No Child Left Inside

James Zlatanov can't seem to post on the blog, so he asked me to put this entry up for him:

This entrance was inspired by a book by Richard Louv titled Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder. This book states that changing a child’s learning environment can really help with engaging a child’s learning. To be more specific Louv speaks of the importance that an out of the class room environment can have in engaging learners. Not only is the outside of the class room setting more engaging but it is also it is easier to learn about something by being exposed to it. In biology one can learn about our natural environment by interacting with it. One can learn about local species vs. invasive species and be able to pick them out easier than if one was to look at a picture in a textbook.
This idea interested me very much so I wanted to implement this somehow in social studies. Now I know that this is part of social studies already in the form of field trips to the museum, the legislature, etc., but I think this can be a daily thing. One can explore the neighborhood and one city block can explain a lot about society, demography, geography, history and politics. How can this happen? Well that would be up to the teacher but one must think outside the box, in other words you can continue to give lessons about the neighborhood but how would that fit with any of the PLO’s. The trick would be to develop a way that the micro can become the macro. A way that we can relate one city block to a development of a country or a society.
In this entrance I am just proposing an idea with small grass roots but I believe infinite potential. Children learn best about what they are engaged in. This I believe would engage many.
There is a great article that shows examples of how teachers can do outdoor activities related to social studies in the article that I reviewed for this class. The article is called Teaching About Local Government and Community: Classroom Tips and it is written by Patricia Shields. Here is the citation, it can be found in the UVic library database.

Shields, Patricia "Teaching about local government and community: classroom tips." Canadian Social Studies 34, no. 1 (October 1, 1999):
158-159. http://www.proquest.com.ezproxy.library.uvic.ca/