Megan has over 25 years of professional experience teaching in urban public elementary schools and teaches K-7 outdoors in the Richmond School District (BC) and advocates for unstructured nature play in schools. She is a qualified master gardener with hundreds of stories to share to highlight that elementary curricular content that can be taught in a school garden. She is working towards a PhD at UBC in the faculty of education in curriculum and pedagogy.

Megan discusses why play so important to learning for young children. She discusses the kind of impact school gardening has on students - the movement relating to their health and wellness. There are some simple steps to improving student experience in gardening and Megan offers some ideas that teachers can incorporate. This is a great episode for any teachers considering embracing the outdoor learning for their class, as Megan discusses some of the common road blocks that teachers face.

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Podcast Transcript

Hi, my name is Blue. And I'm the host of this podcast, the 21st-Century Teacher with Live It Earth. And my job is to ensure that our teachers and students get the most out of our programs. This new podcast series is just one of the ways I'm going to be supporting our community of educators, with a monthly conversation with a special guest educator discussing a different aspect of 21st century teaching and learning.

I would like to acknowledge our ancestors and the keepers of the land walked before us. This podcast is recorded on unceded territory of a number of First Nations groups. That is the Sinixt, the Syilx, the Ktunaxa, and the Secwepemc, as well as the Metis that live here in this area.

Today, I'm talking with Megan Zeni, who teaches K-7 outdoors in the Richmond School District (*NOTE: the podcast audio has an error stating the Megan teaches in West Vancouver), and advocates for unstructured nature play in schools. She has over 25 years of professional experience teaching in urban public elementary schools. She is a qualified Master Gardener, and has hundreds of stories to share to highlight that elementary curricular content can be taught in a school garden. She's working towards a PhD at UBC, in the Faculty of Education and Curriculum and Pedagogy. 

So Megan, thank you so much for joining me on the show today, I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to me.

Thanks for having me.

So my first question is, why is play so important to learning for young children?

I think it's the natural way, it's the work of childhood, right? So it's how children learn. And I think a lot of the systems of school that we've designed, have really crushed and blunted a lot of children's curiosity and wonder and joy and learning. So play, really holds space for curiosity and wonder and joy, and then we can nudge them along long enough that they become lifelong learners, right? Because learning is amazing and engaging. It's not this like, never ending task list of worksheets and homework, right? It's just this constant student driven, student originated, like I want to know more about ____, and then we can scaffold and provoke the learning that kids are uncovering and discovering through play. So I think it's really the only way we should be teaching children.

But it's not because they're younger children, and movement is really important, and they get twitchy in their seats. And we you know, we want them to engage enough fun in that way. Like, is that part of it for you?

Yeah, so if you look at like every measure of wellness and childhood, so we think about obesity, right? When kids are playing outside, they're moving more. And when they're learning outdoors, even if teachers just relocate, they're learning outside. The fact that outside means kids get to move more than sitting in a desk or sitting at the carpet listening for hours at a time they're moving and all that fidget thing is less disruptive to everybody else, and they're moving more, which improves their overall physical health and well being. But then even the engagement and learning, right, so when we think about anything across the elementary school curriculum, any content area, whether we're talking about math, or science, or literacy or social studies, you know, all of that, when it's done outside becomes this naturally interesting phenomenon for kids. It's like the whole world is a science experiment. They get to explore and play and move. So they're happier, they're healthier, the adults around them are happier and healthier, which makes kids happier and healthier. There's reductions in anxiety. There's reductions, like it really can transform a child's experience of school when they spend more time playing, particularly outdoors.

Yeah, and I have to say, as an adult, I think I relate to that also, still. So what kind of impact does school gardening have on students? Because I know that's certainly a piece of the learning you do with kids. Are there any measurable changes that you've noticed, like shifts in behavior with some of the kids?

