Active Education Outdoors

Despite the well-researched assertion that education outdoors and physical and health education provide a more wholistic education that focuses on real-world issues and concerns, there is little-to-no training provided on environmental sustainability and physical education in Canadian Faculties of Education. Barriers to implementation are rooted in the belief that education should be confined to traditional material, and also include the fact that there are limited resources for schools and educators, as well as the structure of the Canadian education system, which currently places a large emphasis on standardized testing in the areas of literacy and numeracy (Canadian Council on Learning, 2009). As a result, these are subjects in which teachers and schools focus much of their instructional time.

Additionally, PHE Canada recognizes that young people have unique perspectives when it comes to education as they bridge being students themselves, modern thinking, and emerging educators. Active Education Outdoors aims to strengthen our education system by engaging these young people in leadership roles in developing and implementing teacher innovation projects.

There is no one formula for Active Education Outdoors, as the approach differs from season to season, landscape to landscape, and culture to culture. To adapt, educators must apply a range of practices for varying purposes and contexts, incorporate and integrate different kinds of knowledge, build up a sophisticated pedagogical repertoire, and adapt to learner diversity and shifting contextual forces.

Through this project, student candidates will begin by participating in online sessions that will introduce them to the overarching themes of the project: Healthy School Communities (HSC) Framework, physical activity (PA), environmental sustainability (ES), and outdoor education (OE). Students will also begin the development of innovative activities and programs that respond to their unique environments and contexts. A design thinking approach will be applied where groups will participate in Design Studio activity. Design Studio is a fast-paced and iterative process that focuses on idea generation, constructive feedback, and collaborative decision-making (Ogrin, 2016). Generally, participants are broken up into groups and go through 3 stages of brainstorming and sketching solutions to an existing problem.

Groups will then be invited to submit Active Education Outdoors proposals for consideration. It is important to note that each group will be composed of student leaders, a mentor advisor from a post-secondary institution, or a school implementation partner(s). The proposal can be for any course within the K-12 curriculum or unstructured time before, during, or after school (e.g. recess) but must tie together the 4 elements: HSC, PA, ES, and OS. Designed to ensure students success, each proposal will be peer and community reviewed.

Teams then present their unique solution to a panel of fellow pre-service teachers, academics, and other school administrators via a live online presentation. Selected projects will receive micro-granting to implement their program.

Successful groups will then return to their communities and execute their programs in the school setting. To support the projects, two virtual meetings will be held and communication mechanisms established to support Project Teams’ communicating with one another. The first meeting will be early in the process to present the various projects to each other. A second meeting will be held in the middle of the implementation phase to allow for discussion of challenges and opportunities that each team is facing.

Successful groups will also be invited to attend and present at PHE Canada's National Conference. This knowledge sharing will lead to a made-in-Canada suite of new and practical Active Education Outdoors initiatives for application in a variety of environmental contexts/all teaching subjects. Using this wealth of innovative program options and talent, a broadly applicable position paper, national competencies, and professional development resources will be built.

Active Education Outdoors introduces an enhanced approach to supporting comprehensive school health and environmental sustainability. By grounding it in notions of innovation, critical thinking, more student-centered learning strategies, and youth leadership in an affordable and equitable format, it aims to address real world issues and concerns. The result: a culture of physical activity and exploration of the natural world in and across the curriculum for students in elementary and secondary school settings will be fostered.

Built With

• design
• english
• french
• studio
• zoom