Learning with Nature: Inspiring the Next Systems-Thinkers | Jamie Byron | TEDxWalthamED

the benefits of anytime in nature are astounding there are physical and mental health benefits spending time in nature is therapeutic there's benefits to the surrounding community and to the ecology itself but today I want to focus on the intellectual benefits of spending time in nature because nature truly is a classroom nature can be used to teach just about every topic mostly science so physics chemistry biology geology ecology environmental science all these things are perfect to teach in nature mathematics as well because nature is mathematics but you can also teach history and language arts and English just by spending time reading a book outside or discussing a topic outside in the woods kids will understand that information better nature is interactive it's engaging and most importantly it's fun by spending time in nature instead of in the classroom kids are just much more engaged in what they're learning with they enjoy spending time out in the fresh air surrounded by plants and in the sunlight and nature is a window into how everything works by learning from nature we can learn about every other system around us whether it's economics politics science mathematics technology all these things we can gain insight into by learning with nature so when I was a young lad I I loved learning I loved learning but I uh but I hated school I really did not like school and so I got into a habit early on of faking illness so in the morning I would I would fake a cough and I tell my mom I'm not feeling well mom and and she was public school teacher as well so she and she knew how much I hated school so she would play into it and she would she would believe me and she'd say all right you can stay home today and so she would go off off to her job at the public school and and once she was gone I would make sure the coast is clear and then I would go outside usually barefoot and and go down the street to Monticello park which was the local forest and I would spend all day in the forest seeing how close I could get to squirrels playing with sticks and stone and breaking breaking sticks off of trees and trying to make bows and arrows and my favorite thing was to build dams there's a stream through this forest and I would build dams I would see how I could build the dam and then when I built the dam up to a certain point and the stream had filled up I would pull out rocks one at a time and see it all come crashing down and it was so much fun to me and it was a learning experience and it was way better than school and one thing I learned from that is that nature is a damn good environment for learning but it would have been so much better for my education if I had a teacher there with me if I'd have mentor there with me in the woods helping me through all this and helping me connect the things I was learning in school with the things I was learning in nature so let's look at this Lake Here I am Here I am fishing and if I had a if I had a teacher here with me there are so many things I could learn just from being around this lake for instance there's a whole intro to high school physics here with the elasticity of the rod and the momentum and the inertia of the fly there's biology in how the fish behave and how they interact with the flies and the other animals in this ecosystem there's chemistry how interesting would it be to take a pH test of the lake and then take the pH of the stream that was feeding to the lake and questioning why are those pH is different there's mathematics here think about the probability and statistics of actually catching a fish so much to learn there and way more interesting I could even read a book you know I could read Walden by this we could learn about history the history of the Algonquin tribes that were living in this region how they lived and how they how they survived off the land there's so much that I could have learned through this lake if I had a teacher there an Albert Einstein understood this he said look deeper into nature and you will understand everything better and I realized this I realized this was true sort of independently of Albert Einstein while I was studying aerospace engineering at MIT but it wasn't at MIT that I realized this it was while I was out of MIT studying on a farm so I worked on a farm for a summer in West Virginia and and I spent every day outside ten hours a day outside in the wood in the fields down by the river and while I was outside I was starting to see things I was learning in school the aerodynamics the thermodynamics the structural mechanics I was starting to see that in the natural systems around me I was seeing eddies and and pressure differences and vortices in the stream that I was learning in aerodynamics I've seen thermodynamics come alive in the brush fires we were setting from all the brush we'd collected from prunings I was seeing structural mechanics as I was pruning trees and berry bushes Young's modulus was truly coming to life for me so I realized during this experience over the summer working on this farm that nature could be such an incredible learning tool to help us integrate the things that we were learning in school so this brings you to systems thinking because this is a really interesting concept there's this this idea that if we can really understand one system say a mechanical system then we can start to apply the concepts that make that mechanical system work to another system say an electrical system so you can look at how a house is plumbed like water plumbing and you can compare that directly to an electrical circuit and so there's all these systems political systems economic system social systems and natural systems that all operate using the same based principles of energy flows of inertia momentum of balance and imbalance of overshoot and undershoot every system works using the same underlying principles and nature works the same way and ecosystems are incredibly complex systems that we evolved to understand we literally were hundreds of thousands of years at the system we were interacting with was the natural system so we it's built into our genetics to really understand how these systems work so by spending time in nature we can start to develop systems thinking and apply these systems natural systems to other systems are focused on whether it be economic political or mechanical structural any system we face complex problems everything from climate collapse ecological collapse economic inequality migration human migration political instability these are really complex problems that are part of complex systems in order to solve them we need complex systems complex systems thinkers out there and so what I propose is that we use nature to teach the next generation of systems thinkers because this is the complex system that we evolve to understand the current academic paradigm of death sitting and test taking and hand-raising doesn't work for a lot of kids it sure didn't work for me I was labeled learning disabled but I always thought that was weird because I loved learning you know really was I was school verse I was academics obverse so this current academic paradigm doesn't work for a lot of kids so we have to rethink how we're going to do this and if we look to Einstein and spend time out in nature we can shift to a natural learning paradigm so how do we do this well we all play a role the parents the teachers and students and the administrators you're important too so let's start with the parents so the first thing you can do as parents is get your kids outside take them outside on the weekends after school go with them outside or let them roam around by themselves find a nice park a forest to stream a lake just let them outside and facilitate their natural instinct to explore and enquire don't get in the way too much let them really explore where they want to explore and then ask them questions you know why does the seed stay in the air for so long this girl is learning aerodynamics right here find a school