Yeah, so school gardens are located on school grounds. Generally, some schools will have their gardens in a community garden space, for example. So it's a small walking field trip maybe to go and visit their school garden. But school gardens in general are kind of like libraries in some ways, right? My job, my position that I have right now, I teach entirely outdoors. So I teach in our school garden all day long. I don't actually have an inside space to teach in so my classroom is the garden. And I sort of consider myself like a librarian in the school. There's two of us, my teaching partner and I – Sarah Regan is my teaching partner. So she and I manage the inputs, like what's going into the soil, and the outputs, you know, what we're harvesting, and all of the care and management of the garden in between the planting and harvesting. And then we have all the different classes that get to come through because we were the prep providers in our schools. So when the elementary school students have their prep, they come to the garden twice a week. So every child gets two hours of instruction in the garden. And that's across all seasons. If it's pouring rain, if it's snowing, it doesn't matter what's happening, we're out in the garden.

So yeah, there's mountains of opportunity for learning in gardens, I strongly not only believe, but have actually done it, taught every curricular content area, all the big ideas, the core and curricular competencies. They can all be taught through the lens of a garden. And so when we think about school gardens, what we're doing is just sort of rethinking where learning happens, right? We have gymnasiums, in schools, we have libraries, some schools have computer labs, we have all these shared spaces of learning in our schools. And the school garden is just another space where we can gather and learn together. And it doesn't have to be a big, elaborate garden. I think a lot of teachers get overwhelmed by the idea, like they'll come and see my garden and go “This is amazing”. But we didn't start with that. You know, we started with just a few pots, and that's okay, you can grow some potatoes and bags. And that's how you can start your school garden. The garden is really a metaphor. It's a metaphor for growth over time. It's a metaphor for, you know, just thinking about growth mindset, right? We think about Carol Dweck 's work and we think about, you know the power of, we've planted a seed, what does it need to grow, it's not ready to germinate yet. Teaching kids resilience and persistence, patience, failure. There's so much failure that happens in school gardens. So all of those skills, not only the really concrete, solid curricular competencies that we can teach so exquisitely in the garden, but a lot of the core competencies as well as social and personal responsibility, how do we care for this garden. I can teach all of that out in the garden. It's a really great space for just being with kids and watching them learn and grow over time.

I love it. I think as well, as you say that it reminds me how much I love gardening. Now, we don't have a garden at home right now. But it's such a happy place to be, it's such a, I don't know, I find it very grounding to be in the earth and your hands in the earth and getting dirty and planting and playing with seeds and seeing my three year old as well. And how, yeah, his eyes just, they just shine when he's learning about planting a seed, say daycare, for example. He's only three and a half. But yeah, he just really comes alive when he talks about it and he brings home a little plant that he's planted in middle pot. 

So yeah, what you're saying really resonates with me. But here's a couple questions for you. Fairly obvious questions, but if you're teaching throughout the year in all weather, the kids have to come prepared. So do you find in any way, that there are challenges around, you know, the families, the parents, and sometimes maybe single parents making sure their kids are ready and prepared to turn up for a full day outdoors? Like were there any challenges that you come across there? 

Um, so I'm also a researcher, right? I'm a fourth year Doctoral Candidate doing a PhD in this space. So we've done research with teachers from across Canada. And that's almost always the number one barrier that comes up is weather and the Canadian climate can be challenging for being outdoors. And not even for the full day just even for like an hour of the day. And even when we think about things like recess and lunchtime, and what I mean, there's so few good things that have come from COVID. But one of the real silver linings from COVID is that schools really work to normalize outdoor recess and lunch that really became like, “Hey, kids can go outside at recess and lunch”. Like we're not doing this inside recess and lunch thing anymore. Everybody goes outside every day at recess and lunch to play and be outside and reduce our exposure to communicable disease. So we're a few years into this now where we started to normalize that kids need to go outside and move and just breathe fresh air. And so how we manage that in our school garden, because we work with a different group of kids every hour, so the kids come up for an hour at a time and then they go back to their home room or classroom teacher. We write a letter to families at the beginning of the year and we say “Hey, this is what we do”.

