First launched in 2001, the Growing Schools agenda continues to have relevance as schools play their part in educating young people into how the countryside works and where the food they eat comes from. In November 2006 ‘The Learning Out-side the Classroom Manifesto' partnership was launched which aimed to ensure that all young people have a variety of high quality learning experiences outside the classroom environment. The initiative has been slow to be adopted by schools and just recently, on 22nd January The Learning Outside the Classroom Manifesto Update reinforced the previous government initiatives by encouraging schools to get involved! The manifesto invited all schools to ‘endorse and champion' the manifesto's vision by becoming a signatory, and to pledge any actions they are taking in support of its aims.
A SMART Board interactive whiteboard may seem an unlikely ally in an outdoor endeavour such as this however in this article, we explore how, and a few digital extras to support these initiatives and maximise the leaning potential of the Growing Schools initiative.
Digital cameras are becoming an increasingly common classroom learning resource. A field trip, or even a walk around the school grounds offer an ideal opportunity to take digital photographs. After an initial classroom discussion on the objective of the outside visit, pupils should be encouraged to take their own photos of appropriate plants and/or animals. Once back in the classroom, these can be loaded onto the computer and the teacher can use the gallery feature of Notebook software to create an archive of the pictures. Once the photographs are uploaded, the real learning potential is unleashed. Individual plants can be "cut out" of the photograph using the freehand capture tool, and then identified using library or online resources. The picture images can then be added to the gallery to form a school specific archive of plants and animals in the local area. Pupils with their own cameras can also take photographs of their local ‘green' environment and pass these to the teacher for inclusion in the gallery. Using the handy "spotlight" tool in Notebook is an ideal feature for drawing attention to particular parts of the image. Running a project over several seasons of the year, taking pictures of the same area in Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter provides and an ideal opportunity to understand and discuss seasonal changes. Images taken from the same location several weeks apart can be dragged into the pages of a Notebook software file from where the children can create easy animations of the changing seasons as they cycle through the pages. The transparency tool allows two or more images to be laid over each other and the transparency adjusted to show the contrast between the various growing seasons of the plants.
A trip to a local farm provides further opportunities to create digital resources for the classroom and lets teachers exploit the full potential of a fieldtrip well after the initial visit. A short video of scenes from the farm can be made, often with the same camera used for the still images. For younger children, this video can be replayed on the interactive whiteboard from where the children can be invited up to the front to identify various animals and equipment on the farm. The coloured electronic pens or the children's fingers can be used to circle specific aspects of the pictures. For example the teacher may display two picture images side by side. One of an area of the schools grounds in Summer, the other of the same area in Winter. The children can be invited to the SMART Board to circle evergreen plants in green and deciduous plants in red. Older pupils can also shoot footage and once back in the classroom use this as the basis to create short films about issues in the countryside.
The benefits that technology can bring to learning should never be underestimated and certainly the versatile nature of a SMART Board adds additional layers of learning even to outdoor activities. Further information on Growing Schools can be found at: www.teachernet.gov.uk/Growingschools. Information and advice on using a SMART Board interactive whiteboard in the classroom can be found at http://www.smarttech.com/
