Unlock the power of nature in your middle school classroom. Today's guest, Victoria Zablocki, has ideas for every subject so this episode has something for every teacher's toolbox.

Topics Discussed

• Benefits beyond the science classroom
• Ideas for incorporating nature
• Thinking about your campus in a new way
• Field trip resources

Connect with today's guest

Website: https://www.naturallyteaching.com/

Naturally Teaching Elementary School podcast: https://www.naturallyteaching.com/naturally-teaching-elementary-podcast/

Naturally Teaching store: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Naturally-Teaching

Instagram @naturally.teaching or Facebook at naturally.teaching

Related Episodes

Episode 11 - Color in the Classroom

https://teachingtoolboxpodcast.com/show-notes/color-in-classrooms/

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Brittany 0:05

Hi, friends, welcome to The Teaching Toolbox Podcast. This is Brittany, and I do have a little cold still, so please excuse my voice, but we have a great episode for you today. And unfortunately, Ellie is not here because she has another obligation, but I am going to run this episode with our special guest. If you remember, back to Episode 11, we had a dynamic discussion about color in the classroom with Bridget Dauber, and today, we've got another wonderful guest to talk with us about nature in the classroom. So welcome Victoria Zablocki to the podcast. Did I say that right?

Victoria 1:06

Yes.

Brittany 1:07

Victoria, it's nice to have you here. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Victoria 1:12

Sure. Thanks for having me, Brittany. I'm super excited to chat nature today, because that's been my passion for the last like, 12 or 13 years. But to go back, my name is Victoria Zablocki, and I'm a certified K through 8 teacher who turned into an outdoor educator, and I was fortunate enough to spend a decade at a local nature center using my teaching skills to help create a nature based curriculum for grades K through 2, and also coach local elementary teachers on their best practices for implementing said curriculum. And I later became the school program coordinator at the nature center that I worked for. And through that role, I was in charge of the partnership that we had with the local schools, in addition to creating and coordinating and implementing standards based science and social studies field trips for students K through 12. So my experience does extend into middle school through field trip experience, and currently I'm a stay at home mom, and I use this time away from the classroom and away from the nature center to extend my reach to more teachers through my blog naturally teaching and also my podcast, naturally teaching elementary.

Brittany 2:21

That is awesome. Thanks for sharing. It sounds fun. I would love to just deal with nature. And when Ellie taught fifth grade, one of her field trips was to a local nature center, and she says the kids always enjoyed the lessons and activities they did there. And we used to take our kids in sixth grade to both a nature center, and then we would also just take them on a hike, just to go on a hike through the forest. So when we think of nature in the classroom, we often think of science class. But how can nature in the science classroom benefit students?

Victoria 3:00

There are lots of benefits for nature in the science classroom. They're non science specific benefits. So something that I noticed, and I know that a lot of other outdoor educators notice, is that there's a longer attention span when you're in nature. Things move slower, and students are able to take that time to actually pay attention, and they're interested intrinsically in what's happening, and so they can focus on a task for longer periods of time in nature than they tend to in the classroom, which is wonderful in science and any other class. They also tend to have better time management, so they recognize that they've got these tasks that need to be completed, and they have fewer distractions out in nature, and they have a better ability to manage their own time. It also, in that same respect, fosters responsibility, and so they tend to, especially those children in the classroom that don't have those leadership skills, they tend to step out and lead and have that responsibility in nature, as well as the students that tend to do well inside as well, and it naturally lowers stress levels too. So there's a lot of research behind that. And so naturally those stress levels are lowered because things move at a slower pace, and again, they have that longer attention span. So we've got looking at nature that lowers stress. We've got the activities you're doing outside that help lower stress as well. But when you go back to the science specific if you follow the Next Generation Science Standards, then you're trained to introduce a phenomenon that will get your students working through different steps to discover why that phenomenon happens. And nature is full of very interesting and naturally occurring phenomenon, and it's a great place to pull your information and place based learning, which is my next point, that nature helps with place based learning and science. So we often think about and teach about far away ecosystems and concepts, which is great to help balance out a student's overall understanding of the world, but what's really going to hit home for students is what's happening to them and what's happening in their community and what's happening immediately around them. And using your local nature provides your students the opportunity to better understand all of those pieces, how they interact together, and they can become interested and passionate about what they're learning because it's happening to them. And then nature also provides opportunity for project based learning and I know that that's a buzzword in education, but it's true. There are so many different projects that can be developed around your local nature, from learning gardens to citizen science projects. There are many different ways that science classes can work towards bettering their community with nature in their curriculum.

