Outdoor Learning Activities for Earth Day – Math
By MARISSA DESPINS Updated April 04, 2024
As many of you already know, I am passionate about finding ways to take learning outdoors. With Earth Day coming up on April 22, I thought I would pop on here and share some of the benefits of outdoor education, as well as three different outdoor learning activities that ask students to practice key math concepts while exploring their outdoor spaces. Earth Day is the perfect excuse to escape the four walls of the classroom and spend time enjoying our outdoor surroundings!
Interested in some no-prep resources to help you create rigorous learning opportunities in the great outdoors? Click on the image or button below to see all of the outdoor learning resources available in my TPT shop!
Looking for more Earth Day activities? Be sure to check out our post on meaningful Earth Day activities students will love!
What is Outdoor Education?
Outdoor Education traditionally refers to organized learning in an outdoor setting. It is a method of experiential teaching and learning focusing on the great outdoors.
Outdoor learning is designed to add rather than subtract from the curriculum. Students are not missing out on classroom learning time; instead, outdoor learning experiences are designed to enhance learning and engage students through hands on activities.
While participating in outdoor learning experiences, students learn through what they do and what they discover. This aids in the development of key skills such as inquiry, experiment, reflection, and collaboration.
For additional information, check out our post “What is Place Based Education?”.
How can outdoor learning activities benefit my learners?
Outdoor Education can provide a contrast to the indoor classroom that is dramatic and engaging. It helps to bring curricular content to life through direct experiences – students can actually touch, taste, see, hear, and smell through the activities they participate in. Outdoor learning experiences have been proven to motivate even the most reluctant learners.
Three engaging math focused outdoor learning activities
With all of the content we need to cover in our classrooms, it can sometimes be hard to justify time spent outside. All of the outdoor learning activities I discuss in this post, however, are rigorous and content focused. With all of these activities, students are able to practice the same type of content that you would cover in your regular classroom. However, these activities allow students to work on that content through engaging, nature focused activities.
Rigorous content completed while enjoying fresh air and sunshine? Sounds pretty wonderful to me!
Measurement Scavenger Hunt
This engaging math activity asks students to grab a ruler and clipboard and head outside to complete a measurement scavenger hunt. With this activity, students are able to practice their estimation and measurement skills while measuring a variety of outdoor items.
This activity is a refreshing way to get in some measurement practice while still running around and enjoying the spring weather.
Click here to check out the resource on TPT.
Playground Polygons
This is a fun outdoor learning activity to help introduce polygons and geometry skills. For this activity, students take notes about polygons, then head outside to make giant polygon art using chalk and tape.
When done, students have the opportunity to view each other’s masterpieces while practicing their art critique skills.
This is a super engaging activity for a sunny spring day, and the completed artwork makes for gorgeous outdoor art displays!
For more information about the activity, you can check out my previous post on this activity by clicking here.
To check the activity out on TPT, click here.
Outdoor Leaf Detective
This outdoor learning activity is great for practicing graphing and sorting skills. To complete the activity, students head out to their outdoor space with a small bag or container, and gather a wide variety of leaves. I typically give my students about 15 minutes to run around and find all of their specimens.
Afterwards, students head back inside and get to work at sorting their leaves. Are any of the leaves nibbled? Which leaves are green? How many long leaves did they gather? Students make tallies of their leaves on the included template.
Finally, students graph their results. I love how all of the graphs turn out differently, based on the specific leaves they gathered.
To see the resource in my TPT shop, click here.
Looking for more outdoor Learning activities to help your students escape the four walls of your classroom?
Click on the image below to go directly to the Outdoor Learning section of my Teachers Pay Teachers store. I have a wide variety of different outdoor math, writing, and art lessons available!
Interested in seeing some of my Outdoor Learning Activities in action? Check them out on YouTube by watching the video below.
Looking to read more about Outdoor learning activities?
Click on the link below to go directly to my previous posts on Outdoor Learning.
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