Importance of learning outside the classroom
“NOW, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: … Stick to Facts, sir!' (1.1.1)
Environmental Systems is concerned with the interactions between man and the natural and physical environment and as such cannot be taught through more traditional classroom methods. Even Gradgrind in Dickens “Hard Times” speaks metaphorically of nature.Yet it is only through the planting the understanding of key principals can we avoid burdening student’s minds with turgid facts and ensure that ESS is taught in a realistic, meaningful and intellectually challenging manner.
“One lesson outdoors is worth seven inside”. It is through this philosophy ESS encourages the unique pedagogical importance of fieldwork and field trips which potentially encourage a deeper understanding of issues covered and inspire a formative learning experience. This valuable and vital component of the IB allows students to experience much of the ecological diversity Peru has to offer through numerous compulsory and optional fieldwork experiences.
Day trips to the local area, Pucasana, Pantanos and Pachacamac on Sunday mornings have been relatively well attended by students and anyone else who is moderately interested in learning more about the biodiverse nature of Peru. Visiting speakers have been a relatively simple manner in which to introduce experts in their respective fields to the students in bite size pieces, allowing them an insight into some of the more philosophically diverse issues surrounding environmental studies. Whilst these topics are not always directly covered by the syllabus it is an excellent way in which to contemplate the bigger picture and even introduce TOK in a more abstract sense.
A weekend expedition to San Ramon to experience the cloud forest and where exactly the food in Wong comes from all allow students to not only critically explore areas of Peru, they may not have previously visited, but it also allows them to examine with a critical and expert eye the impact that population pressure and the pressure of farming is having on fragile ecosystems.
The most important fieldwork experience in the ESS repertoire however, is Tambopata. This annual weeklong pilgrimage to the Tambopata Research Centre is the highlight of the course and key to the student learning experience. When we experience, we learn, and what we learn through experience, we’re unlikely to forget. In 2002, the Field Studies Council (FSC) released a report titled: Teaching Outside the Classroom: Is it heading for extinction? In the report, the FSC stressed it was time for fieldwork to become a compulsory facet of education. In ESS we feel the value is undeniable and that there are a multitude of educational advantages.
Fieldwork has a positive impact on long-term memory as the fieldwork setting is engaging, and memorable. It serves as a living laboratory for all of our students, who benefit from a high diversity of habitats, species, and cultural activities right on their front doorstep. It is the perfect place to learn about techniques for data collection and study design—highly transferrable skills that the students need to master. This facilitates opportunities to interact with local stakeholders who have a vested interest in the environment—including fishermen, conservationists, agriculturalists, and scientists. Exchanges with these individuals help students understand the value of natural habitats and importance of problems emerging at the intersection of ecology and society. They explore issues related to ecology, evolution, conservation, geomorphology, and animal behaviour, while also learning about the historical, social, and economic relationships between humans and nature.
Fieldwork – that is, learning directly in the untidy and messy real world outside the classroom – is an essential component of environmental education. There is no substitute for ‘real-world’ learning. OFSTED is perfectly clear about the value of fieldwork: “Schools should recognise the value of fieldwork for improving standards and achievement” (OFSTED, 2008)
Personal growth and the development of social skills is evident in data gathering and the questionnaires students construct whilst at TRC and reinforces the interconnectedness between affective and cognitive learning providing a platform for continuing higher learning skills as they are inspired by the environment.
Tambopata is a unique opportunity to learn about the realities of biological sciences through personal engagement and conversations with field experts, guides and resident experts. There is also a chance to demonstrate progression of skills, and the development of participants as both environmentalists and scientists. The outcomes also offer further opportunities for personalisation of learning, and it is well recognised that a more sensory experience aids memory and meta-cognition. The mental ‘anchoring’ in the memory of wading through a swamp in neck high murky water, walking through a river in search of fish, feeling the sweat drip off the end of your nose whilst watching in awe as a troop of spider monkeys swing past and sketching a colpa of hundreds of parrots and macaws in a myriad of colours are all examples of this.
The social media element of the trip allows students to share blogs, WhatsApp and photos that not only celebrate the habitats in which they are working, but also discuss the challenges associated with finding innovative ways to deal with unexpected investigative problems, and tackling complex environmental problems like climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution, mining and population pressure. Long after our return from Tambopata students are still swopping videos, memes, jokes and photographs of the experience ensuring that the experience is embedded cognitively in a multitude of different ways.
From a social viewpoint a school’s most valuable resource is its teaching staff, and time spent talking to students outside the classroom is vital in forming positive student teacher relationships that can only be enhanced through shared experiences. Fieldwork moves beyond the two dimensional aspects of PowerPoint and worksheet learning as students will always have had had experiential learning.