Involve Students in Planning

What: Include students in the process when planning for time outside. This could include assigning students to ask about time outside, asking students to discuss and identify what activities or how much time the class could do outside, planning and collecting data related to time outside, reflecting on outdoor activities, or examining the impact time outside has on mood or attention. Students could practice multiple writing, communication, math, and science skills through these activities.

How: There are several different ways to involve students in planning time outdoors:

• Assign students to ask about time outside as a classroom job
  • If you feel like you just forget about doing activities outside until it’s too late to make it work, consider asking a student to remind you. You could tell the student(s) to ask you at the beginning or end of each week about when the class will go outside during the upcoming week, or assign is as one of the rotating classroom responsibilities (paper hander outer, etc.). This can be a useful reminder, help hold you accountable for planning time outside each week, and help students feel a sense of ownership over the class activities.
• Ask students what activities the class could do outdoors.
  • Look through the daily or weekly schedule with students, and ask them which activities would be reasonable to do outside. Discuss why different parts of the schedule would or would not work well outdoors, and what it would take to make it possible for a specific activity to be outdoors. If students identify an activity, say it will work outdoors, and explain why, they may feel more invested in the activities and making them work outdoors. This could reduce behavior or management challenges while outdoors. Students may also identify activities that teachers did not consider as outdoor opportunities. If this happens, ask them to construct (or write!) an argument to support their claim that the activity would work well outdoors, and if they are convincing give it a try! Consider asking students to reflect on the experience afterwards, whether the activity went as they expected, and what could be done differently next time.
• Set a goal with students for the amount of time the class will spend outdoors.
  • Ask students what they think a reasonable amount of time might be, and why. Ask them to identify the times in the class schedule that would reach that goal. Ask them to explain their suggestions, or construct arguments to support their positions. Have students work in teams to come up with a proposal for a goal, and how to reach it (which activities), and present their proposals to the rest of the class.
• Have students plan data collection projects related to time outside.
  • Students could collect data on outdoor time and activities. Have them record the number of minutes on different days, during different seasons, and/or during different weather conditions. Analyze the data- calculate the total time, calculate a weekly or daily average, make bar graphs of time on different days/weeks/seasons, make graphs to compare the time during different outdoor events to the average time. Have students look for patterns in the data, and construct explanations. For example, does the class often go out on Wednesdays, but rarely on Fridays? Did the cumulative total grow quickly during the fall, but more slowly during the winter? Is the average in March different than the average in April? What might explain these patterns?
• Have students do a self or class reflection after spending time outside.
  • Ask students to write a reflection on whether the class accomplished the goals for their time outside, whether students were focused on the goals, whether students lived up to their parts of the Class Contract, or what could they do next time to make sure the class reaches their goals.