Hi, William, 

Good questions! In many ways, this audience is much more nimble than working with district or school administrators within the formal education system--the program leaders we work with are, for the most part, able to quickly make decisions around professional learning, curriculum, observation protocols, etc. As a result, we've seen significant change much, much faster than our projects that focus on classroom teachers. 

I think the big challenge has been a mindset shift for the field-- for the most part, there have not been a lot of high-quality, research-based, student-centered, and nature-centered resources for informal outdoor science organizations, and many of the organizations around the country have been working in relative isolation. We are really challenging people's basic ideas about teaching, the role of playing games, the role of lecture, as well as what it means to have a learning community, to develop growth mindset amongst educators, etc. Folks have mostly really embraced the BEETLES resources, but the challenge has been to make sure the change is long-lasting, both for the individual organizations, but, more importantly, for the field, which means new ways to network, collaborate, and share best practices across organizations. 

Hey, Billy. Thanks for watching our video. As Jedda says, it has been so rewarding working with the outdoor science education community, especially those running residential outdoor science programs that are so memorable and have such an impact on learners already. They do a great job at connecting kids to nature, character education, social/emotional learning, but haven't had access to research or resources related to science learning. Best part? A bunch of the residential outdoor science schools and other outdoor science programs are... coastal and marine!

Thanks Craig, this is such a great project and a really nice model for professional development and capacity building. I'd love to read more about your research/evaluation results.

Hey Brian, 

Yes! That's our experience, too! Lots of "drag and brag" or "fact vomiting". As you mention, we encourage all of the educators we work with to ask questions of their students that they, themselves, don't already know the answer to! Learning alongside your students is such a powerful modeling experience!

All of our professional learning experiences, including the one on the learning cycle, are designed so that educators go through an adult experience that mirrors the best practices that we're trying to encourage them to use--in other words, no lecturing about why not to lecture. You can check out session on the learning cycle, called Teaching & Learning,  if you want, including the write-up, the slides, and a video of us teaching it. Throughout the session, the participants are thinking about how to teach about lichen, they experience a more instructor-centered way of teaching about it, then spend time thinking about different ways to organize the activity that better reflects a positive learning experience they've had, then they experience our learning cycle-based Lichen Exploration activity, and finally have time to do some planning on their own. However, we don't expect that any of our professional learning sessions will completely change instructor practice on their own, so we also have a list of follow-up activities that we hope program leaders lead with the staff, including 1:1 observations and coaching, staff discussions on questions related to the learning cycle, etc. 

In general, we really recommend that educators use some materials that are designed using the learning cycle, BEETLES activities or otherwise, so that they get that gut feeling before they do any major activity revisions or try to create their own activities. 

Do you have experience teaching educators about the learning cycle, as well? What have you had success with?

Thanks for a very full answer, Jedda.

     I think in our projects, we've not used anything like the learning cycle as such.  I tend to want to emphasize the idea that the scientist is a question-seeker, at least as much as a question answerer; and that questions drive the rest of the inquiry — yuo clearly are "on" that as well.    So a docent or teacher should make sure to help their students get a feeling for why something is puzzling or exciting — and so why questions might arise.... Giving them a chance to experience doing some research that they design for themselves can be a big help in changing pedagogy. 

Yep, I'd say we're definitely on the same page, Brian. And our professional learning materials aim to give educators that feeling as well, so that they are more motivated to then make sure they create opportunities for students to feel that excitement, curiosity, wonder, etc. 

Hi, Claire,

Yep, we have had interest and participation from park and nature preserve folks. While we started out just focusing on residential outdoor science programs, we quickly realized that lots of nature center, interpretation, NPS, etc, folks were using our materials and eager to attend an Institute. With the broad implementation award from NSF, we've been able to strategically reach a much broader audience. Although national parks programs tend to be a little slower to change than some of the other informal systems we've worked with (see my comment above in response to William), I think we've still seen shifts in interpreter practice from more instructor-centered to more learner-centered. 

Hey Maia, 

Thanks for checking out the video! There have definitely been some geographic areas that we've struggled to reach; you can see the areas that we've had a harder time reaching out to on this map of all of our partners. We definitely have a lot of representation from the coasts, but we're missing the Southwest (Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, west Texas), a strip of Plains states (North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas), and we'd love to reach more programs in the South. 

