Schools in Parks: Making STEAM Education Natural and Fun!

This week, join me on a journey where the classroom canopy reaches the sky, and every leaf turns the page to a new lesson and experience. On this week's Adventures in Learning Podcast, we meet some of the creative minds behind North Carolina's successful Schools in Parks program. Join Randy Bechtel and Mary Meyer of North Carolina State Parks, and Sarah Yelton and Taylor Prichard from UNC Institute for the Environment, as we uncover the magic that happens when third through fifth graders swap their desks for dirt and textbooks for the textures of the great outdoors. Our guests bring to life strategies for building STEAM experiences — think water quality testing or wildlife tracking — that complement the curriculum while also fostering connections between children and the world around them.

Afraid of bringing the kids outside? Not sure where to begin? This episode is a treasure trove of strategies for transforming STEAM education into unforgettable outdoor experiences. Starting small can ignite a wildfire of curiosity — even a ten-minute jaunt outside the classroom can open new possibilities. Randy, Mary, Sarah, and Taylor share some of their favorite outdoor lessons and experiences, as well as strategies for engagement.

The Schools in Parks Collaborative page on the UNC Institute for the Environment website includes some great lessons and activities that can be taught in parks or on school grounds, as well as contact information for Taylor Prichard and Sarah Yelton.  NC listeners can also find teacher application information for the 2024-25 cohort of the Schools in Parks Collaborative!

• Taylor Prichard tmpricha@unc.edu, Environmental Education Specialist
• Sarah Yelton, sarah.yelton@unc.edu, Environmental Education & Citizen Science Program Manager

Here is a link the NC State Parks Field Trip webpage, which includes a variety of resources for setting up a successful park field trip in NC. Even if you are joining us from another state, I highly encourage you to check out the resources as they may spark inspiration that can lead to your own memorable field trips wherever you live. 

The full time NC State Park educators that are part of the Schools in Park program include:

• Sean Higgins sean.higgins@ncparks.gov - Interpretation and Education Manager
• Mary Meyer mary.meyer@ncparks.gov - SiP Program Manager
• Randy Bechtel randy.bechtel@ncparks.gov - I&E Specialist
• Melissa Mitchell melissa.mitchell@ncparks.gov - SiP Outdoor Recreation Coordinator

By collaborating with informal educators like park rangers, and by integrating outdoor experiences with the curriculum, teachers can confidently guide students of all ages through nature's endless classroom. So lace up your boots, grab a notebook, and join us in inspiring an enduring love for nature that grows with every STEAM lesson learned in the great outdoors.

Transcript

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Nature Education Partnership

Speaker 1 0:01

Wonder Curiosity Connection . Where will your adventures take you ? I'm Dr Diane , and thank you for joining me on today's episode of Adventures in Learning . So welcome to the Adventures in Learning podcast . Today I have a real treat for you . We have not one guest , but four guests , and I was fortunate enough to meet most of these amazing people on Pilot Mountain . In November , I had gone for a statewide conference in North Carolina and my very favorite part of the whole conference wound up being the time that we spent out on the mountain with the schools , in parks , folks , and today we're going to talk about the importance of nature education , about new ways that you can use science and STEM in your classroom , and ways to partner with folks you might not have thought of partnering with before . So welcome to the podcast , and I'm going to start by asking my amazing guests to introduce themselves and tell you a little bit about what they do right now . So who would like to go first ?

Speaker 2 1:13

I guess I'll go first . My name is Randy Bechtel . I'm a regional interpretation and education specialist with North Carolina State Parks and schools and parks is part of my job , and I get to work with not only these amazing folks but several other folks that are part of the program also . But I also have other duties and work with Rangers in a variety of capacities so we can provide education .

Speaker 1 1:44

Excellent .

Speaker 3 1:46

I'll go next because I'm also on the parks side of the partnership . My name is Mary Meyer and I'm the new schools and parks program manager , and so what I'll be doing is I'll be working with the Rangers and teachers as well to kind of facilitate the field trips at the parks .

Speaker 4 2:08

Excellent and I can follow that up with the UNC side of our partnership . I'm Sarah Yelden with the UNC Institute for the Environment Center for Public Engagement with Science and our job is here at the center to connect people outside the university with environmental research that's happening on campus and one of the ways that we do that is through teacher professional development and we've been working with state parks on the schools and parks collaborative since its inception and we're excited to bring Taylor into the group as well .

Speaker 5 2:47

So , yeah , just to round out the team , I'm Taylor Pritchard , the Educational Consultant at UNC Institute for the Environment , with CPES , and my job is very similar to Mary's , except I'm doing everything on the UNC side of things , so helping facilitate those field trips and coordinating all of our PD with the teachers that we do quarterly .

Speaker 1 3:10

So yeah , that's what I do with those in parks , excellent , so how about we start by letting people if they've never done a field trip like this ? What does it involve ? What does it look like ?

Speaker 2 3:29

All right , I'll start this and my teammates can absolutely jump in . So we this program focuses on third , fourth and fifth grade teachers , and what we are trying to do is support them . What support what they do in the classroom with their curriculum objectives and tie that to the natural resources that are in each state park and of course , that varies across all of our 42 state parks that we have . And so teachers work with a ranger , a local ranger , and they develop programming , they develop a relationship to continue programming After this , after their time in this program comes to an end . And what else am I forgetting ? What do you think , randy ?

