “truly Thoreauvian,” in E. O. Wilson’s view? Recording observations in the field is an indispensable scientific skill, but researchers are not generally willing to share their personal records with others. Here, for the first time, are reproductions of actual pages from notebooks. And in essays abounding with fascinating anecdotes, the authors reflect on the contexts in which the notes were taken. Covering disciplines as diverse as ornithology, entomology, ecology, paleontology, anthropology, botany, and animal behavior, Field Notes offers specific examples that professional naturalists can emulate to fine-tune their own field methods, along with practical advice that amateur naturalists and students can use to document their adventures.