Today I presented an idea to southwest Florida library folks at the SWFLN Paraprofessional Day: take the lead in connecting children and adults to nature in your communities – through partnerships, collection development, programming, facility use & design, cultural connections, and more. The results – healthier, happier, smarter people, greater support for libraries, and a healthier environment for all.
See my presentation here.
Will your library take the challenge?
I’m thrilled to be presenting two sessions at the Southwest Florida Library Network’s annual Paraprofessional Day on May 10th. One is a brand new presentation: “How Libraries Can Connect Children & Adults to Nature”, inspired in part by Richard Louv’s book Last Child in the Woods, the Children & Nature Network and my own 30 years of work in the field of environmental education.
Paraprofessional Day is an important professional development event for the library workers in southwest Florida. Thanks to SWFLN for continuing this fine tradition and inviting me to join the fun.
The Open Directory Project has a huge and diverse collection of library weblogs that would be a helpful resource for any librarian wanting to find good blogs to follow as part of a personal learning network. Check it out and add or suggest others you may know about.
Howard Gardner discusses how kids learn and what education should be like…including
What do you think?
Join the fun… contribute to this collaborative poem!
April is for celebrating a lot of my favorite things: National Library Week (April 10 – 16), Let’s G.O.! (Get Outside) Month, National Poetry Month and Earth Day. So, what better way to honor all these vital and worthy endeavors (and share some things we’ve learned about them) than to create a collaborative poem about great books that celebrate the Earth!
Think about all the books you’ve read (or listened to) – fiction, non-fiction, reference books, biographies, anything – that inform, entertain and/or celebrate this beautiful planet and all the wild places and plants and creatures that live here with us. Maybe there’s a special childhood story you remember or a field guide that you particularly like, or that big coffee-table National Geographic picture book in your living room, or a Carl Hiaasen novel that made you laugh! Choose a book, and see if you can weave it into our poem below to celebrate all these great April events.
I’ll start the poem, and everyone else can contribute to it by adding lines in the comments section below. Let’s see how creative and informative we can get (keep it clean – this is an all-ages blog!). Here goes:
My friends, near and far, could it be
That you’ve read the great words of Thoreau, Carson or Muir?
Perhaps The Lorax or The Great Kapok Tree
Drew you deep into a story with much allure.
Tell us your tale of a book from your past
That taught you ’bout nature or shaped how you feel
About mountains or trees, or wild things that go fast
And stayed in your heart, be it fiction or real.
Now, add your line or verse in the comments section below… feel free to alter the style or cadence.
I wonder if many teachers or librarians will rise to this challenge?
This NY Times opinion piece about students in the Independent Project at a Massachusetts high school is inspiring and an example of what can happen when students are given more control over their own education and learning. The project is described more in detail here:
Could this be one answer to reforming education or does its success depend on the school, the kids, the situation? Pamela Stubbart raises some good questions about the project and it’s significance over at her “This Field is Required” blog. I think she has some valid concerns that need to be explored further.
How does giving students the power to design their own learning change the way they behave, learn, succeed?
Could this kind of learning create more work-ready, independent, creative, competent adults?
What do you think? Could your school make this work on a larger scale?
DID YOU KNOW?
I’ve posted a lot here lately about the Children & Nature Network. That’s because I believe in what they are doing - and they are doing it well, like all things that involve Cheryl Charles! I’ve been involved with environmental education since 1978 and see a greater need for it now than ever before. Teachers struggle every day trying to balance doing the right thing for kids with pushing kids through the required curriculum and prepping for testing. And using the outdoors as a classroom has been pushed to the back burner in the name of “time on task”. But there is a lot of research that shows how teaching outdoors can improve student learning and health.
The Children & Nature Network Network has developed a Natural Teachers initiative to get more teachers to use the outdoors as a classroom and to help kids (and families) connect to nature directly. I encourage you to join the growing list of Natural Teachers and connect with others on the Natural Teachers NING. C&NN has also put together a list of web resources to help teachers get started getting kids outdoors.
Join today. Teach outdoors. Share your stories. It will make a world of difference to you and your students!
