In the News

Outdoor Classrooms Can Help Kids Do Better on School Tests
date posted: March 2 2004

By John Cobourn, Water Resource Specialist; and Heather Segale, Environmental Education Coordinator; University of Nevada Cooperative Extension;

Educators throughout the country are researching ways to help schoolchildren learn more and perform better on standardized tests mandated by the No Child Left Behind Act. The 1983 Federal study, “A Nation at Risk,” states that integrating subjects aids learning. In other words, students learn math, language arts, social studies and science better if they learn them together, rather than as isolated subjects.

A 2002 study by the California Department of Education, “Education and the Environment,” shows that using the school and surrounding community as a classroom environment provides an effective way to integrate subjects. The study encourages teachers to incorporate the local environment so fundamentally into education that the environment becomes the classroom.

The Lake Tahoe Environmental Education Coalition (LTEEC) and its partners are helping interested local teachers to incorporate this kind of teaching, called “place-based learning,” in Tahoe schools. In addition, some educators have founded nonprofit organizations that local schools can use to get students out into the Tahoe Basin environment for learning experiences.

One such organization is the Great Basin Outdoor School (GBOS), which runs fall, winter and spring programs for fifth- and sixth-grade classes from regional schools. They also do programs for home-schooled children. In the winter, GBOS takes kids out for overnight winter ecology field trips. Students learn to explore the forest at Spooner Summit on snowshoes and stay in heated cabins at Camp Galilee at Lake Tahoe. They learn about the adaptations animals make to survive our harsh winters. They also get to meet Steve Hale, USDA Forest Service naturalist, who plays Dr. Church. Church was the UNR scientist who invented the Sierra Snow Survey. This important tool helps us forecast the size of our water supply each year from the depth of the Sierra snowpack.

In the spring and fall, class groups stay at Camp Galilee for three nights and four days. They study forest, wildlife and water ecology; geology; and astronomy. They also do service learning projects and study Tahoe issues on the Marine Research and Education’s vessel, the Prophet. High school and college students receive leadership training and earn community service hours for helping out as cabin leaders.

Most spring sessions at Camp Galilee are tentatively filled, but there are still openings for small groups of a dozen or so private or home-schooled children. Teachers with larger groups can book their fifth- and sixth-grade classes now for sessions this fall. The programs are available to all schools, including those with low-income students. For more information, teachers can call (775) 689-2626 Ext. 2801 during school hours; e-mail info@greatbasin-os.org; or logon to http://greatbasin-os.org. Also, feel free to contact GBOS if you’d like to find out how you can lend a hand. As a nonprofit organization, Great Basin Outdoor School is in constant need of support from the community.

Through programs like GBOS and other local programs, such as Adopt-A-Watershed and Sierra Watershed Education Partnerships (SWEP), local teachers are getting help with the relatively complicated task of using the environment as an integrating context for learning. Rather than teaching only from textbooks that may describe far- away wonders, such as the Sahara Desert or the Amazon, these teachers are getting students excited about the real world right outside their doors. Whether students go on field trips with GBOS or simply grow native plants on a corner of their schoolyard, they find this kind of learning fun. And, research shows that when students learn about their place in the world and discover their “ecological address,” they often become much more engaged in their communities and motivated about their education.

Watch for “The Lake Tahoe Report” on KOLO-TV News Channel 8 every Tuesday at 5 p.m. to learn more. Next week’s article will discuss Tahoe’s air quality and the research being conducted to determine the sources of air pollution. “The Lake Tahoe Report” is a collaborative effort of the Lake Tahoe Environmental Education Coalition, University of Nevada Cooperative Extension, UC Davis and the USDA Forest Service. For more information, contact Heather Segale, University of Nevada Cooperative Extension, (775) 832-4138, or logon to www.lteec.org or www.unce.unr.edu.