Speaker 4 4:23

Well , I think you nailed it , randy . One of the things we're trying to do is to really create relationships between teachers and rangers so that we can support the teacher's ability to to bring their kids out to state parks on field trips , so bringing their entire class in some cases their entire grade out to experience all of the natural wonders that exist in our state parks , you know , from the mountains to the sea , and have some time to really connect with nature , to connect with their curriculum in a way that's really authentic and relevant , and just to have fun being outdoors . So field trips can be anywhere from an hour or two to ideally like a full day that's out of the park , going through multiple programs , having lunch out there , having some time to play with their friends and going back to school rejuvenated and excited and this is the teachers and the students to learn right and to connect to all of the things that are happening in the classroom .

Speaker 1 5:33

So what would a program look like ? Like , let's say , I'm a third grade teacher and I want to take my kids to my local park and you guys get to pick the geography . But if I wanted to come out and partner with a ranger , what might a day look like if I were bringing my kids ?

Speaker 5 5:51

So I'll say that I mean , initially , the kids all get there , they're super excited , they just kind of jump off the bus and we have to do some corralling . So the people who are assisting , and then the rangers as well as do some corralling , introduce them to the park , let them know where they are , and then I personally like to get a show of hands of who has been to this park before , and you'll be surprised that sometimes , like it's a lot of the kids that haven't even been to the park . It's like I don't know an hour away from where they live or where they go to school . But typically programs , as has been mentioned before , can vary just depending on what park you go to . So you do anything from like water quality or looking at soil and doing a bunch of different things with soil .

Speaker 5 6:36

Sometimes , if you go to like , let's say , you go to like Norman State Park , get on the canoes and you go out and have a day on the water . There's a program about skins and skulls or tracks and signs , where you get to look at all different types of animal pelts and footprints and whatnot , and it's just , it's so versatile . So there's just a bunch of things that you can do and , as Sarah said , the students have lunch at the park as well , depending on if the school has time for them to do that , but usually they do . So , yeah , that's basically kind of what what it is , and they'll go through multiple stations while they're while they're there , so every child gets to experience all the parts of the park .

Speaker 1 7:15

And so with those stations , I assume you all have sort of gone through preparing hands-on stations ahead of time . Is this something that you do as schools and parks ? Is this something that you do in collaboration with the teachers ? Like , how do you set up the stations ? What goes into preparing those ?

Speaker 3 7:36

Yeah , I'll jump in here . Let's say there's a group of 100 students . Because we often get full grade levels at a time or over multiple days , we broke that into about four stations of 25 students each . We might have 25 students canoeing or kayaking , 25 students doing a hike and then 25 students doing water quality and another 25 students doing , let's say , signs of animals tracks , and so they would . Ideally we'd have a ranger with each group . Sometimes the teachers , if they're feeling confident , they can self lead maybe the hike , a scavenger hunt , something like that . The more the teachers are willing to jump in with us , the better it is . They experiences for the kids and them as well , and so then they would cycle through those four stations .

Speaker 1 8:29

Excellent , and I can hear the passion from all of you about the importance of nature education . Why do we want to do that ? Why do we want to get out of the classroom and go to the parks ?

Speaker 4 8:43

Well , I will start , and I know we all have our own experiences to bring to bear here as to why this is important .

Speaker 4 8:54

But for me , as someone who has been working with teachers in schools for over two decades now , one of the things that I see is that in school and in classrooms our students don't always have the chance to connect to sort of the real world in the same way that they can whenever they're out in the woods or on the water or in the field and , you know , getting to see those insects and spiders up close , or they might be able to find the macroinverberates that are in the creek .

Speaker 4 9:30

You know things that they might read about , but they can really see and touch and create really memorable learning opportunities for themselves out there . So we also know research shows us that when people spend time outdoors they're more calm , they are able to . Students who go outside and come back in are able to pay attention more because of the stress reduction benefits of being outside . So that helps them to do better in class and just all of the social , emotional learning opportunities that happen outdoors whenever you're with a group . There's so many benefits to being outside and connecting to nature . I'm sure that my colleagues have lots of other things to add to that as well .

Speaker 2 10:19

No , Sarah , I'm glad that that you started on that because you have all that great education research that that shows us the benefits of outdoor education . And , just anecdotally , we've had teachers tell us that some of their students that they have problems with in the classroom after they're on a field trip or get some time outside in the schoolyard , they're much more relaxed . So it's just , I don't know about y'all , but if I sit for more than like an hour or two , I get antsy and I don't , I start fidgeting . So getting outside and being active is really important . And then it's those teachable moments when a turtle crosses your path or a hawk flies through the woods . Those are really memorable experiences and you might be doing something like on , you know mushrooms , but when you see that turtle walk by , you know that's just a wow moment for students and for the teachers too .

Speaker 1 11:32

Taylor . Mary , do you have anything you want to add ?

