Restoring Connections
Restoring Connections is a project of the Environmental Leadership Program at the University of Oregon, with the goal of using place-based environmental education to reconnect students to their local environment.
The Restoring Connections project works with Adams Elementary School and Mount Pisgah Arboretum to provide students with three opportunities to visit Mt. Pisgah throughout the year. As they progress from kindergarten to fifth grade, students will focus on a different ecosystem and ecological concept each year. The curriculum utilizes inquiry-based education and moves from awareness to action throughout the day, year, and finally, the entire six-year program. By giving children repeated opportunities to participate in journaling, interactive learning games, species identification, questing, and stewardship projects, we are helping to restore their connection to the natural places where they live.
As part of the 2017 Restoring Connections team, I helped to develop three sets of curriculum for second graders, focusing on biodiversity in the canopy layers of the Douglas-fir forest. I also led three kindergarten field trips and three second-grade field trips, with groups ranging from 5-9 students each, along with three classroom pre-trip lessons. As a team, we reached 222 students ranging from kindergarten to second grade. Learn more about the project and view our curriculum on our team website. |
While I had a lot of previous experience with working with children, the Restoring Connections was my first time officially in the role of a teacher. This was exciting but scary, and required more confidence than I initially realized. The biggest thing I learned about teaching was the importance of being adaptable and responding to the energy of the students. Every single group that I worked with was different and required different guidance, however I also saw many similarities between attitudes and how these would change throughout the day. For example, every single group was excited about snack and lunch, so the timing of these during the field trip was crucial to keeping energy levels high. I also knew that I was doing a good job if students were more interested in being on the trail than running to lunch! Learning to read the energy also helped with evaluating the curriculum we had developed and being able to see activities that would or would not work based on the time of day. For example, an activity requiring high levels of concentration was not a good fit for right after another quiet activity, and instead it was best to have them return to a movement-based game that we had played earlier. Teaching outside also required an extra layer of adaptability as we had to move or cut activities if it was raining. Throughout this experience, I gained a lot of confidence in my skills of teaching and writing curriculum as well as being adaptable to whatever comes my way.
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