Wild Learning: Practical Ideas to Bring Teaching Outdoors – Rachel Tidd
- Offers practical and easy to implement activities that bring curriculum into the outdoors. Provides activities that can help educators overcome barriers to teaching outside. Activities are designed such that they are accessible to all teachers in diverse settings as well as for all students and are adaptable to fit curriculum changes.
Big Book of Nature Activities – Jacob Rodenburg
- “The Big Book of Nature Activities is a comprehensive guide for parents and educators to help youth of all ages explore, appreciate, and connect with the natural world. This rich, fully illustrated compendium is packed with crafts, stories, information, and inspiration to make outdoor learning fun!”
Last Child in the Woods – Richard Louv
- Documents decreased exposure of children to nature in American society and how “nature-deficit disorder” causes harm to both children and society at large. Louv speaks to parents, children, teachers, scientists and more who offer solutions to the deficit. In the revised edition, Louv offers a field guide with 100 practical actions that educators can take as well as discussion points for classroom, community and beyond.
A Walking Curriculum – Gillian Judson
- Provides child centred and developmentally appropriate activities that make outdoor learning meaningful, regardless of what outdoor spaces educators have access to. Breaks down the concepts of school that traditionally keep learning inside and offers practical strategies and examples for educators to follow. Empowers teachers to rethink how they engage with their students and to build confidence in taking students outside of the classroom.
The Book of Nature Connection – Jacob Rodenburg
- “With activities grouped by the main senses – hearing, sight, smell, touch, and taste – plus sensory walks and group games, The Book of Nature Connection is both a powerful learning tool kit and the cure for sensory anesthesia brought on by screen time and lives lived indoors. Spending time in nature with all senses tuned and primed helps us feel like we belong to the natural world – and in belonging, we come to feel more connected, nourished, and alive.”
Learning Outside the Classroom: Theory and Guidelines for Practice
- Outlines both theory and practice that will enable and support teachers in incorporating meaningful outdoor learning experiences into their daily routines and lessons in a variety of settings. The principles and examples provided are designed to be adapted by the educator to best suit the needs of their individual students and draw upon relevant content and local landscape. The text includes chapters on issues such as risk management and supervision outdoors, as well as curriculum, sustainability, curiosity and responsibility.
Balanced and Barefoot – Angela J. Hanscom
- A pediatric occupational therapist discusses the epidemic of lack of nature exposure in childhood, explains why outdoor play is crucial for cognitive and physical development and offers practical and engaging strategies for kids to build confidence, resilience and other skills that are essential for life and adulthood.
Braiding Sweetgrass – Robin Wall Kimmerer
- “As a botanist, Robin Wall Kimmerer has been trained to ask questions of nature with the tools of science. As a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she embraces the notion that plants and animals are our oldest teachers. In Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer brings these lenses of knowledge together to show that the awakening of a wider ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world. For only when we can hear the languages of other beings are we capable of understanding the generosity of the earth, and learning to give our own gifts in return”