Brittany 5:45

Wow, there's so much.

Victoria 5:48

It's truly amazing. The last thing that I want to point out for science is that it's refines science skills. So something that's a little less prevalent in middle school, that I tend to see a lot in elementary teachers, is that there's a focus on experiments, and I know that that is an important skill, but the reality is is there's a lot of variety in science skills that need built up throughout their time in school, and that can be benefited from nature, because we can practice questioning, observing, notebooking, using science tools, modeling, engineering, scientific discussion and presentation, all of these pieces can be refined very easily and often even enhanced with nature studies.

Brittany 6:29

I'm impressed. Wow. There's just so much that you can do in science. But what about the general classroom? Is that a possibility, like, how would you incorporate nature in, say, a math classroom or a history classroom to get some of those same benefits.

Victoria 6:46

So that's one of the wonderful things about nature, is that it's cross curricular and so although it seems to fit super easily with science, once you get thinking about it from different perspectives, you can actually see the potential for nature in a variety of different subjects. So as an example for math, nature follows very complex mathematical equations which can be explored through different nature studies. But if you want to be more simple about it, you could use nature in your studies to talk about perimeter and talk about area. You could take measuring tools outside. You can measure your building. You can measure like the outdoor basketball court. You could take scales outside and estimate the weight of a variety of natural objects. On a nice day, you could take sidewalk chalk out, and you could work through mathematical equations on the sidewalk itself instead of on paper. And so the possibilities are truly endless if you take away from just the content piece, even just being outside, like we talked about lowering stress levels. Being outside and working on math in nature is also beneficial, not just taking math and trying to find math in nature.

Brittany 7:54

Don't a lot of plants actually follow the Fibonacci spiral sequence?

Victoria 8:01

I actually just did some research on that, because I'm writing programs for the nature center I used to work at, and there are a lot of different pieces. Like the sunflower is a really good example of the Fibonacci sequence. And then pineapple scales of all things, they follow. Yeah, they follow the Fibonacci sequence. So, yeah, I just, I just did some research on them. That's funny. But you had also asked about some of the other subjects. And so history has a very deep connection with nature, as civilizations throughout time use nature to inform where they settled. So if you teach local or state history, you could look to your local people and the land to inform your nature studies. So you could take them outside and ask them to survey the land and decide where they would settle if they were during that time period using natural resources that they see. And if you're talking economics, you could have students develop a product out of natural materials that they could quote, unquote, sell through an infomercial in front of the classmates. And then, if you're teaching about trading, you could give your students time to explore your green space around your school and collect natural items that they could barter and trade each other. And again, the possibilities are truly endless once you start thinking about it in a different way.

Brittany 9:13

That's awesome. I have a curriculum on Colorado State history, and it's making me think about ways I could incorporate it into my curriculum. That's neat. So these are awesome ideas. They're making places around me also pop into my head as to what I could do with students and where I could take them. What are some other ways we can involve nature in our bigger classroom settings, like specials classes, music, you know, computers, cafeteria, the gym, just the building as a whole. What can we do with nature with those?

Victoria 9:51

Yeah, there's a variety of ways that you could include nature in your physical school space. So if your staff is on board with nature, and it's benefits you could work together to have a nature collection table in a central location where students could log and place their cool findings, either from home or from the school green space. And that creates that sense of community. It also gives students that ability to share what they're finding in their own space and and build that love of nature and stewardness. There's also a lot of research to support how looking at nature can lower stress levels, like we talked about. So if you include potted plants in your classrooms or the cafeteria and the main office that can help encourage happier moods and lower stress, even just simply having plants in your building. And then you could also even do something like opening your blinds or curtains so that your students get natural sunlight during the day and that can naturally lift their mood. And if it's a nice day, you can actually open your windows and let the fresh air in too. And so they seem kind of trivial and small, but those small pieces add, over time, to help with lower stress levels and happier moods.

