Bringing the outdoors indoors

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Bringing the outdoors indoors
Developing pupils environmental awareness
Jane Pagan, Lynne Jones David Longman
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We probably all agree that it is important to
teach children about the environment.
Education for Global Citizenship and Sustainable
Development (EGCSD) has been discussed in another
session and is a curriculum requirement.
Fifty years ago children were more aware of their
local environment but less informed about the
global situation.
Changes in society partly account for this but
the development of ICT has had an impact too.
Fings aint what they used to be!
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During the last 40 -50 years there have been
significant observable changes in the developed
world . . .

• Society is generally
• more affluent,
• more materialistic,
• more competitive,
• less secure,
• less trusting,
• increasingly unhealthy

• ICT has impacted on society because it has
• advanced without precedent,
• become cheaper in relative terms,
• provided for global communications,
• supported major scientific developments,
• made us better informed (educated?),
• provided sophisticated entertainment systems,

• Meanwhile the environment has
• been sacrificed for expansion in housing and
  industry,
• been stripped of natural resources to support
  demands of the population,
• been subjected to pollution of all kinds
  resulting from that population,
• been regarded as unimportant because not
  commercially significant,
• now become fashionable as a political issue.

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Some schools have developed areas of their
grounds to provide specific environments for
study.
Many have undeveloped grounds but these can offer
considerable potential for observation.
We worked with Y6 children from an affluent rural
school to study the pond in their grounds. The
teacher was minimally involved and the planning
was retrospective.
We also worked with a Y1 class looking at aspects
of the undeveloped school playing field. The
teacher was keen and actively involved. The
study was planned and the time highly structured.
Y1
Y6
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And finally . . .
The virtual trail is, in principle, an excellent
way to extend the learning from any visit or
outing.
Environmental science is an obvious example but
physical science could be supported similarly
using the playground apparatus, for example.
Other curriculum subjects would work equally well
or could be linked in.
ICT allows for accessible multimedia inputs and
the value of hypertext links means that the
learning can be scaled indefinitely.
The best experience required considerable
planning and preparation but it was time well
spent because it can be recycled and improved.
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And finally finally . . . If you wish to contact
us regarding this material we can be contacted by
email (see delegate list)