Disconnect: The Outdoor Education Podcast

Welcome to season 2 of Outdoor EDcast (formerly known as Disconnect: The Outdoor Education Podcast) Scott Durling & Dr Rhéa Rocque talk about how to tackle the subject of Eco-Anxiety with your students. Visit our new website!! https://podcast.oldoakstudio.ca Visit Educators for Climate Action Manitoba: https://www.facebook.com/educ4climatemb/ This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

Episode Notes Please check out Educators for Climate Action Manitoba: https://www.facebook.com/educ4climatemb Join us for a professional development session if you can!!

Episode Notes Colin Harris is the the founder and executive director of Take Me Outside, as well as a PhD candidate in educational research at the University of Calgary. In today's episdoe, you'll hear about Take Me Outside and Colin's run across Canada to promote the cause of taking kids outside to learn. Find out more at https://disconnect.pinecast.co

Episode Notes Rebirth Cover Photo by Toa Heftiba on Unsplash Find out more at https://disconnect.pinecast.co

Episode Notes Jennifer Engbrecht's Twitter - https://twitter.com/prairiemusik Get involved in citizen science with the Nature Conservancy of Canada! Episode cover photo by Brendan Beale on Unsplash Find out more at https://disconnect.pinecast.co

Episode Notes David Sobel's website Don't forget to email me a short voice memo letting me know what your favourite interview, big takeaway, your Aha! moment from the past year of interviews! I'd love to hear from you! Send to disconnectpodcast@protonmail.com The music you heard at the end of the episode is by the band Moonfield, whose guitarist is a colleague of mine! Please check them out if you enjoyed what you heard! Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/moonfieldwpg/ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/moonfieldwpg/ Email: wpg.moonfield@gmail.com Find out more at https://disconnect.pinecast.co

Episode Notes Resources OutsidePlay.ca Outdoor Play Canada Brussoni Lab - Dr. Mariana Brussoni's Website Loose Parts Play Toolkit 2019 - Inspiring Scotland Risk-Benefit Assessment: A Canadian Toolkit Risk-Benefit Assessment Form - Play England Megan Zeni's website | Resources for teaching outside, referenced by Dr. Brussoni Extra reading & research on the topic Kids more active, less depressed when playgrounds include natural elements Risky Play and Children's Safety: Balancing Priorities for Optimal Child Development Risky-play at school. Facilitating risk perception and competence in young children Children's Expressions of Exhilaration and Fear in Risky Play Outdoor risky play and healthy child development in the shadow of the “risk society”: A forest and nature school perspective Ellen Sandseter Cover image photo by Mael Balland, downloaded from Unsplash.com Find out more at https://disconnect.pinecast.co

Episode Notes Links from today's show: Dr. Peter Gray's 'The Wisdom of Hunter-Gatherers' Annette Taylor's Website - The Cavedweller Club Features in Psychology Today: Surviving Quarantine with a Smile Cellphones as Modern Weapons Other articles: Mismatch Between Our Biologically Evolved Educative Instincts and Culturally Evolved Schools Why kids need risk, fear and excitement in play Great Lake Erie Educators Exchange Network Find out more at https://disconnect.pinecast.co

Episode Notes This episode, we take a look at the experience of queer youth at outdoor camps. With the help of Dr. Fenton Litwiller, Assistant Professor in the faculty of Kinesiology and Recreation Management at the University of Manitoba, and Elyse Rylander, founder of Out There Adventures, we aim to look at the role of outdoor camps in the lives of queer youth. Links from today's episode: Dr. Fenton Litwiller ‘You can see their minds grow': identity development of LGBTQ youth at a residential wilderness camp  When Bunks Become Closets and How to Open Them: Making Room for Queer and Trans Safe Space in Residential Summer Room for Queer and Trans Safe Space in Residential Summer Camps Camps   LGBTQ Girl Scouts Reflect on Their Outdoor Experiences   The Palgrave International Handbook of Women and Outdoor Learning  The Avarna Group Connect with Elyse Rylander via Instagram Diversify Outdoors In Solidarity Project The cover photo for today's episode was shot by Sharon McCutcheon, a photographer specializing in LGBTQIA+ themes who so graciously made her photo available free of royalties via Unsplash.com. Find out more at https://disconnect.pinecast.co

