At outdoor school students are outside of their normal schooling environment, existing in a new place with no sense of where they will be exploring and learning. This can be disorienting and even nerve-wracking for some learners. One way to make students feel more confident and connected to the place where they will be learning is to utilize maps. By having students carry maps and engage with these tools in different ways, they can start to understand and connect their surroundings. This practice not only gets students thinking about how and where they are existing within a new place, but also helps with dual-coding, in which educators are able to reinforce ideas related to the trails and locations they are exploring together with physical navigational tools. There are many different ways to incorporate these dynamic and flexible tools into outdoor teaching practices including the following.

1. Empower students through wayfinding using maps.

In this era of technology with maps easily accessible on mobile devices, students benefit from the opportunity to navigate using physical maps now more than ever. Outdoor school is the perfect place to dive into these skills with students, as they are already disconnected from their mobile devices and have to rely on their own problem solving abilities to move around. When students learn to problem solve their way through navigation by holding a physical map in their hands and directing their classmates through unfamiliar territory, their confidence and excitement around exploration increases.

By fostering wayfinding ability in students, we can help support their development of close observation skills and critical thinking strategies that are key to many different disciplines, including science. In using maps, students must pay close attention to a key, directionality, and main landmarks that will help them figure out where they are and where to go. Additionally, using a map in an outdoor setting where they can connect what they are seeing on the map with what they are seeing in the physical space in front of them allows students to more deeply understand the components of the map itself. This way of wayfinding encourages students to pay close attention to the environment around them and think critically about how their environment is showing up on the physical paper in front of them.

2. Document memories on a map to highlight connections to place.

Maps can also serve as a vehicle for connecting student memories to place. During a week of outdoor school, students will have many new exciting experiences, but since they are in a new place the memories may become fuzzy. When given the chance to connect the memories they are creating to place, by using a map of the place they have been exploring, students are able to engrain those memories deeper. One way that I do this with students is by creating a map on butcher paper that they can use throughout the week to document the paths we take and the memories we make along the way. At the end of the week, this map serves as an artifact of all the things the group has accomplished and as a reminder of the place we have built a strong connection with. This map creation as a team helps highlight the connection and relationship that the students have built with place over the course of one week. Using maps as a way to remind students of their place in an environment and of how they are connected to that environment is a great way to build a student sense of belonging and accomplishment in outdoor school.

3. Give students choice around a shared experience using maps.

In outdoor school, students may come in with some background knowledge about what they might experience or they may have no context for what and where they will be learning. Maps serve as a great tool for familiarizing students with what outdoor school has to offer and for providing students choice around their exploration and curiosities of a place. At the beginning of a teaching week with a new group of students, one strategy that I utilize is providing students with a map with key locations that they may want to visit. In order to provide student choice in their week of outdoor learning, I provide each student a sticker that they can use to indicate where on the map they might like to visit during their week of learning outside. These stickers then act as a guide through which I plan our week to follow the excitement expressed by students. By providing students the opportunity to gain an overview of the place they will be exploring and to express their desires for exploring that place, educators can help students feel included in group decisions and in the decisions that impact the direction of their learning.

4. Teach history using maps.

Maps can be used not only to show students where they are and where they are headed, but also to show how people and other organisms have interacted with the world over time. Maps help tell the historical and ecological history of the land we are exploring together. This can be made possible through the use of historical or ecological maps or through the co-creation of historical maps with students. When we show students different maps of a place over time, we can begin to tell the story of that place and figure out where we fit into that story.

One way that I teach history using maps is by having students create a map of different immigration journeys to the place where they are completing outdoor school, Bainbridge Island. In this activity called Histories and Mysteries, students learn about different people who have had a relationship with the land they are exploring and about their different paths to arriving in relationship with that land. While students are learning about these people, they are asked to map the connection to where they originated and the path they took to get to Bainbridge. This use of maps allows students to explore the journeys of immigrants and to appreciate the contributions of these folks to the history of the island. The map serves as a physical visualization of the human experience and helps students think about the history of the place they are exploring in connection to others over time.

5. Connect new experiences to students’ wider life experiences using maps.

Outdoor school is a temporary experience. It comes in a short moment where students have the chance to learn in a new setting removed from their typical school environments. Maps can serve as a vehicle for transferring the experiences that students have at outdoor school to their everyday lives. When using maps at outdoor school, whether it be to document memories, learn navigation, or learn about history, students are gaining essential skills in being able to connect with the world around them. This is a skill that will serve them not only in outdoor school but in their time beyond. One way to help students connect their time at outdoor school with their time beyond is by creating something called a pathmap. A pathmap helps students recount their experiences during outdoor school and what they have learned, and helps them start to think about how they will carry these experiences with them in the future. By challenging students to map out their thinking and experiences, we can encourage students to find connections between their experiences at outdoor school and their wider lives.

