by Greta Righter
As an instructor at IslandWood, an environmental learning center on Bainbridge Island, WA, my week with students is fleeting. I have four days during IslandWood’s School Overnight Program (SOP) to explore and investigate the natural world with groups of 4-6th graders, and it never seems to be enough time. At IslandWood, students gather for four days of learning on 250 acres of a forest ecosystem, engaging in science, arts, and team-building activities and lessons. Just as they are beginning to distinguish a Western hemlock from a Douglas fir, and communicate well as a team, it’s time for them to pack up and head home. Most of the students are from the Seattle area, coming from various socioeconomic backgrounds, and may or may not have access to nearby green spaces in their home neighborhoods. As a newcomer to the field of experiential outdoor education, I still have a nagging voice that wonders if my students might walk away feeling like they can only engage with the natural world if they are in the forest. One aspect of teaching outdoor education that often feels most challenging is the transfer of learning: how can I best encourage students to carry their wonder and excitement of the natural world home with them, even if home is an urban setting? In this article I will describe an experiment with integrating technology into my field studies, and how it made that nagging voice in my head a little quieter.
Transfer of learning, or the ability to apply knowledge learned in one context to new contexts, can feel like the ‘achilles heel’ of outdoor education (Brown, 2010). Students are removed from indoor classrooms, plopped into the woods for a week to learn about nature, and then shuttled back to their desks a few days later. As one outdoor educator put it, “a major and persistent challenge for outdoor adventure education is the extent to which the learning experiences of students affect change beyond the immediate outdoor environment” (Brown, 2010, p.13). Programs like IslandWood’s SOP seek to create continuity in this experience through pre- and post-visit lessons to the classroom. Still, many outdoor education programs do not have any means of assessing transfer of learning. As I wave both hands goodbye to the buses pulling away each week, a little voice in the back of my head always wonders… “What will they remember? Did I make an impact?”
Citizen Science & Phone Apps
Recently, I decided to focus my field instruction on the theme of citizen science. The National Geographic Society defines citizen science as “the practice of public participation and collaboration in scientific research to increase scientific knowledge” (National Geographic Society, 2012). With my student field group we broke down this term and defined citizen science as ‘regular people who make scientific observations’. I also provided some examples to my students of large citizen science projects that are going on around the world. In the interest of weaving citizen science work into my lessons, I experimented with the iNaturalist app in the field because it is user-friendly, it has a generalist focus on species identification and location, and it has the ability to connect users to other citizen scientists making similar discoveries. iNaturalist describes its function as ‘a place where you can record what you see in nature, meet other nature lovers, and learn about the natural world’ (iNaturalist.org, 2012). It seemed like the perfect tool to integrate into SOP, which focuses on making observations, and supporting claims with gathered evidence. The iNaturalist app provides a more interactive medium for recording and utilizing data, while also connecting those observations beyond the IslandWood setting.
The Struggle with ‘Screen time’
I felt some apprehension about introducing technology into outdoor education. As someone who experiences the outdoors as sanctuary, a place to escape the dings and rings of computers and phones, it made my heart hurt a little bit to bring a glowing screen into my field studies. I wondered, are technology and place-based learning inherently at odds with each other? Does gazing into a glowing screen detract from the experience of being immersed in the natural processes of the world? As a self-proclaimed luddite, one who fears and avoids the rapid progression of our tech-focused society, it felt like going against the grain to introduce technology into my field instruction. Worries about technology failures, lack of access to the internet, and encouraging more screen time amongst a generation of students who I honestly believe need less screen time riddled my mind. There are many who share this concern – a number of studies have linked the increase in mobile screen use among children to a variety of adverse outcomes including (but not limited to): decreased ability to recognize human emotions (Uhls, et.al., 2014), increase in childhood obesity rates (Chen, et.al., 2014), difficulty sleeping (Cajochen, 2011), and increased anxiety and depression (Twenge, et.al., 2017).
