Best Practices for Field Days E-Tips for Environmental Educators

The EE E-Tip for Field Days is the quarterly source for practical tips to raise the impact of field days and other environmental science education programs. EE E-tip welcomes new subscribers, your proven tips, and suggestions for improving this resource. Send your ideas to meyer179@umn.edu.

To Subscribe to the EE E-Tip for Field Days
The EE E-Tip for Field Days can be emailed directly to you 4-times per year. You can subscribe to the EE E-Tip by contacting Nate Meyer at University of Minnesota Extension.

Recent EE E-TIPs:

• Follow effective design principles to connect youth with nature at your field days. A groundswell of grassroots leaders is joining in a national movement to re-connect children with nature
• Use the ISOTURE model to engage adult volunteers at your field days. Recruiting the right people for the jobs you have.
• Field days and similar events also work well for adult learners. But a few qualities of adult learners and presentations require special attention.
• Involve students in learning through inquiry. Through inquiry-based experiences, students learn to think and act scientifically.
• Use transitions to link concepts and build meaning. Transitions reiterate the relationship between the session and the field day's theme and make the session cohesive.
• Include essential elements in your presentations. Every presentation is unique, but every great one uses a general template for success
• Ask great questions throughout your presentations
• Provide learners with a clear advance organizer near the beginning of your presentation.
• Use experiential learning cycles to structure your field day presentation.
• Make your theme a declarative sentence.
• Clarify your audience's need for your event.
• Create plenty of signs, good maps, and orient all presenters, teachers, volunteers, and participants to the event and rotation of groups through presentations before beginning activities.
• Allow students to work in pairs or teams to solve problems and make discoveries during your field days.
• Begin with Clear Learning Objectives for Your Field Day.
• To clarify your event theme, avoid the use of scientific/technical jargon.