Phoebe Lett
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Teaching Philosophy
![Picture](/uploads/7/9/4/2/79425920/1464806306.png)
Key Stance
Students often thrive best when the learning is student centered with multiple teaching environments and styles. Outdoor education allows this because it gets students outside and engaged while also teaching them about the environment, whether that be animals, plants, gardening, nutrition, or the local ecology.
Issues
Lack of access and knowledge about food, nutrition, and the food system causes and perpetuates food deserts, health problems, and a separation between us and our food. Lack of interaction and connection to nature creates a gap between students and their environment and makes it difficult if not impossible for students to foster a caring, empathetic, and curious connection to the natural world around them. Today many students are taught in a traditional classroom setting, often with lecturing being the main way of expressing information, which doesn’t work for every student.
Addressing these issues
Through the UO Environmental Leadership Program’s Restoring Connections team, I helped create a curriculum to help restore students’ connections to nature based on the UN “Awareness to action” framework. We then implemented it by taking 142 students out of the traditional classroom setting and into nature at the beautiful Mount Pisgah Arboretum. Students experienced knowledge and insight into ecological processes visually, verbally, and experientially, making textbook concepts such as seasonality and predation come alive. Students built fairy houses, learned to utilize all their senses through role playing and guided activities. They also learned about what invasive, native, and non-native species are and then actually practicing this by doing a restoration project pulling invasive plants and planting native checker mallows. One younger student was so enraptured by being out doors that they stopped every five minutes to point out their new discovery and ask questions about it, from worms to flowers to streams flowing alongside the trail. Because of our flexible outdoor learning environment we were able to make each of these stops a learning opportunity about the importance of decomposition, to seasonal growth patterns, to the local watershed. This opportunity to lead lessons based on student’s newly peaked curiosities is a key component of environmental education.
I also worked at the Oakland Zoo teaching animal education for four years and with School Garden Project in 21 schools, all with different socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds out of the classroom and into gardens, teaching them about plant life cycles, insects, plant identification, and more. I find outdoor teaching extremely important because it allows for all students, especially those who don’t thrive in a traditional classroom, to engage with and learn about the world around them in a new way. I have seen many students that are labeled as trouble students who have a hard time sitting still at their desk and engaging in classroom lectures go above and beyond while being outside and active. I personally saw a young boy who was unengaged and disruptive in the classroom thrive outside while thoroughly weed out over 100 dandelions, snake grasses, and clovers, while also giving tender care to planting a carrot seed.
Moving Forward
Through all my experiences getting students outside and active in multiple environments and through multiple teaching styles, I have seen students become engaged and enraptured by the environment, gardening, and natural systems around them. Inspiring caring for the environment, a desire to know more, a spark of interest or inspiration, or even learning just a little more about nature is truly an achievement.
Students often thrive best when the learning is student centered with multiple teaching environments and styles. Outdoor education allows this because it gets students outside and engaged while also teaching them about the environment, whether that be animals, plants, gardening, nutrition, or the local ecology.
Issues
Lack of access and knowledge about food, nutrition, and the food system causes and perpetuates food deserts, health problems, and a separation between us and our food. Lack of interaction and connection to nature creates a gap between students and their environment and makes it difficult if not impossible for students to foster a caring, empathetic, and curious connection to the natural world around them. Today many students are taught in a traditional classroom setting, often with lecturing being the main way of expressing information, which doesn’t work for every student.
Addressing these issues
Through the UO Environmental Leadership Program’s Restoring Connections team, I helped create a curriculum to help restore students’ connections to nature based on the UN “Awareness to action” framework. We then implemented it by taking 142 students out of the traditional classroom setting and into nature at the beautiful Mount Pisgah Arboretum. Students experienced knowledge and insight into ecological processes visually, verbally, and experientially, making textbook concepts such as seasonality and predation come alive. Students built fairy houses, learned to utilize all their senses through role playing and guided activities. They also learned about what invasive, native, and non-native species are and then actually practicing this by doing a restoration project pulling invasive plants and planting native checker mallows. One younger student was so enraptured by being out doors that they stopped every five minutes to point out their new discovery and ask questions about it, from worms to flowers to streams flowing alongside the trail. Because of our flexible outdoor learning environment we were able to make each of these stops a learning opportunity about the importance of decomposition, to seasonal growth patterns, to the local watershed. This opportunity to lead lessons based on student’s newly peaked curiosities is a key component of environmental education.
I also worked at the Oakland Zoo teaching animal education for four years and with School Garden Project in 21 schools, all with different socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds out of the classroom and into gardens, teaching them about plant life cycles, insects, plant identification, and more. I find outdoor teaching extremely important because it allows for all students, especially those who don’t thrive in a traditional classroom, to engage with and learn about the world around them in a new way. I have seen many students that are labeled as trouble students who have a hard time sitting still at their desk and engaging in classroom lectures go above and beyond while being outside and active. I personally saw a young boy who was unengaged and disruptive in the classroom thrive outside while thoroughly weed out over 100 dandelions, snake grasses, and clovers, while also giving tender care to planting a carrot seed.
Moving Forward
Through all my experiences getting students outside and active in multiple environments and through multiple teaching styles, I have seen students become engaged and enraptured by the environment, gardening, and natural systems around them. Inspiring caring for the environment, a desire to know more, a spark of interest or inspiration, or even learning just a little more about nature is truly an achievement.