Santa Barbara County Principals Discuss Benefits of Outdoor Learning

A simple fix to troubled and screen-addicted kids? Put them outside. Give them a grassy area and a tree. Give them sensory experiences — a sand box or building blocks. Give them gardens. Let them make mistakes, scrape their knees, and play with each other. 

This was the case made by a panel of four principals from throughout Santa Barbara County during First 5’s Nature and Learning Research Forum on May 8. 

Mari Ortega-Garcia, director of early education and support for the Guadalupe Union School District, started with a story of when she literally “took candy from a child.” 

During her rounds at one of their elementary schools, Garcia came across a young girl eating cotton candy at 8:30 in the morning. Noting the time, she took the candy away, and the girl began to cry. 

“So, I said, ‘Let’s go take a walk’,” Garcia recounted. “‘Let’s go get some fresh air.’” 

She walked the girl through the school’s garden, past the butterfly nursery the students had set up a few days prior, and paused at a little “mud kitchen” for the student to take time to regulate her emotions before reentering the classroom.

It wasn’t just a lesson on what snacks parents should send their children to school with. “It was about having these connections and relationships with our students, and that space provides it,” Garcia said.

Guadalupe is changing its schools’ ecosystems to include more outdoor space, with plans to expand its budding “nature explorer concept” across several schools over the next two years. 

“We are flourishing,” Garcia said. “The students are thriving.”  

Hope Elementary School principal Anna Scharfield said outdoor learning promotes risk taking and curiosity, and encourages students to want to come to school. Her school is currently in the process of transforming its campus into an outdoor classroom — including outdoor “nests,” a performance deck with different musical instruments, and mud tables, planters, and other nature-based play areas.

Learning outside promotes students’ physical health, emotional stability, and overall engagement in school, the principals argued.

Veronica Binkley, principal of Harding University Partnership School, which unveiled its new outdoor classroom three years ago, said she’s noticed her students’ behavior and language improve in the time since. She has watched moments of connection unfold right outside of her office, among the rocks and sandboxes and plants in the play area. She noted the expense — a $3,500 sandbox, a $25,000 grassy knoll — to illustrate the need to “really advocate” and “be committed” to the push for more of these spaces. But it’s worth it in the end, she said.

“The kids begin to have conversations, and they plan, and they talk to each other, and they naturally explore, and they’re literally learning on their own,” she said.

Vicki Murray, Lompoc Unified School District coordinator of curriculum and instruction, said her goal is to see more kids going outside across all nine of their elementary campuses, “and just live and be kids.” She said her district is conducting training around play-based learning, and is beginning to implement it across the district. 

“That’s really what I would love to see: kids just out being kids. Because, oftentimes, at least in our community, when they leave, they go to apartments and places where it’s not safe to be outside,” Murray said. 

Beyond creating safe spaces for kids to play, there is a growing body of research linking nature-based learning to improved cognitive development, social-emotional health, physical activity, and stronger outcomes for young children. Investing in outdoor learning spaces at schools and childcare centers has also been shown to have other long-term economic benefits. 

Centered on the theme “Fostering Community Well-Being from the Earliest Years,” First 5’s forum explored the benefits of outdoor learning. More than 115 attendees — including early child care and school professionals — gathered at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History for film screenings, keynote speakers, and panel discussions on “greening” early care and educational environments, especially in the face of climate change and the increasing use of technology in the classroom. 

The museum made for a real-life example of what the forum promoted, as much of the museum integrates outdoor learning into its own educational programming. First 5, too, has long pushed for nature-based learning as a key to healthy development in young children. 

“This work is about reconciling a nature-based childhood with our climate reality and how to keep sacred a child’s right to access nature exploration areas as a way to build resiliency, self-regulation, and mental health, and physical and cognitive development,” said Michelle Robertson, deputy director of First 5. “This is a right, not a privilege that every child in Santa Barbara County needs to thrive.”