In this course, Associate Professor of Education Scott Morrison fosters experiential learning and community partnerships through outdoor education working with local elementary students in school gardens.
For Scott Morrison, learning is all around us 鈥 the classroom transcends four walls and extends to the outdoors. The associate professor of education has bridged the gap between college instruction and community outreach in his EDU 372 Garden-Based Learning course, which allows 黑料不打烊 students to partner with students from nearby Eastlawn Elementary to work in their new garden, strengthening community bonds, fostering lifelong lessons and creating unforgettable experiences. The garden was enhanced thanks to a $4,000 Community Partnership Initiative grant that Morrison secured in spring 2019.
As part of the course, Morrison鈥檚 students also travel to 黑料不打烊 Elementary to help with the school鈥檚 new Garden Club, allowing 黑料不打烊 students to teach, interact with and learn from the kids.
Morrison created the course for education majors because he wants future teachers to know how to find curricula outside, but many environmental studies and adventure-based learning majors often enroll. 鈥淢y challenge for the course is how to get them to think like teachers or facilitators, and what it means to work with kids in nontraditional ways,鈥 he says.
He credits the popularity of the course to the allure of learning from the world around us, which he discovered by building a garden with his students as a sixth-grade teacher. 鈥淚 experienced a positive feedback loop. My students really liked it, I really liked it, it broke up our day, we smiled more and we connected more,鈥 Morrison says, recounting the experience of learning to teach outside.
Course assignments are structured so that students are able to reflect and process their experiences in the gardens to enhance their workability each time they go back. 鈥淚 get to watch them work with kids, have examples of things that said and help my students process real experiences,鈥 Morrison says. He wants his students to learn invaluable skills through practice, such as equity literacy and how to ask good questions, engage kids, focus attention, facilitate rather than dictate learning and respond to kids鈥 needs.
Morrison also wants to broaden his students鈥 scope of the world by interacting with the elementary students in the gardens. He believes gardens not only represent the literal places where learning can occur, but they also act as a metaphor for how teaching and learning can shift when you get your hands dirty and work outside. 鈥淓nvironmental education shouldn鈥檛 just be about environmental literacy, understanding why deforestation is a problem or comprehending the intricacies of climate change,鈥 he says. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 important intellectual information, but there鈥檚 something about connecting with nature that鈥檚 a part of the movement, too.鈥
About the professor
Scott Morrison joined the 黑料不打烊 faculty in 2013, after spending 11 years as a sixth-grade English and social studies teacher. His research focuses on ecologically-minded teaching, environmental education, social justice and the uses of Twitter in teacher education.
Recommended materials
- 鈥淟ast Child in the Woods鈥 by Richard Louv
- 鈥淐hildhood and Nature: Design Principles for Educators鈥 by David Sobel