Yeah, we talked about in that coloring that color episode, we talked about how the color green is really beneficial to students as a calming, secure kind of feeling for students. So I can see how looking at plants would help reduce that stress, because most are green.

And I just put a bunch of padded plants in my own home. And even just looking in the corner and seeing a plant that wasn't there before, it makes me smile, you know, yeah, something as simple as that. And maybe your students having a hard day, and you notice them over by the plant, and it'll make you feel good about that small step that you took, right?

Yeah.

But going back to some of your other classes, you're asking about specials like for physical education, that's a pretty easy bridge, too. We can pretty easily take physical education outside to have them run, play tag, practice sports, that sort of thing. In music, you could have your students listen to bird calls. There's an Audubon bird app, and it's free, and you can try to match the different pitches for the different birds in your area. Or your music class could even just go outside and take musical instruments outside, or use nature to create instruments to play music while they're outdoors. Language classes could benefit from going outside, and they could identify the different pieces that they're finding in nature and use those to spark different conversations in their second language. And then I saved art for last, because that's one of my favorites to talk about. But art has such a rich connection to nature, with a lot of artists being inspired by the things that they find outside. So your building's art class could go outside and work on a project based on something they found outside, like bringing in a small piece of nature, gluing it to a white page, and then creating a piece that flows with that piece of nature. Or they could do something like a project inspired by the English artist Andy Goldsworthy, who he creates art in nature using only natural materials. So he doesn't use glue, he doesn't use like wire, things like that. He uses leaves and uses sticks and mud, and then he takes pictures to showcase his work. So it was all in nature. He leaves it there and only takes pictures. You could do a project based on that, again, endless possibilities.

Wow. I'll have to look him up. I haven't heard of him before.

He does gorgeous work. He does a lot of spirals. I don't know if it's the Fibonacci thing again, but he does a lot of spiraling. And he has a lot of really amazing pieces that he leaves out in nature to go back to nature, but he takes those pictures and shares those with the world.

So we have a gentleman around here. I think he actually goes all around the US. But he's particularly done, I think, three pieces in Colorado where he takes nature items and builds trolls, but they're giant. They're giant trolls. And he kind of puts them in a tucked away spot. So you have to, like, take a hike to find them. But they attract, you know, a lot of people to visit them, but they're made with natural items and only made with natural items, and they're very neat to see. But I believe he's made some in Oregon. I believe Vermont has one and stuff so.

There might be one here in Michigan too. My sister in law sent me a picture of a troll in the Upper Peninsula. So it might be the same guy.

Yeah. So you mentioned that you had worked with field trips in K through 12. So are nature field trips good for middle school grades, and where would you recommend we take students?

So I believe that nature field trips are good for everybody, but can be incredibly impactful for our middle school students, right? They're kind of that in between, sort of, they have a little bit of that exploration they still want to accomplish, but they're also maturing. And so along with all the benefits that we've already talked about, your students can get a crash course in standards that you're focusing on by visiting a location that has standards based nature field trips. So most locations that create these forms of field trips know that they only have your students for a short amount of time, and so they jam packed those field trips with meaningful and impactful activities. And I know it's super challenging to try to get middle schoolers out to a field trip, because you have to take them from all their different hours, try to coordinate all of it, but it truly is beneficial. So as an example, at the nature center where I worked, we had a variety of ecosystems that were really close to our visitor center, and so we were able to take the students to the woods, the meadow, and to a pond, and they're able to collect data from all three different ecosystems, and that's something that you just likely wouldn't be able to do around your school, because most schools don't have a meadow woods and a pond, right?

Yeah,

If they did, they'd be the best nature school ever. But these establishments also likely have the added benefit of equipment too that will enhance your students experiences, because you probably don't have all of those pieces due to, like, a lower budget, right for school budgeting, or you're not allowed to take the microscopes outside because there's a potential for damage. So you know, as an example of something you probably don't have in your building, you probably don't have a turbidity wheel or a turbidity tube in your building, right?