Speaker 5 11:36

Yeah , so I mean just going off of what Sarah was saying about the social and emotional learning I just I used to teach primarily outside in my first job out of college and you know , you get those teachers who come to you and they say that like this , might this student might be a problem for you , this student might be a problem for you , xyz , and throughout the time that you have with them , it's just like this student gave me no issues and maybe like I just feel like having students learn outside is a fantastic , a fantastic thing , because not everybody , not everybody , learns the same way .

Speaker 5 12:11

A lot of people don't do well learning inside and literally can just take their same math worksheet , go sit outside and do it and they're perfectly fine . That they would have trouble with doing inside of a classroom . And I just , I just think that giving them that different type of environment to learn in or and leaning into that for some students if you know that that's but if you've seen that that they do learn better outside or just work better outside , I'm just giving them the opportunity to do that so that they can be them their best , their best self , is very important to me .

Speaker 3 12:42

Yeah , and so many of the standards are about animals , plants , ecosystems . Let's go outside and do that in real life and see it in real life instead of , you know , talk about it in a book or on a PowerPoint .

Speaker 1 12:54

So I think that makes a lot of sense

Schools and Parks Collaborative Program

Speaker 1 12:57

. I was actually before we got on this call . I took a walk in our woods nearby because I'm prepping for a workshop I'm doing this week for some students comparing animals in Australia , antarctica , iceland and their neighborhood . So it was sort of trying to see signs of spring . What's coming up ? How do we draw these comparisons in a way that it's real for them ? And I love what you all do , because you take it that step beyond that , even where they're actually out in the environment . You know you can show so much . You can help people fall in love by sharing a video , but being there is the real deal . It's the stuff that makes the magic happen .

Speaker 2 13:41

Yeah , absolutely . And I just wanted to add one thing With the schools and parks program , when we work with a cohort of teachers , one of the things that we're trying to help the teachers with is that classroom management outdoors and some of the teachers that we have are outdoorsy people . So , with the fantastic team that I work with , there's all these different resources we can pull from and we do during some of our in-person stuff we can model . This is what we're doing . How would you ? You know , this is how you can set boundaries for your students or , you know , have them before they go on the field trip , practice going outside and getting their clipboard and that's not recess , but they're practicing going outside and treating it like an outdoor classroom , that there are rules and whatnot , but it's not restrictive , it just helps everybody manage and get the best possible experience .

Speaker 1 14:42

So you mentioned the teachers who go through the cohorts . How many years have you all been doing this program and how many teachers have gone through this ? What are some of sort of the outcomes that you all have seen from running this program ?

Speaker 4 14:59

Do you mind if I jump in on this one Randy All right and Mary and Taylor . So we started this program back in 2019 , in the summer of 2019 , with high hopes for that school year and had a slightly different model than we have right now , where we were really targeting areas around specific parks and counties there , but similar professional development to the idea of a long duration program where teachers can get , you know , between 30 and 40 hours of professional development over the course of a year . That we're doing relationship building with the Rangers and parks that are close by . And you know that first year we had great summer institute , which is the way that we sort of start off , had started to do some of our year on programming , and then COVID hit and with the pandemic we transitioned into more of a virtual environment . Mary was part of that in helping take us into the digital technology that everybody else was jumping in on . It was exciting .

Speaker 4 16:11

And then the past couple of years we've been able to sort of , I think , land on a model that really works well for us where we have teachers apply from across the state . We pair them up with Rangers at parks that are interested . They go through this year round professional development program . So we've had total about 100 , over 125 teachers at this point that have participated and over 20 park Rangers that have been part of this , and that collaboration really took off in the last couple of years where we've had the very intentionally brought in our park Rangers as part of the professional development , instead of them being providers , if you will , or someone .

Speaker 4 16:56

We just want you to learn , our teachers to learn you know who the contact is at a park . No , we want the Rangers to really come in and learn and work alongside the teachers through all of the professional development so that they can form those relationships and so that each group kind of gets an idea of how the other works , or Rangers get an idea of what the teachers need , the teachers get an idea of what the Rangers need and how to how to work together for supporting student learning . It's exciting because I think by my last calculation , that doesn't include this year's cohort , where I guess we do have another . Maybe we're up to 150 teachers now that we've been working with . We've impacted over 15,000 students in the last five years .

Speaker 1 17:44

I was going to say there's a huge multiplier effect because you've got 150 teachers , but then hopefully those teachers become ambassadors at their school and get other teachers excited .

Speaker 4 17:55

Exactly , and so we've had some from the same school , we've had many from . The word spreads around the district and teachers get excited , and we are just about to launch recruitment for our next group of teachers that will start this summer . So that's as we're wrapping up the school year . It's always exciting to have that happening . At the same time , we're getting into all of our reach to know workshops that Taylor alluded to earlier .

Speaker 1 18:25

So if you're listening from outside of North Carolina , you're out of luck . You need to contact your own local parks and see what kind of partnership you can do . But if you are in North Carolina and you're listening , who should you contact if you're interested in being part of the next cohort ?

Speaker 4 18:44

I would say take a look at our website , either UNC Institute for the Environment or North Carolina State Parks , and if you just search schools and parks collaborative , you should find your way to us . Taylor is going to be handling the application process for our teachers , so I'm sure we can share her contact information with you , diane , too .

