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A lesson module developed by Elisa Webb for Science 296i San Jose State University, Summer 1999 Objectives Fifth and sixth grade students will learn and practice:
In addition, students will
Part I This module employs the game, "Find the Hidden Treasure" to learn and practice orienteering. Only five students will participate in this module. Three students will comprise the team Scouts I and the other two will form the team, Scouts 2. Vocabulary words which are introduced in the lesson are the following: compass, legend, key, berm, approximate distance, compass rose, inclines, contours, contour lines, topographical maps. Students examine their compasses while discussing with the teacher about the directional points and compass symbols. Students are also asked basic questions about directions such as "What direction does the sun rise and set?" in order to confirm basic understanding. Part II Students are then asked to find the first hidden treasure. A sack containing candy and the second and third treasure maps is hidden for the group at the base of a large red fir tree. They must find this first treasure by following a list of directions. For example:
Your treasure is hidden at the base of the red fir tree. Part III After students find the first treasure, a discussion about finding the second treasure begins. The second treasure requires following a map. Students must first orient themselves in relation to a map of the camp. Since an "X" marks where the treasure is buried, students are asked which pathway would be best to take and in which direction the path seems to head. Compasses are used to point in the direction that they wish to go. As students hike, they are asked several times to stop and use their compasses to find which way they're headed and to point to where they are on their maps. They arrive at the second treasure to find small trinkets for Scouts 1. A third map points to another treasure and students must find their way to that one, too. The Scouts 2 team, with help from the first team, find their treasure which also contains similar trinkets. More discussion of the map and where they are in relation to the map is discussed. Students begin to find mapped locations such as one of the camp's berms. Students then trek to a small hill to discuss inclines and contour mapping. Part IV Topographical maps in general are discussed and then more specifically, students discuss Echo Lake and Echo Lake Peak. Students are asked to remember their previous water boat ride and some of the peaks that they saw. They look at the topo map to see where they started their boat ride and examine the topo lines of Echo Peak. Students are asked which hiking trail they would take if they wanted to reach the peak. In addition, the teacher asks other related questions about Echo Peak. Students are now asked to make a topo map of Echo Peak using cardboard and construction paper. This process takes about I hour, so the teacher should plan to have enough cardboard, construction paper, scissors, and glue to accomplish this part of the lesson. As students work on their topo models, the teacher can review the vocabulary terms and what was learned during the treasure hunt. Students can also be reminded of the fun they had looking for their treasure. If time permits, students can show their topo maps to the class and point out what slope would make the easiest hike to Echo Peak. Discussion Teaching Orienteering during an outdoor field trip gives educators and students two distinct advantages: It encompasses the science education standards set by the state of California - in this case standards for sixth grade students -- and it represents the best of what outdoor education can offer- an excellent way to enhance the learning of science. Below is a brief discussion of these two advantages: First, Orienteering complies with the California Standards by directly addressing part of the Grade 6 standards. In Grade 6, students are to focus part of their science lessons on Earth Science. As a subpart of Earth Science, students are to study how the earth's "topography is reshaped by weathering of rock and soil and by the transportation and deposition of sediment." (Grade 6, Focus on Earth Science, Section 2, "Shaping the Earth's Surface"). To find evidence of this sort of change, students are to "read a topographic map and a geologic map for evidence provided on the maps, and construct and interpret a simple scale map." (Grade 6, Investigation and Experimentation, Section F). Orienteering asks students to do just that. They must read a simple map, a topographical map and understand the concept of earth's topography. Secondly, Orienteering which is taught as part of outdoor and field trip education--a subcategory of nonformal education--derives its basis from a popular and prevalent educational theory called Constructivism. Constructivism as an educational theory explains one schema of how students learn and its supporters have increased over the years. Many educators use constructivism as a guiding tool for devising and retooling curricula. Educators group fieldtrip education into a broader educational category called "nonformal education." Nonformal education is defined by J. Maarschalk (Maarschalk, 1988) as "education that proceeds in a planned but highly adaptable way in institutions, organization, and situations outside the sphere of formal and informal education, e.g., inservice training, field trips, and museum visits, educational television, and radio, etc". Nonformal education, or more specifically, outdoor and fieldtrip education, has been incorporated into lesson plans for years because as one fourth-grader put it, "Field trips are fun." (Pierce, 1998). But another reason why teachers have used field trips as part of their lesson plans is that fieldtrips and outdoor education are experiential learning and these activities fit the current widely-held educational theory of constructivism. Because nonformal education draws its validity from constructivist theory, the educational literature is replete with articles touting the benefits of nonformal education with few articles stating its drawbacks. The one question that I began to ask is that if teachers use nonformal education based on its ties with constructivism, and its experiential learning, is there also a physiological basis to support nonformal education usage? During previous course work, I found two studies that support usage of nonformal education from the physiological aspect of the learner. In addition to these two studies, there is one study which supports nonformal usage based on studies of problem-solving, not on the learner's brain physiology. These three pieces of research suggest that nonformal education can enhance the learning process: specifically by providing more learning modalities which subsequently improve analogy-making and because it provides spatial and experiential learning. In brief these three studies are principles of analogy making in the neural brain capacity of human, the taxon/locale learning that we use and then a separate piece called Due to outdoor and fieldtrip education's close ties to popular constructivist theory, most of the educational literature acknowledges its usefulness in helping learners learn and there is little to dissuade educators from using outdoor and fieldtrip education based on pedagogical theory. Detractors exclude outdoor and fieldtrip education from lesson plans citing the extra expenses of administering these educational activities: extra money to attend zoos, museums, and parks and the insurance liability issues that attend field trips. In addition, there are some detractors who cite not only expenses but cite the poor results of this type of learning. Because these educators are usually behaviorist, performance based in educational theory, they quote the lower test scores that students "perform" on tests once they're back in the classroom. (Knapp, 1992, quoting Marzano, 1988). Students probably do score lower on these tests since rote learning requiring the taxon memory system is usually tested, not the actual learning "experience." (Caine and Caine, 1992). These same educators also espouse educational literature to help substantiate their views since there is information to suggest that outdoor and fieldtrip education do not enhance learning. In two papers, one by Bennett (1963) and one by Glenn (1968), (quoted by Lisowski and Disinger), the effectiveness of learning science was studied. When Bennett studied an ecology unit taught using two different methods, field instruction and traditional classroom discussion, there was no significant gain from the field treatment as compared to the classroom discussion. However, Bennett did find that the field technique was as effective as classroom discussion for predicting learning. The second paper by Glenn (1968) whose study involved studying the effects of field work compared to slides in the classroom, also found no significant gain in scores with the field group pupils. However, in a study by Gennaro (1981) who compared two classes using a similar testing methodology as Glenn, Gennaro found significant increased test scores resulting from use of pre-trip instructional materials as compared with groups using the same field trip but without pre-trip instruction. Lisowski and Disinger note that more research on the effectiveness of outdoor and fieldtrip education should be undertaken. (Lisowski and Disinger, 1987). Most educators value field trip education even though it is more time-consuming and an administration difficulty. Therefore, educators will always use some form of it to teach. However, because outdoor education employs different learning strategies which integrates many sensory responses and is simply "fun," its usage in schools should increase. The "trick" for supporters of outdoor education will be to help educators increase usage of outdoor learning as a way to enhance the understanding of science. Science camps like Echo Lake Youth Science Camp which inherently use outdoor education as its teaching method are important to science education and every effort should be made to support their existence. |
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