Nature in the Schools

1. Nature in the Schools A program of

2. The model for The Nature Museum's Nature in the Schools program is a naturalist-in-residence partnership, providing long-term guidance, programs, training, and cross-curriculum support to administrators, teachers, and students. What is the Nature in the Schools Program?

3. Professional development to teachers. • Educational services directly to students. • Engaging program materials. • A deeper connection with the local community. What can the Nature in the Schools Program provide?

4. The Nature Museum provides professional development to teachers. • Our experienced environmental educators work collaboratively with teachers to design thematic programs that connect directly to the school’s curriculum. What can the Nature in the Schools Program provide?

5. Nature Museum naturalists offer educational services directly to students. This direct teaching also gives teachers the opportunity to observe current outdoor and environmental education techniques. What can the Nature in the Schools Program provide?

6. The Nature Museum supplies engaging program materials with all partnerships. Curricular materials stay with the school for continued use in years to come. What can the Nature in the Schools Program provide?

7. What can the Nature in the Schools Program provide? The Nature in the Schools Program gives students and teachers a deeper connection with their local community. Programs are based on the grade level’s curriculum as well as the local community, using your school yard as a living laboratory.

8. Our partnership can be designed to take schools through an entire school year or just a season. • The program is highly flexible, enabling teachers to schedule programming and curriculum support around their schedules. • Nature Museum staff can work with school administrators to aid in funding the Nature in the Schools Program. How is the Nature in the Schools Program designed?

9. What benefits can The Nature in the Schools Program bring to my school? • Prepare students for exams in a productive and meaningful way. • Improve students’ ability to concentrate in the classroom. • Give students a sense of place within the community and foster future environmental leaders.

10. Prepare students for exams in a productive and meaningful way. • An environmentally themed curriculum lends itself to discussion and debate. The Common Core State Standards Initiative encourages students to examine informational text options and develop claims and counter-claims on content issues. • NECAP testing involves understanding an inquiry task and sets of data. An outdoor oriented curriculum easily lends itself to inquiry tasks and data collection that can have meaning to students, such as river monitoring, local bioassessments, and school garden planning. What benefits can The Nature in the Schools Program bring to my school?

11. Improve students’ ability to concentrate in the classroom. • Nature has been proven to be an effective treatment for Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) and Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). The Attention Restoration Theory suggests that natural environments assist in recovery from directed attention fatigue in part because they draw on involuntary attention rather than directed attention. Certain elements in the environment draw on our involuntary attention: moving things, wild animals, bright things. Environments that draw primarily on involuntary attention give directed attention a chance to rest. After spending time in nature, students’ directed attention has been rested and they are able to concentrate on classroom tasks like reading, writing, and math more easily. (Taylor, 2001) What benefits can The Nature in the Schools Program bring to my school?

12. Give students a sense of place within the community and foster future environmental leaders. • Sense of place can be established through students’ involvement in programs, that have a real impact on community members and their needs. Students could create a community garden, monitor a local river and report the results at town meeting, or find a local environmental problem and take steps as a group to improve it. • Psychologist Louise Chawla reports that after interviewing “environmentally active citizens she found that they attribute their commitment to the environment on two things: many hours spent outdoors as children and an adult mentor who taught them a respect for nature” (Johnson, 2004). If our children are missing either of these two things, where will our future John Muirs, Rachel Carsons, and Charles Darwins come from? “If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement, and mystery of the world we live in.” ― Rachel Carson What benefits can The Nature in the Schools Program bring to my school?

13. To bring high-quality, in-depth science and environmental education into local schools. • To demonstrate to students that we can all have a sustainable relationship with the natural world. Our Goals!

14. For further information please contact: Beth Roy, Director of Education (802)843-2111 beth@nature-museum.org PO Box 38, Grafton VT 05146 Works Referenced Johnson, Katie. 2004. My Turn: ‘Save the Elephants: Don’t Buy Ivory Soap’. Newsweek, August 16, 2004, p. 14. Louv, Richard 2005. Last Child in the Woods: Saving our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder. Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Taylor, Andrea Faber; Frances E. Kuo; & William C. Sullivan. 2001. “Coping With ADD: The Surprising Connection To Green Play Settings.” Environment and Behavior 33(1): 54-77.