Speaker 1 19:11

Absolutely , and we'll put that in the show notes . Is this model being used in other states ? Are you aware of any other state that is trying to do something like this ?

Speaker 4 19:24

Randy may have heard . I know that our one of the , sean Higgins , who is one of our collaborators and helped to start this program with Randy and I back in 2019 . He's talked at different conferences around the country and has had a lot of interest from other states in this program and how we are really creating this collaborative . But , Randy , I don't know if there are any that have taken a step further other than interest .

Speaker 2 19:58

Yeah , you know . That's a great question , diane . I am not sure I know many park systems have a field trip process , but as far as I know I'm not aware of other park systems taking a coordinated effort to pair the teachers and the rangers together and have them develop that relationship and help each other out .

Speaker 1 20:26

Okay , so that would be something . If you're listening and you're interested , reach out and they might be willing to help share and get you going .

Speaker 4 20:35

Definitely . I think it's a great model . It's one that we have been working on for five years now and trying to perfect , and is one that is unique in that we bring formal and informal educators together in the same place , so and I think there's a lot of learning that happens for the adults that are involved in the program , as well as the kids that they serve .

Speaker 1 21:01

Absolutely . I know I've worked on both the formal and the informal side of education and there are so many resources out there that we don't think to take advantage of when we're in the classroom . You know you've got your parks , you've got your rangers , you've got your local museums , the kids' museums , your librarians , but then there's regular community folk as well . You know , if you've got a zoo , reach out to your various zoos , but your veterinarian might be willing to work with you . Or you know there's just . There's always somebody who is happy to collaborate , but sometimes it takes a special program to get you to think strategically about how do we build those connections in a way that we're also touching on and enhancing the standards .

Speaker 4 21:50

So yeah , I wonder , sorry , no , go ahead . Go ahead . I was just I wonder . I know both Mary and Taylor come from , at least came to UNC from backgrounds in different either environmental education organizations or museums , and I just wondered if they had thoughts on ways they had connected with teachers or had teachers reach out to them .

Speaker 5 22:17

Yeah , so I mean my like immediately previous job . Before coming on to UNC , I worked at the Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh and I worked in the teacher education department . So I was mostly like 90% of the time working with teachers . So that's I mean , that's the only other experience I have working directly with teachers , besides being in with the schools and parks program , and I can just I feel like I can always see the benefit of taking teachers outside and explaining to them that the outdoors is definitely an extension of your classroom .

Speaker 5 22:54

You can use this , you can use this tool in so many different ways and it can be like with somebody who does work outside all the time , or just doing it on their own , and that's really what we're trying to get them comfortable with . And I mean at the museum , that's what they're doing , and then with schools and parks , that's also what we're doing is trying to get them comfortable like doing it , doing it on their own , because it can be uncomfortable if you are not , if you're not used to going outside , and it's it can be also very intimidating as well . So we're trying to , you know , bring up their confidence level with using the outdoors .

Speaker 1 23:27

So that makes sense , that you're looking for ways to build confidence and I always called it finding the wow moment too . You know Randy referred to that earlier and I know from a museum point of view that we're looking for those wows and looking for the thing that's that hook , that's going to get the kid interested and that's a skill set , and teachers have that skill set , but sometimes we forget we have it because we're so caught up in the day to day of I need to do this and this and this and this , and so being able to take that moment and take stock and go , oh yeah , this is the wow and it's fun . Mary , I want to hear about your experience too .

Speaker 3 24:05

Yeah , so I have over 10 years of working in various informal facilities , including zoos , gardens , museums , and so I was just going to add that we know you don't have time as teachers it times such a precious commodity and we know you're overworked and we know that you have those students there with you every day . And so the great thing about me partnering with formal teachers as an informal educator is that I didn't necessarily have students with me every day . So if someone came to me and said I want this really cool lesson and I've been thinking about how to incorporate , you know , something with snakes into my program because I have this one kid who loves snakes , that's something that I could then maybe write a curriculum on that they might not have time to do . So I would just say that's another added benefit of working with informal educators is maximizing kind of that partnership and the time that you may not have . So I'm not trying to give you extra work to do .

Speaker 1 25:05

I love that , mary . So , yeah , rely on those informal educators , because they will make your life so much easier . I love that Today . Early childhood and elementary school teachers and librarians , are you looking for ways to spice up your curriculum , build connections with engaged steam learners and introduce multicultural versions of fairy tales and folk literature ? If so , head over to drdianadventurescom and check out our on demand virtual course .

Speaker 1 25:40

Beyond ever after steam on demand virtual course allows you to work at your own pace and learn how to build these STEM steam connections through multicultural fairy tales and folk literature . You'll receive professional development credits after you complete this high energy three hour on demand course produced with Steve Spangler Inc . As a bonus , you're going to receive a PDF that's filled with curriculum connections and program ideas you can put to work immediately in your early childhood , elementary or library setting . Discounts are available for group purchases . Plus , you get special pricing when you purchase it as part of a regular professional development workshop . So head on over to drdianadventurescom and get started on your own . Beyond ever after experience . So I'm going to switch for just a moment , because I was thinking about this when I was on my walk today . As informal educators , do you have a favorite time of year to be outdoors and teach , and is there a favorite topic you love to share ?

