Emily Kang and Mary Jean McCarthy
During these difficult times, we hope all of you are staying safe and healthy. Based on conversations we’ve had with teachers, many have moved mountains to transition to online teaching. You’ve received countless hours of professional development on resources such as Screencastify, PearDeck, Google Meets, etc. With the increase of students’ (and our) exposure to screen time, here is one more teaching resource we’d like you to consider: Mother Nature.
Richard Louv coined the term “Nature-Deficit Disorder” (NDD) in his 2005 book, Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder. The phrase describes the human costs of alienation from nature. An expanding body of scientific evidence suggests that nature-deficit disorder contributes to a diminished use of the senses, attention difficulties, conditions of obesity, higher rates of emotional and physical illnesses, and a weaker ecological literacy of the natural world. However, NDD can be reversed! Dr. Lawrence Rosen, a renowned pediatrician, cites numerous evidence for the benefits of the outdoors: it encourages exercise, reduces anxiety, improves focus, and raises interest in the environment.
As educators during this pandemic, incorporating the outdoors into e-learning is an unprecedented opportunity to use every student’s backyard, front yard or window as a science learning tool. Here are some ideas to get you started including those to use with students who have limited access to a green space:
- Use your phone’s camera as a hand lens. Most students have access to either their own or their parent’s phone and can go outside to zoom in on an object. Students can post their images and have classmates try to figure out what the “mystery object” is. Here is a photo Emily took of a newly hatched monarch caterpillar:
Zoomed-in version (left) vs. actual scale (right)
- Engage students with phenomena from the outdoors. This is the same type of NYSSLS-style instruction that many of us were practicing with prior to the pandemic, except modified to suit a virtual audience. For example, present this photo to students: (warning: graphic image so consider showing only to secondary students)
Have them notice and wonder about what they see. Support them in developing a key question to investigate and connect it to a crosscutting concept – for example, what CAUSED the caterpillar to die? Students can then develop an initial model/explanation for the phenomenon via Flipgrid. Then students can read more about this phenomenon here and revise their models. You can then connect this phenomenon to other ideas around parasitism.
- For elementary students, if you are recording stories for your students to listen to, consider adding a phenomena at the outset. For example The Grouchy Ladybug was chosen since the students were learning about telling time. This recording has a video of actual ladybugs eating aphids included. Students are asked to notice and wonder before listening to the story.
- Notable Notebooks: Scientists and Their Writings by Jessica Fries-Gaither can be posted on your website and serve as a springboard to motivate students to make journal entries. Here is a link to a read aloud version of the book (yes, teachers are allowed to read aloud books on Youtube)
- Use The Next Time You See NSTA Kids book series to bring outside phenomena onto students’ screens and into family conversations inviting children to share what they notice and wonder. One first grade teacher used the Seesaw app for her students to listen to Next Time You See a Seashell, followed by a simple shell sorting activity. Students could sort their own shells or complete an online assignment. Next Time You See a Cloud encourages students to view clouds in their own backyards, relax and enjoy.
- Record yourself doing something outside as a virtual field trip. (One teacher recorded her friend taking care of her beehive). Crossroads Farm at Grossmann’s, a NOFA certified organic non-profit farm in Malverne, provides a wonderful setting for students to visit. Their experiential programs invite all to join in the activities that make the farm grow. Mary Jean and educators from the Farm connected with a first grade teaching team to “bring” their first graders to the farm. Using Google Meets and an IPad, farm educators invited students to share what they noticed and wondered about seeds, the wide diversity of seedlings in the greenhouse and the crops growing in the fields. Students carefully observed and sketched a sweet pea plant with tendrils. On another trip, students observed bees being drawn to last year’s kale flowers and the killdeer breeding in the field.
Photo of bee at farm and student’s drawing of bee
- Afterwards, they will read and discuss Next Time You See a Bee.
- Seatuck Environmental Association’s “Get Out With Seatuck” project aims to help everyone explore the natural world around their homes. Every morning they post a new nature-based activity or challenge for a daily dose of nature! See also their 2020 Wild & Scenic Film Festival where attendees will enjoy award-winning films about nature, community activism, and conservation, including many that relate to Seatuck and their work on Long Island.
- We work with teachers through the Greentree Foundation Teachers Ecology Workshop to support them in using nature in instruction and connecting their students to Long Island ecology. Here are some of what they have shared:
- have students collect items from the outside (5 different kinds of leaves or rocks, a picture of a tree in bloom)
- birdwatch outside or through a window using a set of TP roll binoculars.
- Encourage students to sit outside, close their eyes and quietly listen for 10 minutes.
As you can see, there are many ways to engage students with nature. Hopefully we will find that these experiences will lead students to a greater sense of connectedness with nature and increased curiosity about phenomena during these times (and always). Stay safe and well!
*Emily Kang and Mary Jean McCarthy are professors in the College of Education and Health Sciences at Adelphi University. They work with teacher candidates and specialize in science teacher education.