Nebraska Project WILD
Outdoor Classrooms

What are outdoor classrooms.
Outdoor classrooms vary greatly in their look and location. Although most outdoor classrooms are located at schools, they can also be at nature centers, local parks, and daycare facilities. They can be as simple as a grove of trees intermixed with musical instruments and natural building blocks. Or, they can be very intricate with dedicated learning areas – music & dance area, sand or digging area, water area, fort building area, etc. Look for more detail about designing your outdoor classroom soon!

The need for outdoor classrooms.
Much work has been done to educate both teachers and the general public of the benefits of using outdoor classrooms. Not only do outdoor classrooms offer students a more active learning environment, but they also help students integrate their learning through several subjects and facilitate critical thinking skills.

Using Your Outdoor Classroom.
Download “Using Nature to Meet State Standards”
All too often, schools spend precious time and dollars creating and installing outdoor classrooms just to have teachers apprehensive about actually using the outdoor classroom. The fact is that using an outdoor classroom to meet state education standards is a new concept for most teachers. The thought of developing an entirely new curriculum to engage children in nature and the outdoors while still teaching the same topics is daunting.

The Nebraska Project WILD program has developed a series of activities to help teachers make this transition. In this document (“Using Nature to Meet State Standards”), educators will find at least one SCIENCE, MATH, SOCIAL STUDIES, and LANGUAGE ARTS activity for each grade – preK through 5th.

Please feel free to download the guide and share with teachers at your school, parents, daycare providers or anyone dedicated to helping our children learn better... learn outside.

To learn more about effectively using an outdoor classroom, check-out the “Using an Outdoor Classroom Effectively” PowerPoint.

For more information, please contact:
Lindsay Rogers
Nebraska Project WILD State Coordinator
lindsay.rogers@nebraska.gov
(402) 471-5581

updated - Nov. 30, 2012