Speaker 4 26:46

I'm going to jump right on that because my favorite time of the year is about to start and that is I like all seasons . But I love spring because spring ephemeral wildflowers are like my absolute most . One of the times you will find me most excited , like running down trails and screaming and scaring everybody , because I get so excited whenever I see the hepatica or the foam flower or whatever it is that I haven't seen all year . That's one of the reasons I love these flowers because most of the time they pop up , they're like the sign that things are , that winter is slowing down , that we're about to have some good times ahead , and they're beautiful and just found in these special places . So I love to share that with people and one day when I retire that's my ideal retirement job is leading wildflower hikes . I love it .

Speaker 1 27:45

Forever . So , randy , remember that . It sounds like Sarah wants to move to the parks .

Speaker 2 27:54

Absolutely yeah , and I guess I'll jump in .

Connecting With Nature in Education

Speaker 2 27:59

And my favorite time of the year is right now in the wintertime , when there's no leaves on the trees , because it makes it a lot easier to see the rocks . And not just the rocks , but , you know just the landscape , you know where do you have waterfalls , where do you have meandering streams . It's all so much easier to see this time of year when , when there's no leaves on the trees and you don't have to worry about poison ivy and all that kind of stuff or snakes or ticks , so you can go and really explore the rocks and the geology . That's my background and that's that's what I geek out about is rocks and trying to help folks explore and discover rocks on their own . And yeah , it's always a work in progress .

Speaker 1 28:56

Excellent .

Speaker 5 28:58

So I am a water bug . I love being in the water and my favorite , obviously the favorite time of year to teach is spring and summer . Spring , just because everything is so new , like we're just getting all the new things including , like the macron vertibus , the wildflowers , and I love doing saining or macron verberate sampling , just in a pond or something like that . And then for summertime I love being in the sound . So like , right where we're seven with that ground is at the Trinity Center is one of my favorite places to go to do , to do sampling in the sound , because there's just so so many cool things that you can see and like actually physically getting in the water with teachers or with students . There's just a different experience every single time .

Speaker 3 29:49

I'll just add a plug for the fall and winter as well , because the one great thing is no mosquitoes and also there's fewer general visitors at the parks . So you get that kind of magical and sensation of having the place to yourself and really , winter in North Carolina it's not that bad , you know . Usually it's a little cold but the sun's shining and you're just gonna have a great time . So I think I'm a fan of the winter and also fall .

Speaker 1 30:21

Excellent . Well , you guys have managed to hit all the different seasons and you hit a wide range of topics . And I remember as a girl I went to school in Fayetteville and I remember we did field trips where we went out to the sound and we actually did sampling in the sound . And I remember another one where we went out to the ocean and we got to work with the rangers at parks sort of out near the oceans . When I was out at Piley Mountain in November , randy , you did a really good job of helping us to see rocks in a different way and you made that really hands-on . And I was wondering if , building on your passions , if each of you could help a teacher sort of see how you might take something like that passion and turn it into a hands-on thing you would do with kids . I want to start .

Speaker 5 31:12

Okay , go , taylor , one of my favorite things ever , like literally since I was a child , is just soil . I love dirt . It's so cool , so fun , and I just feel like a lot of people don't think about the fact that there's a lot that goes , or there's a lot of things that soil does for us , and I just love doing it with students and showing them like you can and you can see what your soil is made of and that there's , you know , those three main types of sand , soil and clay , and you can make art with it if you want to . So all those things . That's . That is my piece . If you want to talk about soil , please contact me , actually Please contact me . All right , I can do that all day long .

Speaker 1 31:58

So if you're struggling with soil , reach out to Taylor .

Speaker 4 32:11

I can follow Taylor .

Speaker 4 32:13

One of the things that I love about wildflowers and in spring and being outdoors are the discoveries and sort of the sense of wonder that you have whenever you see these fresh little flowers popping out from the forest floor where previously , you know , just a couple of weeks ago , it was just brown leaves , you know , and there's the pops of color and I think that is an amazing thing for our kids to do in the schoolyard as well .

Speaker 4 32:42

So one of the things we try to do is really help teachers make that connection between learning in schoolyards and then learning in the state parks and building up confidence and comfort level for their students being outdoors . And I've done this activity and we've had other teachers do this activity where they work with their students to create a field guide kind of to their schoolyard , so going out to find those wildflowers that might be popping up or identify the trees or the rocks that are on their school grounds and then working together as a class to create a field guide that then they can take other students , maybe younger students , on tours of their school in school grounds and then look for some of those same plants , animals , habitats whenever they're out at the state park . So I feel like that's a fun way to get that sense of discovery and wonder really happened with students before they even get out to the state park , so that then they're primed to explore more .

Speaker 1 33:48

Well , and you've touched on five senses , you've touched on observational skills , you've got your language arts with the writing and the oral communication . So you've got it all in one nice little bundle .

Speaker 4 34:00

You can do anything outdoors , any subject , any content area . I feel like we can find an outdoor connection even on the school grounds or in the state park .