Mostly it's the kindergarten families that are unfamiliar with our program because we work with kids year over year like by the time they're in grade five, I've taught them for six years. So these families know that the expectation is that we're going outside every day at recess and lunch. And when a school moves to that as an expectation that there are no “Inside Days”, like we go out every day at recess and lunch that really helps families not have to be like, “Oh, it's like a walking Wednesday, we have to remember, it's Wednesday, or it's forced Friday”. It's not like this one day of the week where the kids are gonna go outside. And I have to pack all this stuff for them. And I forgot, because I've got this meeting at work. And I've done a lot of like, I'm juggling a lot of balls, right? So we're just every day, Monday to Friday, kids are going outside. So the first step is to make it really clear to all your families, we go outside every day. So then we get the “Yeah, but our community can't afford snow boots, or snow pants”. All right. So then the next thing that we've done and how we've sort of managed this is really like strategic harvesting from the lost and found. So school lost and found are rich with resources that we need. So what will often happen is at a school, most schools, I've talked to lots of schools over the years, several decades, I've been doing this now, Christmas, Spring Break, Summertime, there's usually a table of like all the pants and coats and socks, random socks. I don't know where kids are taking their socks off. But there's all kinds of stuff that ends up on the table. And kids and families can go by and collect their things. But it may or may not be a surprise to you that most families aren't labeling their kids gear, right. So they're sending they're really fabulous raincoats to school and there's no name on it, we don't know whose it is. And then the child because it was new for them, they don't even recognize it. They don't know if it's theirs or not. Half the time when it even has a name in it, I'll hold it up and I'll say, “Hey, Blue. Here's your pads”. And you'll say those are mine, say they have your name in them. I don't know the mother, not mine. So that's what harvesting from the lost and found is very productive.

So by the end of maybe one or two years, we had a full what we call a Lending Library, a gear Lending Library. We asked the school district to put up pegs almost like coat room kind of hooks, and a hallway that exits to the back field. And one of them is just full of jackets. So we have now because I've been doing this for so many years, we have whole winter sets, like the winter coats and we have a whole set of rain gear. And then one is for pants. So one for pants, one for coats. And then we have a whole rack plus a shelf, like the office was being remodeled and I said hey, can I have all these cabinets? Like let's just upcycle these right, so we got all cabinets installed. So we've got a whole stash of rain boots and a whole stash of snow boots. So it's all there. And so there's really no excuse if a kid comes to school and maybe they took all their gear home because it got wet. And then the parents laundered it but forgot to pack it. I got you covered. I can cover lots and lots of kids with like your Lending Library. So lots of kids will borrow stuff for just recess, or maybe lunchtime, maybe they wore their own good gear at recess and they went swimming in the puddles and they're soaking wet. So then they borrow something for the afternoon, so they're dry. And that's okay. Sometimes kids borrow stuff for like a whole season, a family will maybe email me and say, “You know what, I bought three pairs of boots this year, and I cannot buy another pair of boots, this kid's feet are growing so fast”. So I'll say yeah, just take what you want. Kids borrow stuff for the whole year, they just take it I think we don't keep records of who takes what it's take what you need, donate it back when you've outgrown it. And we have far more than we ever need. If we have you know, I'm in the Lower Mainland. So we get a lot of rain like everyday here. There's some days when it's been really raining sideways for like weeks at a time where we start to run low on gear because kids have taken it home and things like that. But there's a few other little tricks. I have a blog post, actually on my website where I write with lots of detail about the steps that we went through and what it looks like with images, and a few other tips on how we do that. So that's the big piece.

And then the last way to get more resources for taking kids outdoors is to approach your PAC, your Parent Advisory Committee, they often have fundraising dollars. So usually we ask for $200 or $300 a year. And we mostly buy pants like rain pants with that because most families know that kids need boots and coats to be outside but they often don't consider the discomfort that comes from sitting on a web log or you know the kids want to run and play in the puddles and other pants are wet and you know, whatever it is so we usually spend that funding on pants so that we have them in all different sizes. And one of my tricks, it's in that blog post I mentioned but buying overalls are really useful because if you have students who are maybe a little bit more robust or rotund, you know they might be wearing normally a size six or seven but because the waistband is too tight, they need to be wearing a 12, and then their pants are too long. So we have found over the years that buying the overalls is a lot more generous in terms of sizing for kids. And they're not super long, they fit kids nicely. So, yeah. 

