Antioch New England’s Nature-Based Early Childhood Education program faculty, Ellen Doris and Elizabeth Lowe, recently hosted a weeklong workshop with the Windham Northeast Supervisory Union.
Cheryl Charles, chairwoman of the Westminster School Board and an early proponent of getting kids outdoors, said the goal is to encourage students to recover from the various social and emotional problems that came out because of the COVID-19 pandemic. “It is taking children outdoors for learning,” she said, and not just learning about nature.
The program provided teachers a crash course on integrating their regular lessons on literacy, math, and science in the outdoors and getting students out of the classroom.
Doris said that getting students outside in nature helps both them and nature by raising awareness of the world. She said a growing number of schools and teachers are interested in the program and philosophy. Lowe stressed that one of the first things the Antioch program teachers and presenters learned about was safety — how you take young students outdoors safely, whether it is about a class on math, literacy or butterflies.