Episode Notes Today's episode is a reflection on the upcoming school year. I'll be back with more interviews later, but today's episode is some food for thought as your prepare for the months ahead. You can now find me on Twitter! @OutdoorEdCast I'd love to hear from you, email me at disconnectpodcast@protonmail.com 3 Questions to ask youself before using an app in your lesson Is it essential to achieving your learning outcome? Does the app require an account to use? Is it equitable? Background photo for today's episode art courtesy of Ben Wicks, on Unsplash.com Find out more at https://disconnect.pinecast.co

Episode Notes Check out the following links which we referred to during today's interview with Megan Zeni, the classroom gardener. Megan's 10 tips for teaching outside Megan Zeni's Blog National Wildlife Federation's Certify Your Garden Program Canadian Wildlife Federation's Certify Your Garden Program Space Tomatoes? Yes, check out the Tomatosphere On today's episode, you heard the song Multiverse by Ketsa, use under the Creative Commons license Background for the cover image for today's episode from Dirk Scheuble, from Unsplash.com. Find out more at https://disconnect.pinecast.co

Episode Notes On today's episode, we speak with Wynnston Denny, a kindergarten teacher from Austin, TX, who tells us about how he started with small activities and built up to a huge success in taking his class outside for school. We'll also look at a bit of research by David Sobel, from his book Childhood & Nature: Design Principles for Educators. Artwork for today's episode by Annie Spratt, from unsplash.com. Find out more at https://disconnect.pinecast.co

Episode Notes Mikah Meyer's Website Mikah's Twitter Mikah's Instagram Guide to Allyship At the end of today's episode, you heard the song "Sum Of My Fears" by Dazie Mae. Find out more at https://disconnect.pinecast.co

