Kids change when they get outside.
Over the years we have had many educators remark about how children that can otherwise be difficult to engage suddenly show commitment to a hands-on activity we’re conducting.
Away from the confines of the classroom young learners can have further opportunities to engage with their different ‘intelligences’. According to Howard Gardner (2011), there are 8 intelligences that we may draw upon when learning.
These are:
- words (linguistic intelligence)
- numbers or logic (logical-mathematical intelligence)
- pictures (spatial intelligence)
- music (musical intelligence)
- self-reflection (intrapersonal intelligence)
- physical experience (bodily kinesthetic intelligence)
- a social experience (interpersonal intelligence)
- manipulating elements in the environment (naturalistic intelligence).
This last point, I feel, is what learners have been drawing upon when the previously hard to engage becomes suddenly engrossed in an activity, such as sorting through a tray of water bugs.
Something hands-on doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s best practice though. Environmental education conducted in isolation is just that. However, through using the ‘hook’ of an outdoor/science/nature activity to engage these learners educators can build upon this engagement by integrating the activities with cross-curricular priorities.
Many of our Learning Centre activities have been developed with cross-curricular links in mind and over the next few months we are reviewing how our activities can also help fulfil literacy, numeracy, and other curriculum priorities.
So often in classrooms we struggle to find authentic, engaging stimuli for our maths, writing and literature programs, yet at the same time we struggle to find time for the integrated studies and science curriculum.
It is our hope that by facilitating better links across the curriculum we will be able to better engage learners, help fulfil the curriculum and instigate some great environmental outcomes too.
Howard Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences (2011) broadens the definition of intelligence by outlining eight distinct types of intellectual competencies, based on a variety of scientific disciplines. Gardner’s theory suggests we may all have these intelligences — Linguistic, Logical/Mathematical, Spatial, Bodily-Kinesthetic, Musical, Interpersonal, Intrapersonal, and Naturalist — but our compositions may differ individually based on genetics or experience. To read more about this theory,