Above:Holding a bow-drill properly is key to starting a fire. Wrapping your arm around one knee stabilizes your top hand, making it easier to add pressure and produce friction.
In mid-November I received an email from Anne Tibbetts, a fourth-grade teacher at Great Salt Bay School (GSB), who wrote, “Thank you both for putting up with our boisterous group. They do get so much out of the experience. I found some cool related material about what we learned today and I will extend it in the classroom.”
Few comments from teachers are more exciting to me than this kind of message. Anne’s enthusiasm for the experience, and her willingness to help the kids draw connections between what we learned and other concepts in the classroom, greatly magnify the educational value of what we can offer during one class.
Angela and I, the two year-round members of Coastal Rivers’ education team, had gone to GSB as part of a series of classes we designed together with the fourth grade teachers in early fall. On the day Anne emailed me, we had taught a program called “How Animals Prepare for Winter.” We shared a number of artifacts with the kids, including a white ermine pelt and a turtle shell, and we then took the students for a nature walk on the GSB trails. In the woods we observed places where wild turkeys had scratched up leaves in search of acorns, and where deer tracks crossed a stream not far from the school. We talked with the kids about the seasonality of food sources for animals throughout the year and how animals that are active in the winter adapt.
With each school group that we see on a repeating basis, we develop a “lens.” or a theme through which we focus our programs. For the GSB fourth graders, our lens is survival and energy in natural environments. This fits well with learning standards, which supports the teachers’ work. We started the unit in the fall with a discussion and demonstration about what calories are and what it means to “burn” calories. Many of the classes within this unit focus on how plants and animals survive, and we are also integrating human survival skills.
In early December, after receiving approval from the school principal, we introduced bow drills and talked about how to use friction to start a fire. Next, we went outside so the kids could practice using the bow drills. I told the students that this is a hard skill to master, and if they so much as got the spindle of their bow drill hot, they were excelling. By the end of the class a few kids had managed to get smoke, and they were yelling out, “Smoke! I made smoke! I can smell it!”
Following this class we heard from teacher Stephen Roy (the emphasis here is his): “Not only are the classes FANTASTIC, but I was thinking that they also provide our students with naturally scaffolded practice with active listening…it’s all about something Sarah mentioned yesterday while kneeling on our hard floor and demonstrating how the bow (drill) works. She found the teachers’ eyes in the crowd and said with appreciation, “Fire helps!” and I recognized the helpful reality behind that: since FIRE is REAL and since our students carry some ancestral knowledge that FIRE is always worth considering, we teachers didn’t have to request their attention as frequently yesterday. FIRE (or even just the possibility of imminent FIRE, along with animal tracks and emergency shelters) is so inherently compelling that even our most distractible fourth graders were drawn in by it, found themselves maintaining focus for longer than they usually can, and got to FEEL some success with the aspect of school that is the most challenging. REAL stuff, well taught, is the best, and that’s what we have going on. Fire helps.”
It’s true that when I had knelt on the classroom floor to introduce the use of the bow drill to the kids, all thirty of them were absolutely quiet. They remained focused on the goal throughout that class. This is not a group that easily finds stillness, or quiets themselves, but the promise of fire did help.
Our outdoor, hands-on, nature-focused programs offer many small moments of learning like these. And at the same time, I am witnessing the degree to which these programs, with the support of teachers that ensure additional connections are made, can add up to something greater than the sum of their parts. Research has shown that learning new things or having new experiences boosts dopamine levels, which not only makes learning feel exciting but also makes a person seek to repeat the experience.
And now we have a great opportunity: a group of students who has experienced learning in nature, is learning self-regulation skills that will enhance their capacity to learn, and – perhaps most importantly – seeks new learning experiences, specifically in nature. What started as one classroom sharing of artifacts, a nature walk, and a teacher helping kids see how the world is connected, is now becoming something much more significant. The cumulative effect is that these “boisterous” kids are developing a life-long love of learning, and the outdoors.
Photos courtesy of Anne Tibbitts/GSB School
