BU-08208     2005  

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Introduction to Best Practices for Field Days

Field Days as Environmental Education

“The preparation of world problem solvers, actually universal problem solvers” has been deemed the “proper role of environmental education (EE)”. (Engleson & Yockers, 1994). For nearly thirty years, experts and practitioners worldwide have defined basic aims of EE as building in people:

1. Awareness, sensitivity and understanding of natural and social interrelations;
2. The skills and mindset to embrace and enact global environmental sustainability.

According to the North American Association for Environmental Education (NAAEE), effective EE should:

• Consider the total environment.
• Integrate scientific and social sources of understanding.
• Stress critical-thinking and problem-solving skills.
• Develop local to global and short- to long-term environmental awareness.
• Emphasize the role of ethics and values in shaping environmental attitudes and actions.
• Enable and stress the need for active participation in creating a sustainable future.
• Encourage life-long learning (cited in Minnesota Office of Environmental Assistance, 2000).

For Anna, a field trip to the conservation field day can be summed up in one bright memory. “The guy from the Department of Natural Resources picked me, and handed me the net. From the edge of the pond, I dipped the net beneath the water, and swished until I felt the vibration, the fight of a fish. I pulled out a walleye, eyes cloudy like they were filled with milk. I’d never seen one before; it felt so strong.” This memory rests in her mind like the strand from which a strong web is weaved. Protecting your lakes keeps fish healthy! was the theme of this year’s event, and lessons about protecting fish habitat string together in Anna’s mind. Sparked by her memory, she knits together bits about how spreading too much fertilizer contributes to green murky water, storm sewers dump directly into lakes, and washing boats can slow the spread of exotic species. “We studied fish and water pollution at school. But catching that walleye made it more real somehow. It was so strong, fighting like it wanted to be alive,” she continued. “It made me care more about doing something. It made what I learned more important.”

While environmental education does not pronounce a singular “soapbox” ethic, it is “rooted in the belief that humans can live compatibly with nature and act equitably toward one another” (NAAEE, 2000). Essentially, EE is foremost an education of process, focused on helping people vigilantly identify, analyze, and continually adapt to their future environments in ways that we may not yet even imagine.

Field days are one approach to environmental education programming. Recently, the NAAEE (2004) defined an environmental education program to mean “an integrated sequence of planned educational experiences intended to reach a particular set of objectives.” These programs can be long or short and serve a few or many students. Educators employ a number of different approaches or ways of doing environmental education programs, such as service-learning, environmental issues analysis, trail hikes, and residential and nature center visits. When used to meet appropriate objectives, each has its own unique strengths and merits. Field days provide effective means of bridging classroom learning with real-world issues or problems. As an approach, these events stress learning through applied experience, contact with professional experts, and visiting multiple strands of an issue or problem.

Field Days are typically multi-station field trip events in which students and teachers rotate through multiple presentations on environmental topics. They can happen indoors or outdoors for audiences of tens to thousands of students. Four players tend to preside over design and delivery of field days:

• Organizers – the people ultimately responsible for organizing and coordinating the event. Often a representative from the Extension Service or Soil and Water Conservation Districts.
• Presenters – the people who deliver presentations for students at event stations. Often natural resource professionals from Extension Services, Soil and Water Conservation Districts, Departments of Natural Resources, and other environmental agencies.
• Teachers – the people from classrooms, scout, 4-H, and other organizations who bring students to these events and hold ultimate responsibility for ensuring the integration of event content into students’ studies.
• Adult Volunteers – the people associated with teachers, organizers, or presenters who volunteer time to supervise students, deliver presentations, provide lunches, etc.

Like many field trips, well-designed field days facilitate creation of memories that may help students better understand information learned. These memories often add a positive twist to learning. But field days are also strong in their flexibility. Unlike other EE approaches, they can happen almost anywhere and serve a wide range of audiences. Whether you are designing education programming around agricultural, built, or natural environments, field days may be an appropriate method if you meet all or some of the following criteria:

1. Your focus is a complex issue or problem with multiple sides;
2. You know groups have limited time and/or budget to study the issue/problem;
3. You know students would benefit from realworld application of lessons learned in the classroom;
4. You need an introductory or capstone experience to weave together lessons learned;
5. You would like to introduce students to professionals working in areas they study;
6. You need to serve hundreds or thousands of students;
7. You know a perfect location for students to directly experience information studied in class.