Outdoor learning is increasingly being adopted to provide positive, healthful, and effective learning opportunities, improving the physical, emotional, and mental health of educators and learners alike. Outdoor learning also addresses other key social and environmental issues, such as the climate crisis, the rapid loss of biodiversity, nature-deficit disorder, and the obesity epidemic.
The Outdoor Learning School is a charitable social enterprise that offers online workshops, activities, lesson plans, and resources to support innovation in learning outdoors. For example, this online workshop helps educators connect K–7 math curricula to the natural and built environments through meaningful, hands-on learning.
The course includes four 60-minute sessions at 4 p.m. (PT) / 7 p.m. (ET) on March 4, 11, 18, and 25. Each session, facilitated by a former elementary special education teacher, will focus on the progression of mathematical thinking across grade levels in these key areas:
Session 1: Number Sense
Students with strong number sense think flexibly and fluently about numbers and quantities. Number sense involves understanding numbers, the ways they can be represented, and the relationships among them. In this session, participants will explore how to develop these foundational skills outdoors through rich mathematical tasks that invite students to represent, compare, and reason about numbers in the context of the natural world and their local community.
Session 2: Computational Fluency: Addition & Subtraction (facts and multidigit)
Students with computational fluency can efficiently and accurately solve problems while choosing strategies that make sense for the situation. In this session, participants will explore how to build both basic and multidigit addition and subtraction fluency through hands-on, outdoor tasks that use natural materials and real-world contexts to help students recognize patterns, compare quantities, and apply flexible strategies in meaningful ways.
Session 3: Computational Fluency: Multiplication & Division (facts, multidigit), Fractions, Decimals
Participants will continue exploring computational fluency with multiplication and division by finding real-world examples of groups, sets, and arrays in outdoor and urban spaces. Using natural materials and place-based contexts, they will also build a deeper understanding of fractions and fraction operations through meaningful, hands-on experiences.
Session 4: Pattern, Geometry & Measurement
In this session, participants will investigate how outdoor experiences in various settings can help students describe shapes, patterns, and positions using mathematical language and numerical measurement. They will also explore ways students can apply their foundational math skills to collect, communicate, and discuss real-world data drawn from both natural and built environments.
Throughout these four sessions, educators will together examine how outdoor and community spaces can deepen understanding, strengthen problem-solving, and make math more engaging and relevant for students. They will leave with practical strategies and examples they can use right away to support flexible, fluent, and connected mathematical thinkers. The sessions will all be recorded and made available the day after the live session.