Teaching students navigational skills and providing them the opportunities to interact with maps in different ways increases their confidence, independence, and connections with people and places. When we teach them how to use a tool that allows them independence and problem solving opportunities, we help students build their confidence in their decision making and wayfinding abilities. Additionally, when students practice navigation using maps, they are also practicing their observation skills and that are key to building science habits of mind and finding more appreciation in humans’ connection within the natural world. Despite the age of maps on phones and GPS, physical maps still provide great benefits to people, especially young students connecting with the outdoor world.

Zines (short for magazines) are handmade mini-books produced at home with minimal materials. They have historically been used by marginalized groups and counter-cultures to disseminate information widely and cheaply, often information that traditional print media aren’t willing to publish. Zines are still being used today as a powerful tool to share one's voice without limitations. 

Although the beauty of zines is that they can be about anything, the broad categories that most zines fall into are:

1. How-To Guides
2. Autobiographical / Self-Expression
3. Activism / Spread Awareness

True to the nature of zines, they don’t have to be confined to the walls of art class. I like to use zines in outdoor learning because of how accessible and adaptable they are. Personally, I try to carry as few materials as I can when in the field with students, so zines are the perfect art activity that uses materials I am usually already carrying. Also, because zines can be about anything, I can easily adapt a zine lesson to whichever concept or theme that I’m exploring with my students.  

If you have never taught a zine lesson to students, I have a few tips for doing so in the field:

Tips:

Adjust your level of scaffolding to the age group. Elementary school students will need more guidance than teens, for example.

• For younger students, consider printing out zine templates ahead of time that provide prompts for each page of the zine. You can find examples online or make your own.
• Comics, or telling a short story, are also an easy way to prompt younger students to engage with zines.

Provide prompts that relate to a theme or concept your group is learning.

• For example, if your group has been exploring the theme of “Water,” a prompt could be, “What is your favorite memory with water?” or “How can humans positively impact our watersheds?”  

Consider providing an audience for your students’ zines.

• Your students can make their zine as a gift or a letter for a loved one, or for your next group of students, to increase buy-in. 
• Choosing an audience is also a great way to get your students to create activism-centered zines. Have your group brainstorm and choose an audience instead of deciding for them!

Provide physical examples from previous students or online zine libraries. One or two zines are a very light and small contribution to your field backpack. 

• When possible, have examples from children the same age as your students so they don't feel pressured to create art at the same level as adults.

More artistically inclined students will take more time on their zines than their counterparts, so prepare an alternate activity for those students who finish early.

• Encourage them to add embellishments or color, or offer a follow-up activity. Or they can collaborate with a partner and make another zine!

Cultivate a culture of error- art is about the process rather than the outcome! 

• Make a zine alongside your students to model having a good attitude about art and have fun together.
• Have your students share their zines with partners or small groups, and encourage students to give compliments and positive feedback to each other.
• When looking at your students’ art, avoid generic phrases like, “That’s great!” and instead give specific compliments that highlight their artistic choices and effort, such as, “I like your use of the color blue here,” or, “I can tell how much time you spent on shading that leaf!” Also, try to ask questions that dive deeper into how and why they made certain artistic choices, such as, “I wonder how you made your trees look that way. Can you show me?”

Don’t be afraid to think outside of the box! Further zine possibilities include, but are not limited to: 

• Collaging with leaves from the ground,
• Coloring your zines with pigment you make from the plants or fungi around you,
• Using a zine as a nature journal to draw, make observations, and record wonderings,
• Using a zine as a diary to reflect on what they learned or experienced in outdoor school,
• Tracing leaves or rubbing tree bark on your zines,
• And so many more!

Zines are an amazing art activity to do with students because they are made with minimal materials- all you need is paper, a writing utensil, a pair of scissors, and your creativity! Once children know how to make zines, they can easily make more at home and explore further. Furthermore, the DIY spirit of zine-making is to be raw and authentic. This makes zines an accessible, low-barrier art form for students to express themselves and tell stories, without getting bogged down by making their art look like what they expect “Art” to look like. 