Speaker 1 34:11

Oh , absolutely , and that works even in an urban environment as well , because there's always something that you can observe and nature is interesting even in the cities . You're going to find really interesting things to see .

Outdoor Environmental Education and Technology

Speaker 3 34:27

So my passion really lies with combining outdoor environmental education and technology , and so you might not normally think those two things go together , but they do and they can . Like Sarah said , you can put any subject outside . But one thing I think is really fun are citizen science projects . So it's where you and your class go outside , and they have them for just about anything . You can count birds and bird calls . In fact , this weekend is the great backyard bird count , which is a fun one , but they have it for just about anything . There'll be different apps and things . You can go on and report your findings , and what's cool is you can actually put yourself on the map , usually where you say this is what we found in our school , and kids think they're famous If they see that . That's like going out to the world . That's really awesome . And then all sorts of good math things come out of it too , like graphing , and so I like that . You can take it inside , outside and incorporate technology too Excellent .

Speaker 2 35:41

And I've been working on a couple of things . And , diane , you saw one of the test runs on that Pilot Mountain Field Trip . I learned from a couple of awesome NC North Carolina State University education researchers and they came up with an activity called angles in nature and I had a little taste of it and basically you have the basic angles just drawn out . We're not looking at like , is it 72 degrees or 68 ? No , we're not doing any of that . It's is it some of the basic angles up to acute ? You know right angles and just go out in nature and look for those .

Speaker 2 36:25

And that really intrigued me because my background I worked as a geologist for a while and observations are the most important thing you can do with , especially with any natural science , is making those , those careful observations .

Speaker 2 36:42

And one of the things I've learned from working with schools and parks folks is then journaling about it and maybe there's some prompts there and I think being able to to take that quiet time and maybe it's five , 10 , 15 minutes and just draw what's around you and if you happen to have big rocks around , you draw them , and also using focus squares , basically tongue depressors .

Speaker 2 37:09

So sometimes people look at outdoors and go that's just a bunch of stuff , the focus square , you can , you know , either the student can place it or the teacher can place it and you , okay , what's in your little square ? Can you describe that ? And that's . That's some of the the interesting stuff that that we're working on and I find intriguing because biology always gets in the way of geology and it's happened to me . You know , oh , you're looking at a rock and a snake goes by , or a hawk comes flying by and you forget about the rocks . But that's where some of these observations can help folks focus a little bit more through the leaves , past the animals , and then look at at the rocks themselves , and there's usually a lot of interesting detail . That's , that's in there .

Speaker 1 37:59

Excellent , and , as I'm listening to you all , one of the things that I'm recognizing is what interesting backgrounds you bring to the work . You do that often . When we talk about STEM and we think about STEM careers , we're thinking about chemists or we're thinking about computer coders . You know things like that , and each of you is involved in STEM and you come from it from different backgrounds , and so I thought it might be useful . You , as a teacher , is thinking about how do I show all these possibilities to my students ? Maybe you can ask them about what you do , and I think that's maybe just to get a little bit more of a sense of what you do .

Speaker 2 38:43

Well , I'll go ahead and go first . So , like I said , my background is in geology and I would come home from school and during my time in grad school and Bill Nye the Science guy was on , and that's what I did . At 5.30 every afternoon I came back to my apartment and put on Bill Nye the Science guy and I'd never seen anything like that before . And you know , when you're going through a science becoming , you know , getting a degree in science , you're learning a lot of technical information and it's sometimes hard to figure out how to communicate with somebody who doesn't know all those crazy words that you do . And Bill Nye was doing that and I did .

Speaker 2 39:35

I kind of fell into the informal education world . There was a part-time job at a science center and that's where I learned how to work with audiences , how just different techniques to be able to communicate a variety of science topics , and that was , that was some great practice and that question and answer with , with , or just conversations with , folks in science centers or science museums . And then I worked as a geologist for a little bit and I mainly wanted to do that so I could learn the geology of North Carolina , because it's a very diverse , geodiverse state is what I like to say and I then this job with state parks came , came up and I was really happy to apply for it and got it and it's just a whole different experience taking that informal education outside . And I've said it before , but I love working with everybody on the schools and parks team because I get to learn all the time . It's a lot of fun .

Speaker 1 40:40

So what I'm hearing is be open to where the path is going to take you and always stay curious that you never know what's going to come , and so if you're willing to learn , you're going to get more out of it .

Speaker 2 40:53

Absolutely yeah . And once I found out that I didn't mind being in front of people , I yeah , just the science geekiness came out , and for me , geology offers a pretty broad background . So you're learning a little bit of biology with fossils and there's also some chemistry and physics , and all of those subjects really intimidated me , but I was able to work through that and now what I've learned is I can apply chemistry or physics to the rocks . I can't just do chemistry and physics , but if I start , it helps me understand how the rocks are , how they become , and it's so , yeah , that even if you're intimidated by something , if you really want to do it , just find a way through it and it'll give you a great background and great stories like this to talk about when you're trying to encourage other folks .

Speaker 1 41:54

Sure , and that kid who's interested in volcanoes or dinosaurs right now in your preschool or kindergarten classroom might be the next Randy .