On the other hand, I believe that nothing is ever black and white. Technology does not have to be the enemy, and teachers and parents should not have to be suited up in a constant battle against it. Screens are here, and they are here to stay, and there are many good reasons for integrating technology into all areas of instruction. The need for future generations to be highly proficient in various forms of technology is of increasing importance (Haberman, 2010, p. 85). Also, technology offers a different medium of learning, and can broaden students’ connection with the world beyond their classroom. But that’s the classroom… how would it work to use an iPod out in the field?
How Did It Go?
The learning goals for our week of citizen science studies were for students to 1.) work together so that each student would input a new species identification into the iNaturalist app 2.) be able to describe what citizen science is, and 3.) give an example of how and where they would use this technology at home. In order to ensure successful integration of technology in the field, I made sure to establish some ‘tech norms’ before getting started:
Tech Norms:
Only the instructor (myself) will carry and use the iPod.
We will only utilize the phone for the iNaturalist app.
Everyone will contribute one species identification to the database.
We will work as a team to help each other identify and input new species.
On our second full field day each student chose a specialist name tag – they chose between: Mycologist, Botanist, Zoologist, Entomologist, Ornithologist, & Marine Biologist. I explained that this was not the only thing they could explore – in fact, everyone’s goal for the day was to be a leader of investigating their specialization for the whole group. The mycologist could call others over when they found a mushroom they wanted help identifying. The ornithologist could ask others what colors they saw on that bird that just landed in a nearby tree. Our goal was to work together. Each student was equipped with a unique field guide, and other tools they might need to study the details of organisms, such as binoculars, magnifying glasses, and jars to collect specimens.
I immediately noticed that students were highly motivated to identify the plants and creatures they were discovering because of their interest in the iNaturalist app. Just as writing assignments geared towards a real audience can increase student motivation, so does recording observations and species identifications for a world-wide database (Norton-Meier, Hand, Hockenberry, & Wise, 2008). We talked about the fact that our identifications may not be accurate, but that was not the goal of the lesson. I reminded them that their goals are to practice using field guides, to work together to identify species, and to contribute their findings to the iNaturalist database for other citizen scientists, just like them, to review.
Our first species identification was at Blakely Harbor – a Purple Shore Crab (Hemigrapsus nudus). Students were eager to identify the gender of the crab, and wondered if there was a place to input that data into the app. I wasn’t sure so we searched together, and we found that there is a space to add general field notes so we put the gender there. After the Purple Shore Crab, we identified a Glaucous Winged Gull (Larus glaucescens) and an Acorn Barnacle (Balanus glandula). Back in the woods there were ambitious plans for moss and mushroom identification. I input all of the ID’s just as the students wanted me to, even if we weren’t 100% sure that they were correct. That’s part of the beauty of the iNaturalist app – it connects us to other people who are making the same discoveries, reviewing our pictures, and it allows them to reach out to us if they think we may have erred. Just as my students worked together to pour through the pages of their field guides, all scientists work together to make discoveries and make sense of the world around us.
Transfer of Learning through Technology
Apps like iNaturalist provide a familiar and intriguing medium for recording observations and create a means to transfer those observation skills from the outdoor education experience back to the student’s life at home. Each of my students left IslandWood with iNaturalist written down in their journals and a location they thought might use the app at home. This week I gave my students a tool – a real live tool. Not a theoretical idea or feeling, but something tangible that they can walk away with and use in their day-to-day lives at home or school. They can use this tool to continue practicing their observation skills, nurturing their own interest in the environment, and connecting with other citizen scientists. Through sharing this technology with my students, I realized that even though I chose to limit my own screen time, it is unrealistic for me to expect the same of upcoming generations. As long as the generations of a highly technological world are going to be using phones and tablets, then perhaps we, as educators, should be striving to create the best possible outcomes for this screen time.
References for this article can be found on the web version at http://www.clearingmagazine.org/archives/
Greta Righter is an instructor and graduate student at IslandWood on Bainbridge Island, WA. She is pursuing her M. Ed. in Curriculum & Instruction at the University of Washington.