So it sounds to me like there's a little bit more set up initially, once you start, you know, you decide we're going to be outside all the time, Monday to Friday. But what I'm thinking actually, as much as that's work, I was an outdoor educator for years, I found I've kind of imagined teaching in four walls, like being outside, I just find it really easy because the kids are really engaged. There's lots of movement, and then you can break things up and you learn a few tricks as you go along, you know, when the kids are getting a bit twitchy, or the need to warm up, because it is a cold day. Have you found that? Do you find that now, being outside, in some ways is easier for you as a teacher? Because I think a lot of teachers, I would imagine that haven't done that, just think that sounds like work. You know, on that windy, cold, blustery day in a Canadian October, or maybe November even. What is your experience of that? How do you reflect?

Yeah, so for me, it's totally my happy place to be outside with kids. I think the novelty of being outdoors makes and lends itself to a really engaging learning environment. So it's easier to capture kids in the learning, because it's always something different. Certainly, I think for a lot of teachers, the challenge is like, what do I do, and I get out there. So a lot of the work that I do, in my consulting (I do a lot of consulting with schools and School Districts) is helping teachers imagine what the potentiality of their schoolyard is, and how they can start taking small steps without depending on like, worksheets on clipboards, for example, right? Because that's often the first thing that people do, they're like, well, we'll just do this worksheet outside, which is fine. I mean, lots of teachers start there, right. But certainly, I would encourage teachers to move away from the idea that you need to be writing with a pencil on paper outside, there's a lot of learning that happens, and a lot of ways to make learning visible that doesn't require written output. And so that's a whole other conversation about assessment outdoors, and how do we assess learning in a way that makes sense to the schools, the system of schooling that we're accountable to right. So yeah, I mean, it's, I love it, it's easy. I enjoy teaching outside, it's very addictive.

So when I work with teachers doing long term series for examples, different districts, I work with teachers from September to June. And you see so much growth in their comfort and their willingness to get messy and make mistakes. And there's a real disposition that I think teachers who are successful at this kind of teaching bring to their class, and the number one sort of disposition is this willingness to fail, like to go out there and be like, “Well, that was a hot mess”. And “All right, we're gonna try again tomorrow, right?” And sort of this willingness to position yourself as a co-learner with your students. And you don't have to be an entomologist to teach outside, you're gonna find bugs and you don't know what they are, you have no idea. But you get to model that inquiry process with your learner's like, here's how we ask a question to research something. So what is this bug on Google is not going to get you the answer you want? Like, what bug is black with a yellow stripe down his back or whatever, like helping kids really ask clarifying questions. And then working through all of the nonfiction research tools that we have at our disposal in schools, which we have tons of them. Yeah, so it's…it's magical. Being outside is magical.

I love it. And I think it's a really good point, having been a teacher as well, for a few years here at an Independent School, I found that too, it's like you are very much exploring the world around you together. And I think I always found as well, and this is with older students, but they really appreciate that your inquiry, you know, your interest and your curiosity and the learning as well, that you do alongside them, I find that works really well to create, almost like a team learning environment, which is super fun. So just so if a teacher is listening, and I think okay, I want to do this, I really want to do this. And I will share your blog and your website in the show notes. So if anybody wants to follow up, you know, check out your resources and maybe even reach out to you, then they could do that. But are there any simple and you've kind of suggested a couple of ideas, but any simple activities that somebody can start with in going outside to that school garden, which has maybe grown over with a weed or has been neglected or, you know, where would somebody just start? Week one?

So I'm a big fan of anchor texts. So there's so many beautiful books that exist, that can really open the potentiality of paying attention, right. So to me, the most important thing we do, like step one with learners outside, is teaching them to slow down, and just look closely, because kids just like rip through spaces and don't actually notice anything. So there's lots of books that you can read the students, and I've got lots of lists of them on my website. But there's also lots of tools that teachers can introduce that they may or may not already have in their school, like a magnifying lens. So opening up the opportunity for children to say, this is how it's a tool, it's not a toy, it's not something that we're, it's not a musical instrument, we're not banging it on tree trunks and things. It's a tool that helps us look closely. And so explaining very explicitly how to use the tool and then sending them off to find something.

