Saturday Academies—Outdoor Learning and STEM
Sessions are occurring concurrently. Please join us for one of the following sessions.
An Introduction to Outdoor Learning
This session is an introduction to outdoor learning in the early childhood classroom. Participants will receive best practice tips for engaging children in outdoor activities related to content areas and strategies for successfully integrating outdoor experiences into the daily schedule. The resource text used in this session is, Dirty Teaching by Juliet Robertson.
Teaching S.T.E.M. with Outdoor Materials
Creating a sustainable, educated workforce is dependent on the teacher’s ability to provide experiences, opportunities, resources, and contexts that provoke, stimulate, and support young children’s innate curiosity about the world around them. Utilizing STEM strategies in outdoor environments provides unique opportunities for children to develop inquiry-based applied skills of problem solving, analysis, innovation, creativity and communication in a natural context.