Building a Culture of Outdoor Learning in the D.C. Public School System
C.W. Harris Elementary School
Sousa Middle School
In 2023, with seed funding from the National Recreation Foundation, Urban Adventure Squad launched our project, "Building a Culture of Outdoor Learning in the D.C. Public School System," with C.W. Harris Elementary School in D.C.’s Ward 7.
Through additional grants from the National Recreation Foundation, the Dennis Allen O'Toole Family Foundation, Share Fund, and HumanitiesDC, and thanks to the generosity of individual donors, we have been able to sustain the work at C.W. Harris and expand to Sousa Middle School, also in Ward 7.
C.W. Harris Elementary School
Sousa Middle School
In 2023, with seed funding from the National Recreation Foundation, Urban Adventure Squad launched our project, "Building a Culture of Outdoor Learning in the D.C. Public School System," with C.W. Harris Elementary School in D.C.’s Ward 7.
Through additional grants from the National Recreation Foundation, the Dennis Allen O'Toole Family Foundation, Share Fund, and HumanitiesDC, and thanks to the generosity of individual donors, we have been able to sustain the work at C.W. Harris and expand to Sousa Middle School, also in Ward 7.
Outdoor time is disappearing
Outdoor school time has dropped precipitously in U.S. public schools from an average of 90-120 minutes a day in the 1970s to today’s 20-30 minutes a day. This drop is even greater in urban and low-income school districts. However, studies show that outdoor learning has major mental, emotional, and physical benefits to learners including increased focus, reduced stress, and enhanced problem-solving skills.
In the DC public school system, like the rest of the U.S., outdoor learning is not a regular part of the school day. Even when administrators are supportive, there are often ongoing barriers such as logistics, perceived issues of safety, time constraints, or teachers who don’t always have the tools, experience, or time to figure out the best ways to engage in outdoor learning. Our “Building a Culture of Outdoor Learning” project was created to address this issue.
Our goal is to create a school culture where teachers are comfortable leveraging the school's existing resources--it’s vegetable and pollinator garden, greenspaces, and bioretention areas--to increase students' connection to nature and align outdoor time with classroom lessons. With our pilot schools, C.W. Harris and Sousa Middle School, UAS educators meet with teachers, develop and adapt lesson plans that match up with their curriculum, and take classes outdoors to connect with nature through math, science, social studies, and ELA activities. For example, kindergarten students learning about shapes have collected leaves in their school yard and then examined the shapes of those leaves.
UAS leads programming on watersheds, tree science, and seed dispersal for grades 1-5. Our final project for SY24-25 was launching our Mobile Birding Libraries during the school’s Green Week following Earth Day. Mobile Birding Libraries are rolling carts full of birding-related supplies that teachers can “check out” and use to incorporate outdoor learning into their lessons. Supplies like binoculars, birding books, data collection sheets, and plush birds (with accurate bird calls!) can be integrated into any subject area and provide a simple entry point for educators to introduce their students using the #CityAsAClassroom.