I. General Information
School Name: Frank J. Ney Elementary
School District: SD#68 Nanaimo-Ladysmith
Inquiry Team Members:
Terra Hooyberg: terra.hooyberg@sd68.bc.ca
Cathy Wicks: cwicks@sd68.bc.ca
Tina Moore: tina.moore@sd68.c.ca
Gregg Halfyard: ghalfyard@sd68.bc.ca
Quinn Olson: Quinn.Olson@sd68.bc.ca
Inquiry Team Contact Email: tzolob@sd68.bc.ca
II. Inquiry Project Information
Type of Inquiry: NOIIE Case Study
Grade Levels Addressed Through Inquiry: Primary (K-3)
Curricular Areas Addressed: Applied Design, skills & Technology, Arts Education, Career Education, Language Arts – Literacy, Language Arts – Oral Language, Language Arts – Reading, Language Arts – Writing, Mathematics / Numeracy, Physical & Health Education, Science, Social Studies
Focus Addressed: Growth mindset, Land, Nature or Place-based learning, Self-regulation, Social and emotional learning
In one sentence, what was your focus for the year? We wanted to determine if regularly scheduled and practiced Outdoor Education/Learning would help to foster some of these important skillsets that our students will require to be more successful in our current school system(s) and life.
III. Spirals of Inquiry Details
Scanning: We saw through our inquiry process that our students who were at an impressionable age (5-8) during our COVID pandemic (and beyond) are now coming to school displaying a variety of increased anxieties. Additionally, many of our young students are lacking in many of the social and self-regulation skills that are necessary within a classroom or community environment. Furthermore, these students have also displayed that they are lacking in the important ability to ask questions and to have of a sense of curiosity/wonder. This made us ask ourselves if having regularly scheduled outdoor education classes would help to lessen some of our students’ anxieties, while at the same time help to increase their sense of wonder, their ability to ask questions and explore with the innate curiosity the most children have.
We soon realized that our lens/question was too big and needed to be narrowed, which lead to the dilemma of which one do we focus on, and which one do we think would have the biggest impact on our students and possibly still foster growth in some of the areas we were looking at. After much reflection we determined that our students need to be able to self-regulate before there can be other learning involved, and with that determined we forged ahead with the new focus of “How can we have our students develop their self-regulation skills/tools and grow a greater understanding/respect for themselves, nature and others?”
As our inquiry progressed, we realized that by allowing our students these weekly outdoor learning experiences, we were giving them the opportunity, space, and time they needed to explore, as well as helping them to develop creative and critical thinking skills. Furthermore, we believe it enabled our students to develop their ecological literacy, as well as an appreciation for nature. As educators, it becomes our responsibility to teach our students how to grow their self-regulation skills by giving them numerous opportunities and situations to develop these important life skills. Although it was a short timeline, we believe we saw some growth in our students. We wondered that given the opportunity to repeat the process, if we could more accurately assess the role outdoor learning plays in helping our students to gain better self-regulation skills. In addition, by continuing with the same type of inquiry, would we see if our students truly do develop an appreciation for, and a better understanding of, others, nature, and themselves. We know that Outdoor Education provides our students with a powerful learning environment that stimulates their sense of wonder and curiosity, and we were excited to see what personal growth our students would experience during this year’s inquiry process.
Focus: As mentioned above, we selected this area of inquiry after modifying it somewhat from our original question/wondering, because we truly believe that part of our students’ success in life and in school are reflected in their ability to self-regulate. As the Foothills Academy Society states, “Self-regulation is a skill that needs to be supported in children because it is key to their overall success and happiness. Children who can cope with stress, anger, disappointment, and frustration are more able to do well in school, with friends, and at home.” Furthermore, we were intrigued to see if our inquiry question/wondering would have the impact on our students that we had hoped. We were specifically hoping that it would help them grow their self-regulation and social responsibility skills, as well as spark an interest and grow their sense of wonder/curiosity.
Hunch: Our hunch is that by exposing our students to weekly scheduled outdoor learning experiences, that our students would grow, in varying degrees, some of their self-regulation skills. We know that Outdoor Education is some of our students’ favourite time of the week, and if we can capitalize on that to grow their self-regulation skills, then we know that we will have been successful on some level. Additionally, we believe that outdoor learning offers a unique environment that allows for some of our students to thrive in ways that a ‘traditional’ classroom does not. We also hope that being in nature will in and of itself bring out some of the calming influences that our students need to help grow their self-regulation skills.
