TOP TIPS
FOR ORGANISING OUTDOOR LEARNING
From Dr. Katharine Forsey, Education Consultant to Gratnells, a regular contributor to its Learning Rooms
project, and a specialist in devising outdoor learning activities for schoolchildren of all ages.
In the October 2016 edition, we brought
you a collection of ‘top tips for taking
learning outdoors during the cooler
months’ shared ideas around using sand
dunes and wadis as outdoor classrooms
and some tips for managing groups of
students outdoors.
Now we’re back around to the cooler
seasons, we’re here again to share a few
activities you could carry out in these
locations and other outdoor sites. We hope
they will inspire you to take your classroom
outdoors and guarantee you will see a
positive impact on your students in terms
of engagement, learning and retention.
Exploring Biodiversity
Beaches and tidal streams provide a
wealth of opportunities to carry out
everything from simple,
ecological,
sampling techniques through to full
scale biodiversity surveys. The equipment
involved is often the same for primary and
secondary school pupils and ca n be used
for a variety of investigations.
Top Tips
Here are some tips to help you
get the most out of your
outdoor learning sessions:-
card) that non-living or plant based finds
can be stuck to and taken back to school.
Draw some overlapping circles in the sand
before grouping and sorting your finds
using your improvised Venn diagram You
could develop this into a more in-depth
investigation, answering questions such
as ‘do different parts of the beach have the
same things in the tide line’?
1. Carry out a site pre-visit without
the students and do a full risk
assessment, consider if the
potential hazards will change
under different weather conditions
2. Conduct site pre-visits at the
same time of day you intend to
visit with your group
3. If you’re visiting a coastal location
check the tide times
4. Group all your equipment into
easy to carry cases so the students
can carry everything they will
need to your study site themselves.
Use different coloured cases for
different activities
5. Put identification guides, recording
sheets, pencils or sticky strips into
the cases to capture the learning
6. Make sure your students
bring suitable outdoor clothing
to protect them from the
elements, sensible footwear
and a change of clothes –
don’t forget the sunscreen!
7. Bring plenty of water, outdoor
learning is thirsty work!
Simple exploration – take a walk along
the tide line with a collecting pot and a
brush or a spoon. What can you find? Is
it natural or man-made? Plant or animal?
This activity develops good observational,
identification, grouping and sorting skills.
Record your finds using a camera or a
simple recording sheet tailored to the age
and ability of your group or create a sticky
strip (double-sided tape on a length of
Beach transect – develop the simple
exploration and lay out a long flexible
measuring tape. Work from the shore line
at 90 degrees, travelling up the beach
through rock pools to cliffs, sand dunes
or vegetated areas. Use a random number
generator App to guide at which points
along your transect line you should survey.
Place a quadrat at each point to determine
your sample area. Record by sketching,
tally charts or taking photographs, use the
data on your return to school to create pie
charts of percentage area cover. Combine
data from all groups using ICT to build up
a full picture of the biodiversity of your
survey area.
What could you measure and record in
addition to the plant and animal species
you find? A simple data logger with the
right probes could record water and sand
temperature, salinity, light levels and wind
speed. You could build up a great picture
of the abiotic conditions that influence the
biodiversity right across your site. How are
the plants and animals you find adapted
to these conditions? You could develop
your geography skills too and survey the
morphology of the land, record aspect and
slope and investigate the impact on the
vegetation.