October 23rd Class – Finnerty Gardens

This week’s class, we took a class trip to Finnerty Gardens! These are gardens on campus have so many things to discover. There are many different types of plants, lots of benches, and other interesting things. We started this class with a presentation from Kirsten Pierce who is an outdoor educator. We started the class with a discussion from her about outdoor education and how we can incorperate it into our future classrooms. Then we got to explore Finnerty Gardens for ourselves. There were 6 QR codes around the gardens we had to find. When you scanned the QR codes some had educational resources about outdoor education, there were videos, and a Menti meter question. Then we wrapped up the class by asking Kirsten Pierce some more questions.

I think that discussing outdoor education and how we can incorporate more outdoor ed strategies into our classrooms is so important. Firstly, we live in a beautiful place, and we need to take advantage of it. As well, I have noticed from being in schools because of our Link 2 Practice that kids spend a lot of time on technology. Either because they are doing schoolwork on technology or outside of school. I think that it’s very important for kids to disconnect and get into nature. It is so good for our physical and mental health. Additionally, I think that if you teach the love and care for nature and the environment young, they will be able to take these skills and experiences with them as they grow up.

This has inspired me to think about how I can incorporate more outdoor education into my classroom. I like the idea of the QR code scavenger hunt. I think I might do it a little differently by maybe not having a QR code but instead just cards with questions for students to answer. Or I would have cards by different plant species designed for students to learn about the plants and their uses. I would say this class was very enlightening for how I might incorporate Outdoor Education into my classroom.