Episode Notes An interview with Emily Reid of Glasgow, Scotland's Ecodrama theatre company to explore how imagination can bridge the gap for city school lacking access to nature. The 'Out To Play' draws upon the talents of drama artists to engage school children in their environments and get them reconnecting with nature. In today's episode, you heard Roll Jordan Roll by the Joy Drops. Essay Transcript I call today's episode Once Upon a Playground. Not only is it a quote from the program which today's guest will be speaking to us about, but it beautifully encompasses the ideas in today's show; namely that imagination is a powerful source of inspiration and that it can serve purposes far beyond those we commonly attribute to it. This may seem tangential for a moment, but please try to follow my train of thought. In a 2012 study entitled 'The city snuffs out nature': young people's conceptions of and relationship with nature by Pam Pointon from the University of Cambridge's Faculty of Education, it was noted that not every student experiences 'the countryside' the same way. Of course, this may sound like common sense, but not everyone feels the same way about raw nature; or as stated in the study 'disgust in walking through fields of cowpats and fear of sheep presented barriers to enjoyment of the countryside'. There was a notable difference in students from visible minorities, who recall being stared at and 'feeling out of place', which made them uncomfortable. My nature may not feel and look the same as your nature since our interpretations will be affected by our past experiences. The study really aimed to categorize the way students felt about nature through written responses. Students were asked how they understood the terms 'nature' and 'environment', and how it was important to them, if at all. 387 students took part in the study and the results, to me, shone a light on yet another disconnect in dire need of attention. To my chagrin, more than half of the students felt a utilitarian relationship with nature. Somewhat redeeming was that many students, in spite of this utilitarian relationship, also felt strong emotional connections with nature. The vast majority of students wrote about biotic or living components of nature in their responses, while very little mentioned the abiotic (non-living components like rocks, water & soil). Unfortunately, as was observed in the study, this also meant that responses recognizing the interrelationships of the biotic and abiotic were very rare. The rarity of these observations is a noteworthy point to reflect on, because the biotic: plants, our food, etc, grows in the abiotic. Minerals, vitamins and nutrients, the abiotic, are essential to human life, the biotic. Ecosystems are by definition an interrelationship of biotic and abiotic! Everywhere you look, the biotic and the abiotic are inseparable. The very foundation of nature is an interrelationship and interdependency between the biotic and abiotic, yet our teaching has found a way to separate them. This suggests to me that the focus of our education can become so myopic at times that we lose sight of the bigger picture: we can't see the forest for the trees. We fail to see how things connect, how everything is relative to something else. In fact, relativity, Einstein's scientific masterpiece, was founded on this very idea! The quote in the title of the aforementioned study demonstrates this myopic vision we often suffer from exquisitely: the city snuffs out nature; implying that city and nature are mutually exclusive. But this doesn't have to be the case! Many city parks have greater biodiversity than large monoculture swaths of countryside! Many ingenious animals are finding ways of inhabiting urban landscapes with tremendous success, notably raccoons and New York's Central Park coyotes. City and nature can coexist... even if they don't always. But back to relativity, I recently read through a 1929 interview with Albert Einstein, by The Saturday Evening Post, yes the same Saturday Evening Post that is so well known for it's Norman Rockwell covers; and in this interview, George Sylvester Viereck asks Einstein at one point, simultaneously puzzled and in awe of how Einstein draws some of his conclusions or inspirations: Then you trust more to your imagination than to your knowledge? To which Einstein replied: I am enough of the artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world. Many quotes are often misattributed to Einstein, but this one is real; I'll post a link in the episode notes in case any of you are wanting to see the microfilm scans of the 1929 publication. It's actually a fun read. I love the way Einstein talks about imagination encircling the world. Great thinkers don't let themselves be bound by rules. The best musicians make their instruments do things nobody has heard before. Imagination is the key to solving the worlds problems as much as it is what allows us to write a poem. I think that, as educators, we have a tendency at times to get stuck within the confines of our classroom. We fall prey to the idea that the city has snuffed out nature as we get overwhelmed with things to do and learning outcomes to cover. With the little energy we have left, we resort to taking the most efficient way to teach something, for which I don't blame you. I am guilty of it too. We end up confined to our classrooms and concrete, city schoolyards. We take the easy way out, but few things in life worth doing, are easy. My guest today works with a theatre company which runs inner city school programs in Glasgow, Scotland, where they turn their own concrete schoolyards into imaginary forests, rich in real and mythical biodiversity. Drawing upon the talents of drama artists, Ecodrama helps students who may feel disconnected from nature, and teachers who may feel that nature is too far away; find a new connection, both personal and educational, with the very same nature that can seem so elusive and distant from core area schools. Links Ecodrama 1929 Interview with Einstein microfilm Find out more at https://disconnect.pinecast.co

