Ontario Creates "Children’s Outdoor Bill of Rights"

Give a guess at how many hours children (in school today) spend outdoors playing, doing physical activity, etc?

Three. Including weekends.

The same children spent approximately 7 hours in front of screens.

Actually, sadly enough, children are spending more time indoors than at any other time in human history. Our children's connection to nature has been impaired and resulted in a "nature-deficit" and its a fact. Thankfully there is something we can do about it, and many people have already taken this problem into their own hands. These people are enthusiastic teachers and parents who take their kids outdoors to explore and learn from the nature all around us.

Schools looking outside to inspire students - Globe and Mail

Caroline Alphonso, Education reporter for the Globe and Mail recently wrote an interesting article on schools across Ontario which have been experimenting with teaching children in new and innovative ways that incorporate the outdoors into their lessons.

For example, Ms. Cain's first grade class (at Hillcrest Public School, in Barrie, Ontario) is learning math in the sandbox by adding cups of sand together.  And this fall, Simcoe County District School Board, in north Toronto will be using giant xylophones, sandboxes and road lanes (painted on concrete), pumpkin patches and other tools in their schoolyard as part of an experiment on how the outdoors can be used as a tool in the "Classroom" - now expanding out of the traditional indoor environment!

The article writes about the research: It's getting more and more clear that 

"Getting outside motivates children to learn, keeps them attentive, builds their imaginations and improves classroom behaviour - all of which can improve test scores......The research is difficult to translate into practice though: Teachers are weighted down by curriculum demands, are not trained on how to teach kids in a more fluid environment, and institutionally, education our kids has become a structured, indoor task."

Read the full article HERE.

Do you incorporate the outdoors into your indoor education? How? How can we help teachers to become beter at this? Share with the community!