Today, a School District 61 teacher, Kristen, came in and talked to us about incorporating technology into outdoor education. One of the questions she asked us was what kind of technology we as teachers can use to help students foster a healthy relationship with the land. Some apps, programs, and websites that she recommended, along with some we came up with, are as follows:

We also touched on a few other things such as using cameras, educational videos, livestreams of forests, aquariums, eagles’ nests, and more. Another way I thought of using tech in this regard is by using VR, possibly for virtual field trips. This would be fun, however, even affording one VR headset for the classroom would be quite costly at this point. As a result, this would likely be at a point in the future when there are cheaper options available for classroom use.

Following a brief presentation, we took the class outside into Finnerty Gardens for a scavenger hunt created for us by Michael. He had us find six QR codes placed by him that linked to different topics and videos connected to outdoor education and Finnerty Gardens. This would be a great activity to bring into the elementary classroom if we distributed devices that could scan QR codes. It would connect outdoor education with technology and be an engaging way for students to learn the material. If I were to do this with a class, I would make it so the students had to interact with and engage with the links in the QR codes for it to count towards their scavenger hunt. I fear that some students would run through the garden to get every QR code in the scavenger hunt without engaging with the resources simply so they could be the first to complete it. Overall it was a fun experience to work with my group! Below I’ve included pictures that I got in the gardens along with some examples of the QR codes.

Some QR codes posted by Michael
Some very friendly ducks coming to say hello!