Ten Strands’ outdoor learning initiatives intend to make safe and healthy outdoor learning spaces widely available to TK–12 students as a positive, accessible, hopeful, and powerful resource.
NATIONAL COVID-19 OUTDOOR LEARNING INITIATIVE
Ten Strands’ first project focused on outdoor learning was our 2020 National Covid-19 Outdoor Learning Initiative. An initiative we launched with Green Schoolyards America, the Lawrence Hall of Science, and the San Mateo County Office of Education. You can access extensive free resources at the National Outdoor Learning Library.
CALIFORNIA SCHOOLYARD FOREST SYSTEM℠
Building on the National Outdoor Library and our partnership with Green Schoolyards America, we are also a founding partner of the California Schoolyard Forest System℠. This initiative launched in 2022 to create PK–12 public school grounds statewide that directly shade and protect students from extreme heat and rising temperatures due to climate change. Visit the Resource Library for practical resources to support schools and school districts as they grow schoolyard forests, including a framework that identifies how to use them to support academics across grades and subjects.
Along with Green Schoolyards America, we’re hosting monthly, interactive online meetings for school districts, county offices of education, and public agencies in California and around the country to share information as they move forward with establishing schoolyard forests at scale. To take part, visit the Community of Practice for Schoolyard Forests website.
SCHOOL GARDEN COALITION
Ten Strands’ recent launch of the School Garden Coalition supports school gardens of all types—edible, native habitat, and pollinator—and recognizes gardens as important to students’ equitable access to environmental literacy and outdoor education.
CAMPAIGN FOR OUTDOOR LEARNING
Through our new statewide Campaign for Outdoor Learning, we are pursuing ways of delivering more educational content outdoors. We are supporting outdoor learning in green schoolyards, walking field trips to nearby parks and open spaces, field trips that require transportation, and weeklong overnight outdoor science schools. Decades of research from many different disciplines show that spending time outdoors has myriad benefits, especially for children. Fresh air, the sound of water, the feel and smell of soil, looking up at trees, kneeling in tidepools, and gazing at inspirational vistas are potent antidotes to nearly every vexing problem facing children in California. Research findings, currently in press, from the Lawrence Hall of Science BEETLES Project even indicate that while spending time in outdoor learning programs benefits all students in significant ways, it benefits girls more than boys and students of color more than white students, making outdoor learning a powerful resource for closing opportunity gaps that have existed for centuries. We will build a coalition in the coming year to advance this work. Our partner in this work, Craig Strang, emeritus associate director of the Lawrence Hall of Science at the University of California, Berkeley, has written about our early ideas in this article.
In September 2024, leaders from various fields and disciplines convened to form a coalition that unites educators, policymakers, researchers, and advocates to reimagine learning environments and address climate and environmental challenges. By fostering collaboration and challenging traditional ideas of where education happens, this effort is paving the way for a healthier, more inspiring future for all California’s students. In this Special Edition Newsletter, you can explore more outdoor learning stories, including a second article by Craig Strang that highlights the commitment of its members driving the initiative forward.
Photo credit: Thomas Kuoh Photography