And so there's that whole, Frank Serafini series of Looking Closely, those books are fantastic for introducing the idea of looking closely, and then just sending them off to look closely and they will look for hours, when you give them a tool. And you might need to have some conversation around the ethic of care for the environment, that we're not just flipping things over and disrupting habitats and homes, that we're protecting and preserving the environment. But we are guests in the habitats of this more than human world, and how are we going to notice it. So that's one way to do it.

And another way to do it is the introduction of sit spots. So sit spots are another core routine that are very popular with teachers who teach outdoors. And that's simply when you introduce the students to an outdoor space and ask them just to pick one spot that they're going to continue to sit in through the seasons. And there's different, like ways you can do this, there's lots of different ways you can do it. But ultimately, the goal of a sit spot is to have kids slow down and just use their senses like they're listening to the sounds, they're noticing how the leaves are changing color, maybe you've got deciduous trees on your school yard, they're noticing the different biodiversity of life that's interacting in your ecosystem in the garden, there's a million ways you could do it. And this is what's hard about place-based education, and particularly in school gardens. I can't tell people what to do, because my place is different than your place. And my climate is different than your climate, and my typography and what I can grow is all very different. So ultimately, you want these sorts of concepts, like Looking Closely, or like slowing down and noticing that we introduce kids to and then they just become these core routines.

And then when I want to introduce something else, like maybe I want to plant carrots with a group of children, I can't plant carrots or 28 kids, it's not possible. I don't have garden beds big enough. It's too many kids, the garden bed’s not big enough. So I can only do that with four or five students at a time. So what am I doing with the rest of the kids when I'm working with five kids planting carrots? Well, I've introduced these core routines over time, so I can send them off. And I often make it very choice driven. So who would like to start today with the magnifying lenses and looking closely and who today would like to take this tool and do this and who today would like to do that? I've set up some provocation at the table or on a tarp and you can engage with that. These are all things that we've introduced over time. So that when I pull a group of students to teach a skill, like how to plant carrot seeds, I'm working just for four or five kids at a time. And everybody else is independently engaging with a garden space and working on something that's interesting to them. And then they just rotate through almost like stations, and then everybody gets to plant their seeds. It works really well.

Yeah, that's brilliant. So you don't necessarily need a team of assistant teachers to be able to do something like that with 28 kids outside. 

No, in fact, it's easier. With less adults, it's much easier because the kids have so much choice. And I'm sort of busy doing what I'm doing. They have freedom, they have agency, it's really relationship building. It's very protective, actually. So if you're working with learners that are maybe challenging authority, and really difficult to teach, when you're outside, you really disrupt that hierarchy with students. And so being able to come alongside a student outdoors and ask them what they're noticing. And then they ask you questions because they're curious. And then you say, Hey, I could teach you how to do this, or, you know, I introduced all kinds of tools like saws. So, you know, there's nothing like getting on side with some kids that are difficult by teaching them how to use tools, right? Like now they're my besties right, they're really interested and I gotta know that you're gonna be responsible and reasonable with this tool. So you've got to show me that you're a good listener, and I'm only gonna tell you once and then we build this really great rapport together so we can work and learn together outside. 

Yeah, that's fantastic. I love it. I love building the trusting to that relationship as a teacher. So here at Live It, we offer a hybrid learning experience. For example, we've got the Food and Farming show online, and I'm wondering, in turn, which is very much about engaging the kids in a topic and getting them excited about it, and then getting them to go away from the screen and work on projects together. So I'm wondering, in terms of like online learning, have you used a hybrid model in any way? It sounds like you're just going out into the garden, have you experienced using any sort of technology or online learning with them as well?