Giving a brief history of the uses of zines for activism and self-expression is also an implicit (or explicit if you so choose) way to show children that their personal experiences are valid and worth sharing. This is especially critical when conducting science learning outdoors that challenges hegemonic models of science and knowledge. Zines teach children that they are the experts of their own lived experience, and they can share and express their truth even if it is at odds with the dominant narratives of our society.

Zines are a low-barrier, accessible way for students to engage with the land and beings around them through art. Zine making can be done anywhere, including outdoors. So go out, grab pencils and paper, and make zines!

Further Resources:

• Making Zines with Young Artists + Writers by Rebecca Pitts
• WHAT ARE ZINES? by Julia Setele, Buffalo State University  
• “How to make a zine from one piece of printer paper” Youtube Video Tutorial by The Oregonian  

Below are a few examples of zines from my students: 

“What can we hear when we really decide to listen?”

I posed this question to a pack of 14 fifth graders visiting IslandWood, buzzing with energy in dappled late-winter sunlight. Sitting together on a fallen cedar at the end of a winding and steep trail, heads whipping around to capture the environment, I knew that transitioning these students from visual exploration into auditory exploration would be an uphill but worthwhile pursuit.

Why try to listen?

For many students in the outdoors, their initial (and often only) mode of observation is visual. While observation of any kind can be illuminating and transformative, creating space for alternative modes of exploration opens the door to unexpected noticings and more holistic models of the environment. Specifically, listening reveals what we cannot see. It allows students to encounter hidden and far-off organisms, to hear themselves contributing to the soundscape, and to begin to understand the ambient character of place.  Developing a repertoire of listening to the environment, rather than solely looking, grants access to context we cannot see, and it encourages students to draw connections between what they see, what they hear, and the mechanics of sound.

Deep listening, as described by Pauline Oliveros (2005), is the practice of widening acoustic perception to include as much depth and variety as possible across space and time. It is the act of pouring full attention into what can be heard. Deep listening is a meditative practice in that it requires discipline and long-term focus (Oliveros 2005). This set of skills is challenging to uphold and is often unfamiliar to students. Deep listening necessitates that students slow down and remain in a focused space for an extended time.

This is made more difficult when students are exploring a new environment. The anxiety of trying something new combines with that of being in a novel location, causing students to struggle settling into an attentive practice. However, once attention to sound is established, the relationship between anxiety and meditation is inverted. The meditative process calms fears and allows students to ground themselves in a new place.

Moving from buzzing excitement to contemplative practice

Instigating the transition between high-activity visual observation and prolonged listening can appear insurmountable, but there are several ways to work alongside students to enter into a meditative space.

Introduce a story about the power of listening
To begin the process of settling into the space and to begin directing toward listening, it can be helpful to begin with a story that emphasizes listening to the environment.

With this group of students, I read Owl Moon by Jane Yolen aloud. This not only gave them an opportunity to get comfortable, but it connected them with the value of listening and with the relationship between prolonged silence and the awakening soundscape.

Ask them to try covering their eyes
Even if students are acquainted with why taking time to listen is a worthwhile experience, they may struggle with how to listen deeply. In order to guide them toward what deep listening may feel like, have them listen to the environment while covering their eyes for around a minute. Be sure to ask them if they noticed any new sounds while listening.

When I tried this with my IslandWood students, they immediately noticed the swishing of their rain gear, the sound of the wind in the branches above their heads, and the croaking of faraway frogs.

Set them up so they can spread
Breaking into a listening practice requires focus, space, and time. In order to facilitate this, pick a location where students can spread out and find a comfortable place. This not only allows students to choose how and where to position themselves, but it also gives them space to focus on what they are hearing without interference from their peers.

Push through early restlessness     
Upon initially settling in, students tend to be restless and chatty. It is important to remember that they are trying something new and are exiting their comfort zones. Give them time and encouragement as they relax. With some time, I have found that they will gradually become more invested as they notice the world around them. Allow them to adjust on their own schedules.

For the first few minutes, this group of students intermittently shouted at and shushed each other. Slowly, they began to quiet into reflective listening. After fifteen minutes, our agreed-upon duration, I suggested we move on, only to be met with a series of shushes.

The Beginning of a Practice

Working alongside students to listen to the environment guides them toward a new way of understanding the world around them. By dedicating time to learning to listen, students gain skills that can be applied any time and in any place. They begin to see what listening can reveal.

References

Oliveros, P. (2005). Deep Listening: A Composer’s Sound Practice. Deep Listening Publications.