Giving Compass' Take:

• There are numerous benefits to carefully planned outdoor education trips for students when educators focus on outdoor safety for children. 

• How can access to outdoor education help students understand and experience the world differently? How can donor support for outdoor education help increase access to programs?

• Read more about student access to environmental education. 

Parents and children can feel anxious about outdoor field tips, particularly those that take place in settings that are a less confined than their backyard, Pete Barnes a 5th-grade science teacher, writes in Edutopia. That’s why he puts careful planning into putting everyone at ease.

He breaks students into small groups, asks adults to join on the trip as well and allows more adventurous students to head off the beaten path a bit, while others stay closer. Not every field trip is a “major expedition,” he wrote, noting that even just seeing a frog in nature or a beetle can also be a wonderful experience for a child.

A bit of fresh air can shake the dust off any rote lesson — it's part of the reason students are given recess time, especially in the early grades. Taking students outside, whether on field trips or into outdoor classrooms, does more however than add a change of scenery. These changes of venue can open schools up to new wrinkles, such as how to provide access to students with accessibility concerns, and those who may have allergies to certain outdoor triggers.

Outdoor adventures can be a valuable part of the curriculum, especially in the sciences — which is why it's important for teachers, curriculum designers and administrators to take appropriate steps to make sure these experiences are safe as well as educational, and ideally fun.

Read the full article about outdoor education by Lauren Barack at Education Dive