New Professional Learning: We learned and are continuing to learn about the value of using outdoor education as the vehicle to address/teach social, emotional and self-regulation skills to our students. Some of us were able to ‘dip our toes’ in all that the “Open Parachute Project” has to offer, and we would like to continue learning more about it and how it can help our children to grow their self-regulation and social emotional skills. We also are looking at working more with Nanaimo Food Share and their School and Community Garden Programs. Additionally, we are starting to explore the idea of bringing ‘mindfulness’ books such as “Breathe Like a Bear” by Kira Willey and “Alphabreaths the ABCs of Mindful Breathing” by Christopher Willard and Daniel Rechtschaffen into our outdoor learning spaces, to use as a tool to further help us teach our students the valuable regulating practice of calming and focusing ourselves through the use of picture books.
Taking Action: As we were all well practiced in teaching Outdoor Education, we just had to tweak our approach and modify our expectations of our outdoor classrooms to reflect our wondering of our inquiry. To that end, some of us added into our ‘opening circle time’ a senses ‘walk through’ where we invited the students to close their eyes and ‘experience’ nature through their sense while sitting calmly and being led through this exploration by their teacher. Their teacher would encourage them to listen, smell, feel, and eventually see through a quick guided list of sensations they could experience in that moment in time, at that particular spot. For example, the students might have been asked to listen to the birds, the trees sighing in the wind, the squirrel chattering in the tree, to feel the wind on their face and the log beneath them, as well as smelling the pine from the trees, or the salt of the ocean, and to see the trees waving above them or the snail on the ground. These small ‘noticings’ were often enough to help slow the students’ minds and focus on nature or the lesson that would follow. Additionally, some of us added ‘sit spots’ where the students found a quiet spot to sit and journal or draw what they saw, heard, felt, wondered, or experienced in nature. These reflective moments also helped to set the tone for the students and the leaning that followed. Another technique utilized was the idea of looking ‘deeper’ at the subject/item or whatever it was we were learning about, so that we did not just notice the usual aspects but thought deeper and more reflectively on what it was or how it was important to our ecosystem, and the role it played. For example, if we were learning about fungi, we might first notice what it looked like, but then start to ‘really’ notice the fungi’s value in nature and why we have to appreciate and protect it as well as start to understand how vital it is in our lives outside of the forest. One of our best regulation tools remains our ‘nature journals’ as it is when most of our students are their calmest, most focused, and thoughtful. We believe that the nature journals offer the students freedom and the ability to show their learning in a variety of ways that is more comfortable, and in a sense more calming, than being in a traditional classroom that has different expectations and criteria. Finally, all of us end our outdoor classroom with ‘circle’ time where the students come together and have to respectfully acknowledge what they are grateful for in nature that day. This routine, again, reinforces that the students have to be present, mindful, reflective, and thankful for all aspects we are trying to teach them as they grow their self-regulation skills.
Checking: Any answers we give will be lacking the richness it is intended to have. To be able to summarize the differences we made would be impossible to document because as with all learning it is the infinitesimal nuances and ‘small steps’ that we all take that make our learning visible, memorable, and hopefully impactful. Some of the measurable learning/differences we did make include:
• recognizing and adjusting our teaching to fit the outdoors, taking the time to model what is expected in our learning space and how to interact within it
• caring for our outdoor learning space and the forest animals that visit/live in it,
• classifying/identifying & naming some native plants, insects, animals
• respecting, honouring, and giving thanks to our Indigenous Peoples and Ancestors for allowing us to learn, play, explore, and grow on their traditional lands
• how and why the drum, the circle, and the talking stick are so important, and how to behave when we hear the drum or partake in the circle with the talking stick
• how to transfer our learning in one outdoor learning space to another
• how to better self-regulate our bodies and co-operate with our friends
• the importance of being quiet in a space and allowing nature to share its secrets with us
We also know that we have only scratched the surface of this inquiry question, and would welcome more time to further explore where this inquiry question, and our students will take us.
Reflections/Advice: We think that all of our comments above demonstrate the heartfelt thanks and appreciation we had for this inquiry project and how it helped us to grow as teachers. Our inquiry has made some visible, and subtle changes within our students, our classrooms, and our teaching practices. We as educators have seen the value of dedicating a specific block of time on a regular weekly basis to learn outside with nature as our guide. We look forward to building on our students’ and our learning, as we continue to incorporate outdoor education and all of its benefits into our personal teaching practices.
Our advice can be reflected in this quote from Nature Valley: “…the power of nature and its benefits are endless. Nature allows us to recharge, reset and increase our overall well-being. It can help us un-plug and create more meaningful connections, nature can be a true source of joy in everyone’s life.”
However, Dr. Lockwood more succinctly states that, “Outdoor play helps children grow socially, helping them to develop healthy ways of forming friendships, responding to physical interaction, and using their imaginations to entertain each other.” (Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia March 2024.
Thank you for this amazing opportunity; we are appreciative and grateful.