WHY PLACE-BASED?"What if school wasn't just sitting at a desk, reading a textbook, or using a geometry set? What if a student's education helped them relate to the land, their environment, and their place in the world?
Place based learning provides an opportunity to use the local community and the environment as a focal point for teaching and learning. It expands the classroom to include the world around us, and allows for individual exploration and discovery while still covering core areas like literacy and numeracy." - "Learning in a Local Context." Livingstone Range School Division. July 12, 2021 |
OUR LATEST ADVENTURE
PEAKS Campus
As part of our hearing and sound unit in science, we arranged a field trip to PEAKS Campus, a local learning facility situated just west of our school in Coleman, AB. During this experience, students got to enjoy a variety of center-based activities that allowed engagement with curricular outcomes in an environment other than the classroom. Some of these centers included:
As part of our hearing and sound unit in science, we arranged a field trip to PEAKS Campus, a local learning facility situated just west of our school in Coleman, AB. During this experience, students got to enjoy a variety of center-based activities that allowed engagement with curricular outcomes in an environment other than the classroom. Some of these centers included:
- Measuring the volume of sounds through the use of a decibel meters
- Constructing various configurations for sound to travel through in attempt to alter the volume
- Reflecting sound off of a variety of materials to decipher between which materials act as conductors/mufflers
- Hot dog roast!
- Indigenous themed games and land acknowledgements
- Constructing shelters with sound proofing materials
My Observations:
As students engaged in the various activities throughout the day, there were next to no behavioural episodes from the students that typically show unrest or cause distractions within regular classroom settings. Students were on task and eager to participate in the scheduled activities for the day, making behavioural management easier to regulate than it usually is. It was really interesting to watch students become so resourceful and apply critical thinking skills when creating their structures and including the various natural resources in their creations. In the classroom, I often find that students become extremely reliant on the teacher to solve problem they may run into or provide all of the resources they may need to compete an activity. While it is the teachers role to ensure students have the resources necessary to succeed, when engaging in outdoor learning, I found that student would include materials that were not provided by the teacher, to enhance their creation.
Below are a few of the many photographs I took of our outdoor experiences including science, Indigenous studies, and multiple trips to our local PEAKS Outdoor Campus that touched on different topics each trip.
As students engaged in the various activities throughout the day, there were next to no behavioural episodes from the students that typically show unrest or cause distractions within regular classroom settings. Students were on task and eager to participate in the scheduled activities for the day, making behavioural management easier to regulate than it usually is. It was really interesting to watch students become so resourceful and apply critical thinking skills when creating their structures and including the various natural resources in their creations. In the classroom, I often find that students become extremely reliant on the teacher to solve problem they may run into or provide all of the resources they may need to compete an activity. While it is the teachers role to ensure students have the resources necessary to succeed, when engaging in outdoor learning, I found that student would include materials that were not provided by the teacher, to enhance their creation.
Below are a few of the many photographs I took of our outdoor experiences including science, Indigenous studies, and multiple trips to our local PEAKS Outdoor Campus that touched on different topics each trip.
"I took a walk in the woods and came out taller than the trees." ~Henry David Thoreau |