So technology, I tend to use technology as an assessment tool. So when we are trying to capture learning, that is happening in the garden, for example, and I have to make that visible to parents. We have many teachers in our school, for example, that use portfolio assessment. So it's a digital portfolio that’s being used, that all of their assessment documents get uploaded to sort of a three way conversation between the student and the parent and the teacher, I can be a part of that conversation by uploading information. So taking video or taking photographs will often right, it's almost like a little Instagram post, like about this learning, little blurb about what we've been doing in the garden, maybe with a video embedded, bring that up to the portfolio. And then parents get this really great insight into the kind of rich learning that happens in the garden. So that's mostly how I use technology. There's lots of other ways you can use technology. When we think about citizen science projects like iNaturalist, you can create field guides of what's growing in your school space. Like there's lots of ways to engage using technology as a tool. In terms of teaching, I'm a big fan of like onsite hands on experiential learning. So I don't teach children online, but I do teach adults online. And so I find that's a really effective way, I have a series that I teach called the Garden Classroom. And it's hosted through VanDusen. And we meet from September to June. And prior to COVID, teachers would have to come in to Vancouver to attend the series. And it was quite limiting for access. Because you'd have to race there after school. And it's in the center of Vancouver, it was challenging for teachers to attend all the sessions. And once COVID happened, we moved online. And so teachers from all over BC can join in now and hop into the series and learn and watch, and we record them. So teachers can learn a little bit each month, sort of organized around timely tasks, things you want to be doing in a garden. So like actual skills, but also thinking about things like in September, we talk about weeds because you come back to school in September and your garden is full of weeds. So how do we use weeds to teach across the curriculum? And so by giving teachers all of these tools and sort of tips and tricks about teaching in the garden, then they go and do the experiential hands on learning with their students in their school gardens.

Right. Wow. Interesting, because it's through the pandemic, it seems that so many schools and students have ended up going on to the online, various online platforms. And there are many now, I know it's quite dizzying for some teachers, but meanwhile, you are just straight out into the garden with the kids doing the hands on stuff, which I love. It definitely resonates with me. Yeah, doing away with the screen time and focusing more on like getting your hands in the dirt so to speak. So is gardening the future in elementary schools?

I think I mean, it depends on where you are. A lot of schools, particularly in the Lower Mainland, we can garden year round, right? I mean, we are planting and growing and we close some of our garden spaces. So we're gardening 12 months of the year, I think broader than school gardens, being outdoors. So outdoor play and learning in school yards is absolutely the future. I think, you know, teachers who aren't already engaging with that should really think about the challenges and the struggles that they're having. And looking towards outdoor plan learning as the solution to just about any challenge that teachers might be having in their classrooms. And school gardens are a big part of that. Yeah, and they don't have to, like I said, you can start really small with a school garden. But if you're going to be having 10 or 12, for example, classes, working in a school garden, really rethinking how we allocate staff, right. So like I'd said my role, I'm like the librarian in the garden. Our library has a librarian, our garden has a gardening teacher. So thinking about existing positions, not enrolling staff in your school, and who can be sort of the instructional leader in that space and ensuring that the materials are organized and that kids have access. We want to really increase the equity of access to outdoor learning. So there's a lot of pieces to it. 

Yeah, I think it's great. I think the work you're doing is fantastic. And well, we'll make sure to be sharing like I say your website, which is where we'll find your blog posts as well?

Yeah, so I do, like I microblog on Instagram. So on Instagram, I do sort of seasonal, every week, I try to write at least something, an image of what we're doing in the outdoor classroom and in the garden, and then talk a little bit about the some pedagogical narration around why we're teaching this way and how we do it. Sometimes addressing concerns or questions that come up. And then on Twitter I share a lot of research. And then on my blog, I write more in depth questions that I'm answering for teachers.

Right, brilliant. Well, we'll make sure that yeah, we'll share all of those links in the show notes, of course. And, I'm loving the work that you do. So thank you so much for sharing everything.

Yeah, I'm glad to talk about it.

Thanks for joining us on the 21st-Century Teacher, and we look forward to seeing you next time. Please do subscribe so you don't miss out on the next show. And also don't forget to check out our fantastic online learning platform, which is liveit.earth. Thanks again and we'll see you soon.

Notes: For more information please visit Megan's website here.