The negative effects of school closures on academic progress appear greater for English learners and students from systemically under-resourced families — the very groups that experts have predicted would bear the brunt of remote learning. Equitable, high-quality learning must include opportunities and plans for success for students on the margins who have been excluded from outdoor learning and spaces that have a wide array of benefits to physical, mental, social, and emotional health.  

In this section of the National COVID-19 Outdoor Learning Library, we focus on increasing opportunity to learn in the outdoors through a set of considerations and steps, as well as a sample of schedules that reflect different instructional models employed by schools and school districts, including small cohorts of students in person, hybrid “am/pm,” hybrid two days per week, Special Day Class, and more.

GENERAL RECOMMENDATIONS

Address needs. Regardless of the instructional model that is implemented in the school or district, a core priority should focus on building community and prioritizing relationships with students when they return to the school site. Many students have been in isolation, so increasing the overall time they are outdoors (e.g., recess/recreation, lunch, snack breaks, learning) will help them experience a sense of community, comfort, and joy when they return to school. 

Call on partners. Schools and districts that call on local partner organizations or have existing partnerships are able to more readily accomplish their reopening plans, increase opportunities to learn, and offer more support to students in need.

Considerations

As schools and districts develop and examine their instructional week/day schedules (transitional kindergarten through twelfth grade), we recommend taking the following considerations into account when adapting for increased opportunities to learn outdoors.

Consider increasing opportunities to learn outdoors for all students. This includes Special Day Classes where utilizing the outdoors to support students with disabilities is an essential step toward improving their educational outcomes and experiences.

Stay curious. When reviewing existing schedules or developing new ones, stay curious about what is possible for instruction outdoors, including questioning the status quo of instruction inside the classroom for more traditional and/or “core” subjects. For example, for earlier grades, the outdoors can be connected to English Language Arts and Mathematics depending on the lesson plan, where students can count what they see, write a story about what they did outside, engage in a nature scavenger hunt, and so on.

Make science education a priority and engage students in outdoor science activities.

Go outside whenever possible. Use any recess, breaks, and lunch blocks that are 15 minutes or longer to go outside, and consider physical education to be completed outdoors.

Stagger Transitions. Many districts and schools find success in staggering transitions, breaks, and dismissals among classes to mitigate virus exposure and transmission among students.

Align schedules. If the schedules have two or more small groups in a given day, maximizing outdoor learning will require schedule alignment across students and alignment of teacher-student assignment within the given group/cohort. For example, students in a “small cohort” model will benefit from having the same assigned classroom teacher, and all students from the cohort in “small group A.”  

Use small groups. All schedule models will benefit from having one small group of students that can nimbly transition to the outdoors while the second group of students remains with the classroom teachers. 

Employ extra hands. These models will benefit from outdoor learning provided by classified staff, paraprofessionals, non-certificated staff (e.g., expanded learning providers, afterschool staff), or outdoor educators (e.g., garden teacher, outdoor school field instructors, interpreters, naturalists). For example, in a “hybrid am/pm” model, students can benefit from a full day at the school site where half of the day is led by the classroom teacher and the other half is led by an additional adult whose title is listed above. In addition, in a Special Day Class (SDC) model, the special education teacher whose students are on the teacher’s caseload must be onsite during the school day. If there is a garden teacher, group A students may go to class with the garden teacher plus a paraprofessional for additional support and group B students may stay with the designated special education teacher in the classroom.

Start. For our step-wise guide on how to shift the current schedule at your school site or district, click here.