Age ranges and audiences haven't really been a challenge; if anything, there's more demand than we're able to fulfil. Most of our activities for students are focused on middle school, as that is the bulk of the students that attend residential outdoor science experience, but interest in nature preschools and nature experiences for elementary students as well as for high school students is certainly growing and we wish we had more model activities for a wider age range of students. Similarly, while we originally created resources for residential programs, we've had increasing demand from schools, nature centers, national parks, etc. In an ideal world, we'd be able to create customized resources for all different kinds of outdoor science experiences. 

Thinking about other challenges, we've definitely had resistance from some individuals about changing instructor practices or students missing out on favorite games/stories/traditions, but more often than not, our biggest resistors end up being our staunchest supporters after going through some productive struggle. 

I think, unlike working with teachers and in formal education systems, the field of environmental education/outdoor science has been so resource-deprived that folks have been really excited and receptive to try out our materials and, then have noticed significant changes in how the learners respond.  

Hi, Maia, I'll add on to what Jedda said. There is another audience that we are trying hard to reach--community based organizations, youth development programs and environmental justice programs that regularly take people outside but don't consider their main mission to be outdoor science learning, and who don't self-identify as environmental educators. These programs routinely work in and with black, brown and Native American communities. We have some funding parallel to our NSF Broad Implementation grant to establish new partnerships, improve equity, inclusion and cultural relevance in outdoor science programs, and to promote the hiring and advancement of people of color in this mostly white field. It has been a privilege to learn about the work of organizations in California like Youth Outside, YES Nature to Neighborhoods, Crissy Field Center, Latino Outdoors, Breakthrough Communities, Outdoor Afro, etc.

Hi Maia - I'll add on a bit more to what Jedda and Craig have said. One of our biggest challenges is a tendency for folks to want to take shortcuts. For example, instead of providing their staff with the full experience of one of our professional learning sessions, they may just present selected parts. The same is true for our student activities, when instructors teach abridged versions. Meaningful learning is a process that takes time and experiences, and we've carefully crafted all our resources to be impactful, and we've tested them extensively with many different audiences, but less savy users may not recognize the importance of the components of a meaningful learning experience, and can make them less effective by cutting out or altering parts. Some instructors don't want to have to carefully read and follow a write-up, or want to "make an activity their own" the first time they teach it. Over and over again, we strongly recommend that educators follow the write-up as written for at least the first few times they teach it, to get a feel for the flow and impact, before making modifications. The art of instruction is challenging enough to keep any instructor growing throughout their entire career, and to become effective instructors, folks have to recognize and embrace this challenge with humility. 

Thanks, all! It's always interesting to hear what the challenges are in projects, and how people are working to overcome them. In some ways the challenges seem similar no matter what areas of education we work in or where we do our work. Thanks for being so willing to share!

Thanks, Miyoko. I'm excited to check out your work with Bird Cams. One of our partners got very excited about using birds and bird videos as a way to get kids curious about nature and excited about arguing from evidence. You can check out a blog post he wrote about birding on our website. We also have an activity on Bird Language in which students make observations about bird vocalizations and behavior. Maybe something you can use in your project?

Hi, Miyoko. Also, one of our favorite outdoor science programs using BEETLES resources is The Bird School Project www.birdschoolproject.org in Santa Cruz, California.

Jedda, thanks for the links--I loved the blog post about birding, and the wonderful video of the students debating the identity of the Acorn Woodpecker. I was especially excited to read that the kids use the Merlin Bird ID app, which we developed with NSF AISL funding. Thank you for these resources--I feel like I have discovered a gold mine! Craig, thanks for the link to the Bird School Project. My family had the pleasure of hosting co-founder Darrow for a meal at our home a few years ago, but we had since lost touch. I'm happy to see from the website that the project is thriving!

Hello, Julianne. Thanks for watching our video. Your question is exactly the one we are focused on trying to answer! Those Kindergartners are at the peek of their scientific capabilities, and then it seems that our schooling slowly drains it out of them a little at a time each year. I think we train our students that science is really more about memorizing and knowing right answers, and that being curious, experiencing wonder/awe, and asking both investigable and imponderable questions is only for the littles! The BEETLES Project is focused on developing resources for approximately middle school age students, the age when many kids decide that science is not for them, and the age that is the target audience of most residential outdoor science schools. We've had many educators that work with high school students tell us that they can use or easily adapt many of our activities for their slightly older students. They can also provide learning-cycle-based, student-centered, nature-centered models to use when you are developing your own field activities. We would really be happy to have you take a look at our resources, try out one or two, and give us some feedback about how they work. We'd like to know what we can do to support high school teachers. Maybe our next NSF proposal...??!!

I will definitely check it out-thank you!

Hi Cat -

I love it! 

Thanks

Cat