When students at Anser Charter School in Garden City, Idaho returned to in-person classes Sept. 28, everything about school looked different than six months ago.

Anser is an EL Education school, meaning it focuses on learning through projects and expeditions that regularly take students outside the school’s walls. Learning away from the classroom is nothing new for veteran Anser students.

What is new, for at least part of many days, is that the classroom itself will be outside the school walls as well. It’s an accommodation designed to decrease risk of COVID-19 transmission at the 375-student, K-8 school.

“We’ve put together a map where each grade level gets assigned a certain area of the playground or the parking lot,” said Anser Organization Director Heather Dennis. “So teachers know they can take their class outside anytime they want.”

Across the country, schools — some charter, some private, some district-run public — are figuring out ways to minimize the spread of COVID-19. Since studies increasingly show that the virus transmits less readily outdoors than in, creative leaders and teachers are figuring out ways to get their students into the fresh air.

In Denver, one district-run middle school — McAuliffe International — plans to hold classes in event tents when schools resume in-person learning, currently scheduled for late October. “We can safely accommodate 110 students under each canopy — 36 square feet per student,” said Kurt Dennis, McAuliffe’s executive principal. “This will provide us with the equivalent of another 12 classrooms and concerns regarding ventilation will not be as much of an issue.”

Read the full article about learning outside by Meghan Gallagher and Alan Gottlieb at The 74.