Half-Day Professional Development

HALF-DAY PD PROGRAMS ON-SITE AT YOUR SCHOOL

K-8 School Grounds Nature Audit:

Learn about nature on your school grounds and discover how your outdoor space can become an outdoor classroom. Teachers will gain familiarity with the plants, animals, and habitats at their school and with the ways their school grounds intersect with their watershed. Guided by a Riverbend educator, they will identify spaces for outdoor teaching, including gathering spaces and activity spaces. This program introduces teachers to the types of inquiry, activities, and STEM topics that various locations on their school grounds can support, as well as to core routines, logistics, and safety considerations to consider when teaching outdoors.

• Designed for K-8 Educators
• Length: 3 hours
• Location: On-site at your school
• Cost: $300
   

Getting Started with Early Childhood Nature Education:

Explore the vital importance of outdoor play-based education for young children, and learn core routines, logistics, and safety considerations for bringing young students outdoors on school grounds. ECE teachers working with children up through Pre-K will venture outside to re-envision their outdoor space as a potential outdoor classroom, participating in sensory and observation activities they can use with students, selecting locations for gathering and exploring, and thinking through what tools and routines they'll need to feel confident teaching outdoors.

• Designed for ECE/Pre-K Educators
• Length: 3 hours
• Location: On-site at your school
• Cost: $300
   

Introduction to Nature-Based Inquiry:

Learn about the foundations of inquiry-based learning and how to use them for nature-based instruction in the sciences and beyond. Teachers will explore how people learn by experiencing and analyzing activities that are sequenced according to the learning cycle, an evidence-based framework structured around how learning happens. This program concludes with teachers applying the learning cycle to the planning of a short outdoor field experience for their students.

• Designed for K-8 Educators
• Length: 3.5 hours
• Location: On-site at your school
• Cost: $300
   

Nature Journaling for the K-8 Outdoor Classroom:

Guide nature journaling activities with your students for science learning and beyond. According to John Muir Laws, naturalist and leader in the worldwide nature journaling movement, “Journaling is the single most powerful tool to supercharge your observation, memory, and connection with nature. It is the critical foundational habit of being a naturalist and a scientist.” Join a Riverbend educator to learn how field journaling can be used to support learner engagement and science learning in your classroom. Field journaling is a highly effective tool to reinforce equitable and inclusive learner-centered and nature-centered teaching practices. This PD includes hands-on experience with nature journaling activities, tips on how to effectively lead journaling activities, and brainstorming about the many ways the field journal can be used in the classroom.

• Designed for Gr. 2-12 Educators
• Length: 3.5 hours
• Location: on-site at your school
• Cost: $300