Taking the Classroom Outdoors With Grade 10 Geography

Exploring geography can be an exciting adventure when using the outdoors as a classroom. Students in Geography 10 learned about drainage patterns by observing how water flows naturally across the land, just like rainwater on a chapel roof running down into gutters and drain spouts, which can be compared to a dendritic or trellis pattern in the case of the Hensley Memorial Chapel. The portable whiteboard lets the students hear what is being taught and have diagrams and text as needed to support the outdoor examples. By studying real-world examples like the original area of the flood plain below the School and an earlier activity where students lay out ropes on the ground to create rivers and their tributaries, students can understand concepts such as Strahler stream order and how different streams in a watershed can combine to form larger rivers, leading to a deeper understanding of the concepts first introduced in the classroom. These mini-lessons outdoors also help to break up the longer 75-minute classes by getting the students up and moving and still allowing the content to be presented to the students.