Nature–Culture Relations in Outdoor Teaching and Learning Environments: Changes in Instructional Practices?

• In Event: 33.060 - Dynamics of Nature–Culture Relations in Learning in Informal Environments

Abstract

Objectives–
This study investigates science learning outside of the classroom, specifically focusing on engagement in the outdoors, with the natural world as an active agent in student learning. The researchers designed and implemented a curriculum that encouraged student participation and immersion in the environment, with the intention of facilitating a relational perspective and complex systems thinking.
Perspective–
A significant portion of learning that takes place out-of-doors is concerned with the study of nature and has a scientific focus. Outdoor and environmental educators emphasize the importance of experiential learning observation (Woodhouse & Knapp, 2000; Smith, 2002). The implicit end to many outdoor learning activities is to teach students how to translate outdoor observations and experiences into knowledge that is validated and deployed in the classroom (Elkins & Elkins, 2007; Morag & Tal, 2011; Manduca & Kastens, 2012). This is a problematic shift; students are encouraged to create tangible, real-time knowledge, yet are expected to apply their newly acquired knowledge out of context for purposes of assessment and evaluation. This move to take ecological knowledge out of context is one reason why Indigenous children are often assessed as failing within Western science paradigms (Bang & Medin, 2010), yet Indigenous knowledge is extremely well-informed in terms of ecological processes and the life sciences (Cajete, 2005).
Methods–
Children at a summer camp are introduced to native plants and encouraged to establish a personal relationship with a given plant. Indigenous teaching methodologies are employed throughout the course of the camp, emphasizing interdependence between individuals, species and groups. Instructors implement discursive moves and practices designed to facilitate relationships and thinking about complex natural systems. Students learn about the plant in relation to its role in the ecosystem and their ancestral relations to the plant and the ecosystem that they are also part of.
Data sources–
The study focused on five students between 6 and 13 years old. Video recordings of the two activity presentations and student interactions with the plant; student worksheets; and student interviews were all collected over a two-week period and then analyzed.
Results-
By adopting instructional practices that promote a relational standpoint to the natural world, instructors position children to draw upon the strengths of knowledge-in-context rather than asking them to integrate discordant epistemologies. Preliminary results suggest that instructional moves that draw attention to relationships and ascribe agency to the natural world facilitate a deeper understanding of complex systems reasoning.
Significance of the study–
Science education needs to evolve by seeking to create consistency between purposes, methods and assessment. (Colucci-Gray, Camino, Barbiero, & Gray, 2005). Science teaching methods that emphasize connections between humans, plants and all the components of a given ecosystem will foster student ability to comprehend complex systems. This deep understanding of the natural world will equip students with the skills to negotiate complex ecological systems, even as these systems change.

Author

• Megan C. McGinty, University of Washington - Seattle