No,

And a lot of nature centers do. So these organizations have different pieces that you just aren't able to have in your own classroom, and they have the ability to take them to places that you can't take them to in your own building or your own green space. And sometimes, a lot of times, these organizations also have staff that have advanced degrees in their field of study, and that adds greater depth of knowledge to your students experience. Plus, we all know that students tend to listen better to a shiny new authoritative figure, like a field trip leader versus their teacher, just like kids tend to listen to teachers better than their parents, right? So, yeah, you know, there's that added benefit. But as far as recommendations, it's hard to recommend exactly where your audience should take their students. But one thing that I do want to impart on them are a few tips to be able to try to find quality nature field trips near them, because, again, I know that it's super difficult, it's very costly to be able to take field trips, and you don't want to get skunked, right? You don't want to go to one. You're super jazzed about it. You've spent all this money, you've done all the organization. You get there, and then it falls flat. So I've got three tips. I'm hoping these three tips will help your audience find quality field trips that they feel comfortable and excited to take with their students. So my first tip is to look for locations that have standards based field trips. So if they don't tie their experiences to curriculum, you won't have a good idea on whether or not they're going to cover what you need them to. And so a lot of these spaces will either have a brochure online or they'll have a physical brochure that should lay out what standards they cover, and if not, reach out to them and ask, what is it that you're covering in this this description sounds like it's a good fit for me right now. What are you covering? Don't be afraid to ask and advocate for you and your students, because, again, it's a lot of work on your side, and it's a lot of money, and you want to make sure that you're getting out of it what you want. My tip number two is to ask your other teacher friends and find out where they've had positive experiences. Word of mouth is going to be one of your best ways of finding quality field trips, because if we're being honest, most places, maybe not in Colorado, but most places around where I'm from, there aren't a ton of options for nature field trips. And so the teachers talk, and they find the best ones, and they continue to go there year after year. And then tip number three is to consider looking for grants to help you pay for bussing. So here in Michigan, we have grants available from the Michigan nature association for field trips that are based in nature, and they help cover transportation, sometimes program fees, and sometimes even materials. So if you can find an organization like the nature center that I worked with, they would actually help the teachers fill out these grants, so they'd provide them all the information they needed, and then they were able to fill out those grants, get that money, and if you have an organization that has standards based field trips, and they get a good review from your friends and they're willing to help you fill out those grants, then it'd be really good to consider giving them your time and your money, because they're likely a very well organized and good location for a field trip, if they're going to go out of their way like that.

Yeah, definitely

If people are looking for a more concrete example, though, I've seen a lot of good success with nature centers, botanical gardens, nature preserves, state and national parks. Some summer camps even have quality field trips during the school year, when they're out of their summer season. And then some sovereign nations also have high quality history field trips. So you could check into them. We have a tribe close by, who has a museum, and they do cultural history field trips, which are really beneficial for our Michigan history students.

Wow, I wouldn't have even thought about that. That's great. Thank you.

Yeah,

So this has been a great discussion. I'm I'm like, jazzed. I wish I was still in the classroom at this point. Thank you for sharing all your brilliant ideas for outdoor adventures and art and the idea that nature is cross curricular and even just opening our shades and curtains. I'm sure listeners will have heard something today that they can definitely take with them, and I never would have thought about grants either. So that's awesome. I'm sure they will hear something they can add to their teaching toolbox. So before we go, where can people find you?

Sure. Thank you, Brittany, for having me on, and thank Ellie too, and I hope you know she's able to get on to the next interview. I can be found at naturally teaching.com that's where I host my blog. And then I also have my show notes for my podcast. And then my podcast is naturally teaching elementary. So even though it's got that elementary piece in there, I do cover all the way through fifth grade, K through five. And so I know some middle schools are five through eight, sometimes five through seven. And then there's also the added benefit of a lot of the activities and things that I talk about can be used in middle school as well. So even though I'm trying to push for elementary teachers, there is benefit to middle school teachers as well on my podcast. So check me out there too. And if you have any questions, you can email me at Victoria, at naturally teaching.com, or you can send me a message on Instagram or Facebook. I'm there at naturally dot teaching.

Awesome. We will link all those in the show notes so that people can reach out to you. If you love this episode, let us know, leave a rating or a review or get in touch with us through social media. We will talk with you later. Thanks, Victoria,

Thank you, Brittany.