Sharing Experiential Learning with Bay Area Educators

Our colleague, Susan Humphries, MBE, MA, traveled to the San Francisco Bay Area from England at the end of September to collaborate with Green Schoolyards America and our colleagues on four days of public events. She shared a wealth of knowledge and expertise in teaching methods that are based on outdoor experiences and a deep understanding of both the natural world and child development.

“It is only once all the senses are engaged that we can begin to immerse children in learning.”

— Susan Humphries

Ms. Humphries is the Founding Headteacher of The Coombes School in Berkshire, England, which is famous for its ecologically rich school grounds and the child-centered educational model she pioneered. Her work at Coombes over 50 years has influenced outdoor experiential education for schools around the world. We were honored to collaborate with her and treasured the experience.

The four events Green Schoolyards America created with Susan Humphries and and other partners included:

• A two-day experiential outdoor learning conference for teachers, held on September 27-28, 2019 in El Cerrito, California. (See previous post about this event)

• A special workshop for early childhood educators in San Francisco, held on October 1st with San Francisco Children & Nature and other partners

• A one-day program for Green Schoolyards America’s Principals’ Institute, held on October 2nd in Oakland

The article below describes the two October events in more detail. This was a fascinating and action packed week! We are grateful for the collaboration of all of our amazing partners and program attendees.

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Experiential Outdoor Learning in Early Childhood

Visiting Guest Speaker Susan Humphries addresses a group of early childhood educators at our event in San Francisco, October 1, 2019.

On October 1st, Green Schoolyards America collaborated with San Francisco Children & Nature to create an event focused on experiential outdoor learning in early childhood. This special workshop was generously funded by our partners at First 5 San Francisco and the Low Income Investment Fund, and was produced in collaboration with San Francisco Recreation and Parks, San Francisco Office of Early Care and Education, San Francisco Unified School District, and Children’s Council San Francisco.

The workshop was held at the Cayuga Club House in San Francisco’s Cayuga Park. It began with a tour of the park and playground—one of San Francisco’s hidden gems with unique themed gardens and whimsical wood carvings created as a labor of love by local legend Demetrio Braceros. Braceros immigrated from the Philippines and is a retired long-time SF Recreation and Parks Gardener.

The workshop with Susan Humphries followed the park tour. It included a presentation and discussion session focused on her work at Coombes and her approach to experiential outdoor learning and play on school grounds. Her slideshow included a discussion of children’s social-emotional, mental, and physical health needs in early childhood, and the ways in which preschool and early care settings can develop their outdoor environments to become nature-filled oases that broaden play opportunities and bring curriculum outside. The presentation was followed by a lively discussion with the audience.

Scenes from the event are included below. Photographs by Maria Durana, SF Children & Nature.

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Green Schoolyards America’s Principals’ Institute

Susan Humphries leads Principals’ Institute Participants in a discussion and hands-on lesson during our seminar on October 2, 2019.

Green Schoolyards America hosts a year-long program for school principals and school district administrators that provides resources, advice, professional development, and a peer network that helps principals and school district leaders to adopt and sustain comprehensive, high quality, green schoolyard programs at their schools and in their districts. Our Principals’ Institute includes four one-day seminars and three schoolyard site visit days over the course of the year.

Susan Humphries joined us as our featured speaker for the third seminar of the Principals’ Institute, held on October 2nd at the office of Playworks in Oakland. We extend our heartfelt thanks to Playworks for generously offering us the use of their beautiful space.

Our October Principals’ Institute seminar focused on strategies for developing a nature-rich living schoolyard as a tool to engage students in learning across the curriculum—and as an organizing framework for a school’s overall program.

Ms. Humphries gave a keynote presentation to share her work and the educational philosophy she developed at Coombes. She spoke with the assembled group of school administrators as a peer-mentor, sharing her 50 years of experience in shaping her school’s program and leading the school’s faculty. After the presentation we had an engaging discussion with the school leaders and partners in the room, and focused on the ways that school principals and district administrators can shape the educational approach at their schools. Everyone also participated in a short hands-on activity that explored the properties of feathers, as shown below. (Click here to read more about Susan Humphries’s lessons about feathers.)

In the afternoon, Institute participants discussed their ongoing work to advance their school and districts’ green schoolyard program. Susan Humphries provided feedback on their ideas and offered suggestions for next steps.

Principals’ Institute participants tried one of Susan Humphries’s lessons about feathers—integrating natural materials with science concepts (air currents, biology, aerodynamics) and interpersonal skills (cooperation, communication). See pages 17-18 of our new free publication, Experiential outdoor learning in the schoolyard, mentioned below for a detailed description of this lesson and others developed by susan humphries.

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Green Schoolyards America worked with Susan Humphries to create a free online book entitled, Experiential Outdoor Learning in the Schoolyard.

Our new book includes detailed descriptions of the engaging experiential outdoor lessons Ms. Humphries modeled during our Principals’ Institute and at our conference in September.

Please visit our schoolyard activity webpage to download your own copy of this book and the other free schoolyard learning, play, and nature activities in our extended book set.