About today's show. In today's episode, we talk with Dr. Ben Schellenberg of the University of Manitoba. Dr. Schellenberg studies passions and explains to us how different types of passions can lead to vastly different outcomes for the same habits or actions. We'll explore how this applies to our teaching and see what the best way is to begin incorporating small elements of nature education into any subject material at any grade. Essay Transcript Passion might seem like a strange topic for an Outdoor Education podcast, but if you're listening to me right now, I'm confident in saying that you are passionate about education, about helping children reach their potential, and especially about being outdoors. You are passionate about nature. You might consider yourself a weekend warrior, or simply a lover of good walks, but you all have this one thing in common: at one point in your life, something sparked in you a deep connection and love for nature, and that love has never wained. We all hope that our children, our campers, scouts or students, will develop this connection that we cherish. In many ways this connection has enriched our lives, been our solace, confidante even at times; it's our ever present source of inner-calm and peace. Maybe it began when you were roasting marshmallows over a fire, or maybe it was the first time you summited a mountain and looked down onto the landscape below. Perhaps it was gliding silently in a canoe over crystal clear water only to sneak up on an unsuspecting moose around a bend in the waterway. It may even have been an experience as simple as the first time you caught a frog when you were a child. Regardless, whatever kindled that spirit within, I'm confident in saying that as camp councillors, scout leaders, teachers and environmental educators, we all seek to help our youth see the world as we see it… which may very well be the problem. We've all been guilty of this, myself especially… but have you caught yourself asking a kid a question, only to answer it yourself before giving them enough time to reflect on it? Alongside Outdoor Ed, I teach a lot of science, and us science minds love facts & objective truths. I often have to remind myself that truths weren't simply learned, rather they were discovered; often by curious and especially creative minds. So how do we teach or foster creativity? Let's take a trip back in time and place ourselves in 5th grade. Now let's go for a nature walk with mom & dad, and when mom says "Why do you think that tree fell?", what does your 5th grade brain think of? I'll give you a second to think. Now before you get your answer out, of course Dad goes ahead and explains the concept, and 5th grade you never got to say what you thought happened; that is, if you even had time enough to give it any thought at all. I hope you see where I'm going with this. We love being outdoors, and we likely learned a lot about the outdoors because we're passionate about it. But allowing kids to think, to be creative and to wonder about the outdoors may very well be more helpful than giving them the answers, could ever be. There's a popular quote often credited to Socrates that says "Wisdom begins with wonder”. We want our students to become wise. I suppose we are all somewhere on a journey toward wisdom, but people become teachers because they believe in the power of young minds. The reason we're in the situation we're in when it comes to things like climate change, nature preservation and conservation, is because we haven't yet discovered the answers to our problems… So when you prevent a child from making his own hypothesis, from answering the question you posed… ask yourself for whom you answered the question. I would argue that by preventing our students the time to hypothesize, we're preventing our kids from thinking creatively. We're teaching them that adults have the answers; when the truth is, we often don't. We don't need answers to problems we've already solved, so next time you ask a question, don't answer it. In fact, just listen to the answers you get, and when you think "No… it's actually this way…", stop yourself and keep listening. You might be thinking to yourself that this is totally a bogus answer. But, one day it won't be a bogus answer; it will be the right answer, we just didn't know it yet. So don't let your passion for and your knowledge about the outdoors become a barrier. Be an adventurer with your students. Make discoveries with your students. Learn with them. Get onto their level and get excited about the small things they discover; rediscover them along with your students. Do not be discouraged if you don't think you're having the effect you wanted. As Edward Osborne Wilson wrote in his memoir The Naturalist, “Better to be an untutored savage for a while, not to know the names or anatomical detail. Better to spend long stretches of time just searching and dreaming.”. What the famous biologist, naturalist and Faculty Emeritus at Harvard University was trying to say, is that there is no substitute, at a young age, than simply exploration, curious play, wonder and hands-on experience. To cultivate passion for nature, we must allow students to discover it on their own. Your own passion should absolutely be your guiding light, and the fire the keeps you going. What it should not become, is a source of frustration if you aren't achieving what you'd set out to do. Be passionate about every one of your students' small discoveries. Each one is a new bud on their metaphorical tree of life as a nature lover. Your job isn't to make it flower… but simply to water it daily. Links Dr. Ben Schellenberg @ University of Manitoba eBook: The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran Find out more at https://disconnect.pinecast.co

Episode Notes On today's episode we'll look at the effect of isolation and quarantine on desire to be outside and also how it improves creativity and sense of belonging in a community. As mentioned in the episode, here are links to Air Quality Data Websites. https://waqi.info/ https://www.airvisual.com/earth Find out more at https://disconnect.pinecast.co

Episode Notes With the entire world talking about covid-19, what can we, as outdoor education teachers, take away from this? Tonight's bonus episode takes a brief look at how Outdoor Education is the perfect place to teach community and to help students understand how their actions can have immediate effects on their surroundings and on their community.

Episode Notes The first episode of Disconnect: The Outdoor Education Podcast defines what Outdoor Education is for the purpose of the podcast. In doing so, it also asks questions (which will be answered in later episodes) about what Outdoor Education is in 2020, what its role is and where it belongs. Connect with us over this week's question: what do you do with your class, your campers, your scouts or guides to reignite their senses?