Speaker 4 42:07

What about the run oh ?

Speaker 2 42:08

sorry , sorry . And yes , national Geographic that's where I saw my first volcanoes and first dinosaurs was in those magazines . Okay , sorry , you got me excited , I'm going to go .

Speaker 1 42:27

Are you tired of same old , same old professional development experiences ? Check out what recent workshop participants have to say about doing a workshop with Dr Diane's Adventures in Learning Great hands-on session that included real ideas to incorporate in the classroom . Wonderful , lots of great ideas and fun science experiments . It was great to be able to see how to make connections between the stories and science . If you are looking to raise your game and have a professional development experience that will leave your educators feeling rejuvenated and ready to directly apply ideas into their classrooms , reach out to Dr Diane's Adventures in Learning . We offer half-and-full-day workshops that examine ways to build connections between multicultural picture books and STEM STEAM experiences for gains across the curriculum . All programs can be tailored to your specific needs , so find out what audiences across the country have been experiencing . Check out Dr Diane's Adventures in Learning at wwwdrdianadventurescom . We hope to be in your school soon , so who else would like to share ?

Speaker 5 43:48

I'll share , just to go off , what you're saying , diane , about finding your right path . I'm a big advocate , or a big person to say college is not always linear . Your life is not always linear in what you think you have planned out might not work out , because I went through most of my life thinking that I wanted to be a classroom teacher , teaching either elementary students or teaching science in some sort of way . I got into school and I was like absolutely not , I do not want to do this actually . So I had to just find something different . So I tried out biology and I was like I don't want to do this either . But then I found out that my school offered it's like liberal arts and I was like I don't even know what this is . I'm a child . What is liberal arts ? And I did some digging in . Within liberal arts there was environmental studies and I'm just like now we're talking . So I ended up changing my major , like two and a half years into college , to environmental studies and it was just like this is where I was supposed to be the entire time .

Speaker 5 44:53

So , yeah , I was always the kid who would come home from school , not do my homework . I'm going to go play outside in the woods . Actually , I don't want to do my homeworks and I would just do that until there was time to come inside . So I was always a person I just loved being outside . I still love being outside , and being able to merge something that I already liked doing into my career is just stellar .

Speaker 5 45:21

So , yeah , I don't usually say that I had a typical journey , as everybody else did , because I don't . I have a decent amount of experience in the field that I'm in , but I just always feel like I have less experience than other people , which is definitely true . I'm the second youngest person on our team and there's just such a wide range of knowledge between myself and the other seven people now I guess , other seven people on our team . So , yeah , I just think that there are definitely lots of opportunities for people to figure out what they want to do , and if you think you know what you want to do but it turns out to not be true , that's totally okay . I just I think that is okay .

Speaker 1 46:12

Well , and that's where it's so important to explore lots and lots of different things and to present children with all kinds of role models and possibilities , because you don't know what the one thing is that's going to hit . And we know , based on the research , that a child who's in preschool right now , 96% of the jobs that they might go into don't exist yet , and so really what we're doing is creating these opportunities for them to discover their strengths and be prepared to fit whatever that future holds , and we know so much of it is going to involve the environment and the world around us , because those are some of the biggest issues we're facing . Anybody else want to share ?

Speaker 4 46:59

I'm happy to chat for just a minute about . I can relate to both Randy and Taylor . Just and I was that kid who liked doing everything and so could not decide what I wanted to be . I wanted to be everything that I possibly could , and I still do . My pathway by luck for a summer job , I ended up working at a summer camp in the mountains of North Carolina and realized when I was in college and I was majoring in anthropology , that I loved being outdoors with people and sharing that with kids in particular . So working at the summer camp where we took like three-hour hikes with groups of kids up and down the mountains and through the streams , and realized , wow , people get paid to do this . You're kidding me . So that's really what started it all and I ended up really focusing on natural resources .

Speaker 4 48:07

I have a master's in natural resources with a focus in environmental education . Allow me to travel , which is another thing that I love doing and exploring . So I've worked in New England , I've worked off the coast of Georgia , in Florida , I've worked in Wisconsin , and that was my goal for a while was to I'm just going to work seasonal jobs wherever I can because I can travel the United States or the world and learn about all of these different ecosystems , so that eventually I did have to settle down a little bit . I ended up managing a nature center in Charlotte , in the Charlotte area in North Carolina . I worked for the state for a while in state government and helping teachers across the state connect environmental literacy into their curriculum .

Speaker 4 49:00

Now here I am at UNC and I'd say one of the things through all of those jobs that the through line is being able to connect people to nature , to really think about those ways to help people see all of the different ways they're learning can take place outdoors .

Speaker 4 49:25

One of the things that I love most related to careers right now and STEM careers is in my job . I get to talk with scientists environmental scientists across both UNC at other universities in the area , and find ways to help translate their research into things that people can use teachers , students , communities , and so just learning about all of the new discoveries that happen every single day in all of these different environmental science fields is amazing and really exciting , and I think , yeah , just there are so many different opportunities . I hadn't heard that specific statistic Diane , about 96% of those jobs not being ones that are even possible today , but I believe it based on all of the science that I see happening here at UNC , and so it's really exciting to be able to connect people with that and I love the stay curious . Yeah , find ways to connect to some of the new things are happening these days in whatever way you can .