that prioritizes natural learning and there's a lot of them out there Montessori is one of the one of the core ones dr. Maria Montessori said when children come in contact with nature they reveal their strengths and that's built into the entire Montessori system Waldorf is well Rudolf Steiner who spent a lot of time in nature studying agriculture and natural systems he built this whole educational system based on this concept that our highest endeavor must be to develop free thinking human beings who are able of themselves to impart purpose and direction in their lives and he did this through nature in Waldorf schools the kids spent a lot of time in nature out in the garden and there's wilderness schools for kids who are in private or public schools this is a great way to get them in contact with nature in the summer so there's a lot of wilderness schools where kids will spend spend several weeks to several months out in the wilderness hiking and camping and learning the entire way this is great for older kids as well as you know they have got a lot of hormones a lot of energy you know need a lot of stimulation just get him outside let him interact with nature over the course of a summer for the younger kids there's Forest kindergarten this is a really interesting model for for early education that was based started in Germany and now is is around the world where where the kids spend pretty much every day rain or shine out in the woods it's kindergarten but it's in the woods and they're sort of free-ranging they'll sit down in circles like this and learn and it'll go out and explore and there's even some public schools that are really progressive like CS 55 in Bronx New York some of you may recognize Steven Ritz who's a superhero teacher he's teaching his kids through nature with Gardens so he has gardens inside and outside he's got aquariums inside as well and he as kids are interacting they're growing their own food they're interacting with plants and with the soil and this is how they're getting in touch with nature in a place where there typically isn't a lot of nature in the middle of New York City so how can the teachers get involved and the administrators - well bring the kids outside take field trips try and get outside once a week and it doesn't have to be a place like this you know this would be a great field trip but really there's nature in between the cracks in the sidewalk you know it's a little bit smaller you might need to bring magnifying glasses but there's so much to learn here by observing the ants and the weeds and the different plants coming up through the cracks of the sidewalk so really nature is everywhere we just need to get outside and start observing it and here's an outdoor lesson plan that I learned I think it was through Boy Scouts or one of my early camps and basically you have your kids go out go outside have your kids find a spot in the woods sort of separate from each other sort of spread out and sit down with a pencil and notebook have them quietly observe their surrounding environment in the ecology around them and record what they see ask them to contemplate how the different things that they're observing are interacting with each other and how everything is connected and then after a period of time maybe it's 15 minutes maybe it's 30 minutes come together and discuss the findings what did people observe every kid's going to have observed something different and this will start conversations that you can tie back into the curriculum there's always interesting conversations that arise out of this practice it's also great for the teacher because it's some quiet time the teachers you can start a school garden this is all the rage these days lots of teachers and schools are starting school gardens this is great for places where there isn't a beautiful forest next door because a garden is basically a source of nature and have the kids growing their own food interacting with different plants seeing the aphids and how their populations rise and fall seeing the ladybugs come in and eat the aphids there's so much to learn here about natural systems or if if it's difficult to get outside or there's no space for an outdoor garden teachers can bring nature inside so this is a living ecosystem that I have in my living room it's an aquaponic system essentially where there's an aquarium down below there's a garden up top in the aquarium I've got several different types of fish each one plays its own role its own niche in the ecosystem there's frogs in there there's two or three different types of snails or shrimp and aquatic plants and all of these animals this in its ecosystem is providing nutrients that get pumped up to the garden up top which is filled with edible plants some that I found outside some that I've planted from seed some that I've done done through cloning and there's so much that you can learn through one of these living ecosystems and anyone can build this one thing I've been working on is getting these ecosystems into schools so this is Steven Rich's school where we put an ecosystem in and the kids love interacting with the aquarium every morning before the bell rings there'll be kids sitting on the ground observing the fish and the snails and the shrimp seeing how everything interacts there's certain kids who love taking chemistry tests and monitoring and tracking how the pH and the nitrogen levels vary over time and some kids really just love tasting the produce and trying to grow different things there's so much in this one natural or unnatural living ecosystem to learn so this is an example of of a natural system where there are different components interacting with each other and this is really the simplest model where you have the fish food going in the fish are feeding the microbes the microbes are feeding the plants plants are cleaning water for the fish and they're feeding the people as well and all this isn't is enabled by light and water but it can get even more complex than this and you can add in the snails and the shrimp and the algae and all of a sudden kids are starting to understand this and see how things are circular in this system and they're starting to think in systems and a lot of these concepts here can can be taken to other systems that they're learning about in school so how can the students get involved in this I'll remember our quote from Einstein look deeper into nature and you will understand everything better the kids can take this to heart get outside observe and interact try and identify patterns and parallels in the natural world and see and try and find metaphors to the other worlds that you're enacting with your other interests I remember the quote from the other white haired mustachioed man Mark Twain don't let your schooling interfere with your education if you feel like you're you're not getting out of school which you should be getting out of it find other ways to learn you know to get out and explore things that you're interested in get outside and I don't advocate skipping school but if you're going to do that if you have a class that's that's not a you don't find productive go read a book in the woods it's very productive just don't get in trouble so we can integrate nature based learning into every student's education there are lots of different strategies but by combining all these strategies we can get every kid out in the nature or at least bring nature to them and through this we can develop the next generation of systems thinkers because there was a point in time when nature was the classroom this is how every kid learned every kid was out in nature with a mentor with the teacher and they were learning the entire time but recently we've really lost that connection in our schools so let's bring nature back into our education thank you [Applause] you

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 16,370

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, United States, Education, Classroom, Nature, Schools, Science

Id: QcmaxTyAcFc

Length: 16min 24sec (984 seconds)

Published: Wed May 03 2017