We hope our readers will try these outdoor activities with their own schools, and will share photos of their schoolyard adventures with us!

Learning Takes Flight in Green Schoolyards

Photo by Shirl Buss

Green Schoolyards America was honored to feature the work of our esteemed colleague, Susan Humphries, MBE, MA, at a two-day conference in the San Francisco Bay Area on September 27-28, 2019. Ms. Humphries traveled from England to share her expertise in teaching methods based on hands-on outdoor experiences and a deep understanding of both child development and the natural world. The conference included 12 hands-on workshops that explored Ms. Humphries educational philosophy and her amazingly creative, engaging curriculum ideas.

This article is the second in a series intended to share what we learned from Susan Humphries during her visit, and focuses on activities we explored that relate to birds and the magic of flight.

Properties of Feathers

Several workshops offered at the conference focused on the physical properties of feathers and the ways that they interact with the air to help birds fly. These hands-on curriculum lessons blended scientific investigation techniques with play and visual art in a manner designed to spark curiosity and hold students’ interest.

In one workshop, conference participants explored the structure of feathers by looking closely at a wide variety of small pin feathers, selected for their beautiful colors and patterns. Participants identified the central shaft (quill), parallel barbs, and smaller filaments (barbules) that “zip” together to create a flat, smooth surface on each feather, designed to catch the wind and help birds generate lift. They also deconstructed their feathers to understand more about them.

susan Humphries teaches the workshop

Participants examined many feathers

Feather detail showing barbs & barbules

Another workshop examined the ways that feathers move in the air by trying a series of activities with different types of feathers and feather-filled pillows. Participants experimented with casting small amounts of tiny feathers into the air to watch the breeze carry them. Then, they worked with a partner to see if they could direct a single (small) feather’s flight, using air currents they generated with their breath or their hands. Next, participants tried balancing long peacock feathers in the palm of their hand, compensating for the light breeze blowing across the playground—as shown in the video below.

The workshop participants also experimented with the ways that feather-filled pillows interact with the air, by tossing a pillow to one another as they stood in a circle. The feathers inside the pillow slow its speed as it travels, and the pillow makes a nearly silent landing when it is caught or dropped.

Participants tossed a feather pillow in the air to observe how the feathers contained inside helped to slow the object’s movement.

Experiential History

Susan Humphries’s educational philosophy includes an experiential approach to teaching history. Many of her lessons make history come alive for children using hands-on experiences with ordinary aspects of life that were more common in past centuries. Two of our workshops explored this idea through our theme of birds and flight—while also providing windows into “cutting edge communications technology” of the past.

In one workshop, participants learned traditional writing techniques using a turkey quill. Each person trimmed their own quill to have a suitable writing point and then used their new feather pen with red and black ink to practice drawing pictures and writing text. Indelible inks and feathers like these were used to write important documents such as the Magna Carta and everything else—from bills of sale, to laws, and letters—in past centuries.

Cutting a suitable writing point on a turkey feather quill

Using a turkey quill pen to practice writing, with red ink

Using a turkey quill pen to practice writing

Homing pigeons were also one of the fastest ways to send a message over long distances in the centuries before planes, trains, automobiles, telephones, and computers. When they traveled, people would bring pigeons from their coop at home with them on their journey, and then release them with tiny messages tied to their legs when they reached their destination or had another important idea to communicate with friends, family, and colleagues.

At the end of the first day of our conference, we were grateful to have pigeon expert Bill Milestone join us with a delightful flock of pigeons he raises at his home in San Francisco. After teaching us about his pigeons, conference attendees released them so that they could fly back home, across San Francisco Bay.

Releasing pigeons with children at their school presents a wide range of potential curriculum ties including:

• geography lessons, tracing the start and end points of the pigeons’ journey

• the history of communication technology

• flight aerodynamics

• biological homing mechanisms of birds

• animal husbandry and training techniques

Releasing pigeons also presents opportunities to teach empathy and spark wonder, while having an enjoyable experience in a very memorable way. The video below shares the magical moment of our pigeon release at the conference.

Pigeons and doves in art

As Susan Humphries tells us, "The affinity between people and birds goes back centuries and still resonates today. Pigeons and doves, in particular, appear in artwork across cultures around the world, in both secular and religious contexts.”

In our workshop activity on this theme, participants explored the ways that pigeons and doves have been represented in art, and then tried their hands at making their own artwork that included birds. During the workshop they drew large scale, colorful chalk pictures of birds on the schoolyard’s asphalt, and wove peace doves into the chainlink fence using strips of cloth.

Photos above by Shirl Buss and Green Schoolyards America

We hope that this interdisciplinary exploration of birds will inspire you to try some of these lessons at your own local school. Please send us photos to share your work!

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Detailed descriptions of each of the workshops described in this article are included in a free online book Green Schoolyards America created with Susan Humphries entitled, Experiential Outdoor Learning in the Schoolyard. Please visit our schoolyard activity webpage to download your own copy.

For detailed directions about how to implement the bird-related lessons described above, please see pages 6, 7, 10, and 17 of this new publication.