Speaker 1 50:36

Excellent Mary . Do you want to chime in ?

Speaker 3 50:41

Sure . So I was a little bit of an opposite kid from what you would think of an environmental educator would be like . As a kid I did not like going outside . I didn't like getting dirty . I didn't like bugs , that definitely didn't like snakes or any creepy crawly things . I thought it was too hot if it was 80 degrees outside . Like I did not like going outside . But when I became an adult I always loved animals so I wanted to work in a zoo . I wanted to work with lions in particular . They're my favorite animal and when I got into the zoo I realized you can't really play with or touch the lions . However , there are education animals with summer camp programs , field trips and those you can touch and interact with . So I transitioned to working with owls and showing them at programs and even snakes and things I didn't think I liked , and so I really ended up enjoying teaching kids out of that experience .

Speaker 1 51:44

And now I don't really work with animals necessarily , but we see animals when we're outside and so that was sort of how I got my start , but that's really cool , well , and I love the fact that was actually a great bookend , because you showed the diversity of experiences and backgrounds that can lead into this kind of work , that you don't have to have always been the kid who was outside and doing things , that you can come into it from a different angle as well , but you guys are creating opportunities to discover that the outdoors is really cool . So brings us full circle back to where we started

Engaging Teachers in Outdoor Education

Speaker 1 52:20

. So last question I want to ask you guys for today is if you could do one thing to get teachers to knock on your door , to take their kids outside , to be more engaged with nature , what would you do ? Wave your magic wand .

Speaker 4 52:45

I would say just try something small . That's one of my favorite books All of our team knows is called 10-Minute Field Trips and that's really all it takes Like . Take that first baby step and go outside for five or 10 minutes with your students and see what kinds of questions they have and what kind of conversation it sparks . So that's , I think , and find something new that you didn't know existed outside in your schoolyard , right . So just get out and explore and take baby steps and that will lead to the more and more of those you take , the more excited I think teachers will find themselves getting about teaching and seeing new things and what their students are learning .

Speaker 5 53:37

Thank you Ask your question one more time . I just want to make sure the answer I have in my head .

Speaker 1 53:44

Now I got to remember my question . I think I had said , basically , if you could wave your magic wand , what would you do to get people outside , to get teachers to engage more with the outdoors ?

Speaker 5 53:59

Okay . So what I would say is I would tell them to utilize any nature center , science center , whatever that offers PD , or maybe it doesn't even offer PD but you could go to to get ideas and gain that inspiration , Because I know that it's hard to come up with that stuff kind of like on your own , Even if you do have the book like 10 minute , 10 minute field chips a lot . Some people might or are kinesthetic learners and just need to do it and not and kind of aren't going to be able to take an activity , read it out of the book and then go do it . They just they need to do it first and then they can do it . So I would say , utilize those types of resources where you have people teaching you and doing it with you in it .

Speaker 5 54:42

I feel like that also helps with people learning how to wrap up the activity as well . So those questions afterwards that you would have for the students you can get those a lot from PD and the collaboration that you get with other people that you're there with as well . So talking about the ideas that you have and listening to the ideas that other people have can really just be super beneficial . So Great .

Speaker 1 55:13

Thank you , Taylor .

Speaker 2 55:16

I guess my suggestion would be it's not really a wand waving aspect , but reach out , kind of what Taylor was saying Reach out to your local informal educators , museums , zoos , state park rangers All of these folks have some unique training and experiences that can really help you explore and become become more comfortable exploring if you're not already in the outdoors . And yeah , there's just our state park rangers are just super heroes . That's what Sean Higgins are yes , he likes to say all the time . And they what ? In part , what makes schools and parks work so well is that they can bring their experience managing classrooms , managing kids outdoors , and they can help teachers see the possibilities .

Speaker 1 56:15

Excellent , thank you .

Speaker 3 56:18

For me I'd say if you're nervous about it , do something outside that you would normally be doing inside anyway , so you can take reading outside very easily . Just throw some blankets down or sheets down , or , if you have little , sit squares , anything like that , and then bring some books outside and just start implementing it in small ways like that things you already do in the classroom , but take it outside you don't . Also , you don't have to know all the answers . If the students are outside and they're saying , well , what's that , what's that , what's that , it's okay to say I don't know , let's investigate it when we get back inside . So yeah , just don't let the feeling of it being something foreign or something new prevent you from getting out there and trying .

Speaker 1 57:00

I love that . So thank you , Taylor and Sarah , and Mary and Randy for joining us on the Adventures in Learning podcast . I'm going to drop all kinds of links in the show notes so that you'll be able to reach out to them and learn more about the program , and your assignment this weekend is to get yourself outside , take a walk and make at least one phone call to an informal educator . Thanks for joining us . You've been listening to the Adventures in Learning podcast with your host , Dr Diane . If you like what you're hearing , please subscribe , download and let us know what you think , and please tell a friend . If you want the full show notes and the pictures , please go to DrDianeAdventurescom . We look forward to you joining us on our next adventure .