Immersion in well-designed outdoor environments can foster the habits of mind that enable critical and authentic scientific questions to take root in students' minds. Here we share two design cases in which careful, collaborative, and intentional design of outdoor learning environments for informal inquiry provide people of all ages with embodied opportunities to learn about the natural world, developing the capacity for understanding ecology and the ability to empathize, problem-solve, and reflect. Embodied learning, as facilitated by and in well-designed outdoor learning environments, leads students to develop new ways of seeing, new scientific questions, new ways to connect with ideas, with others, and new ways of thinking about the natural world. Using examples from our collaborative practices as experiential learning designers, we illustrate how creating the habits of mind critical to creating scientists, science-interested, and science-aware individuals benefits from providing students spaces to engage in embodied learning in nature. We show how public landscapes designed in creative partnerships between educators, scientists, designers, and the public have potential to amplify science learning for all.
TEAM MEMBERS
Katherine Gill
Author
Tributary Land Design
Jocelyn Glazier
Author
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Betsy Towns
Author
University of North Carolina School of the Arts
Citation
DOI
:
10.1093/icb/icy027
Publication Name:
Integrative and Comparative Biology
Volume:
58
Number:
1
Page Number:
127-139
Funders
NSF
Funding Program:
AISL
Award Number:
1323030
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