School Grounds for Learning: Tying Curriculum to the Outdoors

Abstract

This presentation was given to a graduate lab class at Kyushu Institute of Technology in Kitakyushu, Japan, in November 2018, at the invitation of Dr. Keitaro Ito, colleague and friend of the author. The students were undertaking advanced degrees in landscape design and some of them had worked with schools to design school grounds. The author’s work focuses on how teachers and students use the school grounds: for work, play, learning, physical health, mental health, etc. The presentation gives an overview of what environmental education is, along with examples from schools around the world of which the author has personal knowledge.